The Sheryl Crow-Barry Levinson musical Diner, based on Levinson’s 1982 film, which had at one point been Broadway-bound, is to now have its world premiere at the Signature Theater in Virginia. The Signature season will also play host to Kid Victory, the world premiere of a new musical by legendary composer John Kander and Greg Pierce (The Landing).
Diner will play December 9 through January 25, 2015. Directed and choreographed by Tony winner Kathleen Marshall, with a book by Levinson and music and lyrics by Crow, Diner tells the story of burgeoning adulthood and friendship. Christmas, Baltimore: 1959. A circle of childhood friends reunite for the upcoming wedding of one of them. Well, only if his fiancée passes a football trivia test. From the comfort of their all-night diner, the men, now in their early-twenties, confront the realities of adulthood: marriage, careers, money and the ever-mysterious opposite sex. But no matter where life takes them, they know they’re welcome back at the diner, the one place they’ll always belong.
Kid Victory will play February 17, 2015 through March 22. Directed by Liesl Tommy with a story by Kander and Pierce, music by Kander and book and lyrics by Pierce, the show is a haunting original musical about what it means to disappear. Seventeen-year-old Luke returns home after vanishing a year ago. Profoundly changed, Luke and his parents struggle to adjust to life following his disappearance. Only finding solace with Emily, the quirky proprietor of an offbeat garden shop, Luke grapples with a past undone and a coming of age that came too late to a boy who just wants to fade away.