SCOOP: IRT’s 12/13 schedule to be announced

What does the Indiana Repertory Theatre have in store for 2012/13?

The already announced big news is that Sylvia McNair will be playing the lead in a Jan.-Feb. production of "A Little Night Music." It's a rare musical for the IRT and an even-rarer non-operatic part for McNair.

Besides, "Night Music," the IRT will take a page from this year's playbook and open with another chiller. In 2011 it was Steven Dietz's adaptation of "Dracula," this time it's Jeffrey Hatcher's adaptation of "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde." Dietz will be represented later in the season with "Jackie and Me," about a young baseball fan's meeting with Jackie Robinson.

The Going Solo Festival will again feature three one-actor plays, with "The Night Watcher" by Charlayne Woodard and "The House that Jack Built" by IRT Playwright-in-Residence James Still. And, of course, "A Christmas Carol" will be back.

The IRT will also be staging Shakespeare again, with the audience favorite "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

There's no big direct-from-on-or-off-Broadway play in the line-up, which leaves one wildcard. Matthew Lopez's "The Whipping Man" is a Civil War-era story involving a Passover Seder in an antebellum mansion. It will be interesting to see if the amputation scene in this one gets anything like the reaction of the vomit scene in "God of Carnage."

Your thoughts?