{"id":87737,"date":"2026-01-15T18:25:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87737\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T18:25:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T18:25:11","slug":"new-douglas-carter-beane-gershwin-musical-sets-world-premiere-at-pennsylvanias-genesius-theatre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87737\/","title":{"rendered":"New Douglas Carter Beane Gershwin Musical Sets World Premiere at Pennsylvania’s Genesius Theatre"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRegional News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tNew Douglas Carter Beane Gershwin Musical Sets World Premiere at Pennsylvania’s Genesius Theatre<\/p>\n

The new musical is part of the newly revealed upcoming season, the inaugural programmed by Beane as the company’s artistic director.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Douglas Carter Beane
\n Bruce Glikas <\/p>\n

Reading, Pennsylvania’s Genesius Theatre has revealed its\u00a02026 season, the first programmed by new artistic director, Broadway playwright Douglas Carter Beane<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Notably, the season will close with the world premiere of a new musical from Beane,\u00a0Society Hill, set to perform December 11-26. In the tradition of musicals like\u00a0Crazy for You or\u00a0Nice Work If You Can Get It,\u00a0Society Hill will match a new, original story with songs from the catalogue of George and Ira Gershwin<\/a>. Beane’s story satirizes black-and-white Katharine Hepburn films, following a Philadelphia debutante who falls in love with a man she meets doing community service after\u00a0a DUI. Audiences can expect to hear Gershwin favorites like “The Man I Love,” “But Not for Me,” “Sweet and Lowdown,” “Lady Be Good,” and more.<\/p>\n

Beane is directing the premiere along with penning the musical’s book, with musical arrangements and performance by Genesius co-founder\u00a0Michael O’Flaherty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The season will open with Beane’s\u00a0The Behavior of Light February 19-22, returning to the Pennsylvania stage following performances of the work last year. Beane is directing. The Broadway favorite will co-direct J.M. Barrie’s\u00a0Peter Pan with James Haggerty, with performances running April 10-19. Shakespeare’s\u00a0A\u00a0Midsummer Night’s Dream, reset to take place in a dance club, will be offered September 25-October 4 with Beane at the helm, while Haggerty will direct Hamilton Dean and John L. Balderston’s adaptation of Bram Stoker<\/a>‘s\u00a0Dracula October 23-31.<\/p>\n

The season also includes several offerings for younger performers. A new kids’ adaptation of Gilbert and Sullivan’s\u00a0Pirates of Penzance will perform March 6-15, with Dara Tatarowicz at the helm. The Kids edition of\u00a0Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella\u2014adapted again by Beane from the full-length version he wrote\u00a0for Broadway\u2014will perform July 23-24 with Becka Malanios directing. And finally, the kids themselves will get to write with the world premiere of\u00a0Aesop’s Fables August 21-22. Director Malanios will lead a cast of kids as they devise their own musical take on such stories as\u00a0The Tortoise and the Hare,\u00a0The Ant and the Grasshopper,\u00a0The Country Mouse and the City Mouse, and others.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis season is about leaning into wonder,\u201d says Beane. \u201cIt\u2019s about children and adults performing and sitting side by side, laughing at the same joke for different reasons. It\u2019s about old stories made brash and new again, and new stories discovered together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beane began his theatrical career on Genesius’ stage while growing up in Reading, using his experiences there as the\u00a0partial inspiration behind his community theatre-focused play Shows for Days, which played an Off-Broadway run in 2015 via Lincoln Center Theater with Patti LuPone and Michael Urie starring. Beane took the reins of the company after learning of a leadership vacancy and financial troubles last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Since his Pennsylvania days, Beane has become a prominent stage and screen writer, with five Tony nominations to his name. On Broadway alone, his works include The Little Dog Laughed, Xanadu, Sister Act, Lysistrata Jones, Cinderella, and The Nance. His screenwriting credits include To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar.<\/p>\n

Visit GenesiusDifference.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Regional News New Douglas Carter Beane Gershwin Musical Sets World Premiere at Pennsylvania’s Genesius Theatre The new musical…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87738,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[128,130,129],"class_list":{"0":"post-87737","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-reading","8":"tag-reading-city","9":"tag-reading-city-headlines","10":"tag-reading-city-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87737"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87737\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}