PICT Classic Theatre streams ‘wicked drama,’ announces 24th season
Share this post:
PICT Classic Theatre is inviting theater lovers to enjoy “a wicked drama with great voices,” with its classic radio theater production of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll,” streaming through Saturday.
PICT also will present an audio experience of the holiday classic, “Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol,” streaming Dec. 17-Jan. 3 on Broadway on Demand.
“Radio drama is the best way to watch a play,” said artistic and executive director Alan Stanford. “The imagination knows no bounds; we are harnessing your imagination to add the sets, costumes and create the world that our voices inhabit.
“What we provide you with is a wonderful story, very well told,” he said.
Adapting to the limitations of covid-19, PICT’s 24th season, beginning in March, will feature two radio dramas, a streamed production of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” and the regional premiere of Mart Crowley’s “The Boys in the Band,” which will be a live production if conditions permit.
“Though the theater doors have been closed and the ghost lights have been on, that does not mean the creativity and artistry of our incredible community has ceased,” said PICT general operations manager Catherine Kolos.
Kicking off the season will be “The Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde,” a radio drama adapted by Stanford and appropriate for the entire family. The production is based on three tales Wilde composed to teach his children about selflessness, arrogance and love.
Those staples of classic storytelling, “The Nightingale and the Rose,” “The Remarkable Rocket” and “The Happy Prince” will be recorded at WQED Studios in Oakland and released in March.
Planned for late spring is a fully staged production of William Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” also filmed at WQED Studios for streaming in an on-demand video format.
PICT’s trimmed-down version of Shakespeare’s play, also adapted and directed by Stanford “will be set in the 20th century to bring the play into a clear and precise examination of the corrupting influence of power and to demonstrate that there is an eternal truth in what we have come to know as the Me Too movement: the ongoing fight to believe women who come forward with the truth, and the far-reaching consequences of misogyny and unchecked ego,” according to a release.
PICT plans to close out the season in June with a live presentation of ‘The Boys in the Band,’” which would be the regional premiere of the 2018 revised script that also premiered on Netflix in September.
Tickets for “Dr. Jekyll” and information on all upcoming productions is available at picttheatre.org.
Subscriptions to PICT ’s 24th season will be available beginning Nov. 30. Individual ticket sales will begin in January.