THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, THE PROM, And More Announced for Ephrata Performing Arts Center 2023 Season

On November 18, 2022, the Ephrata Performing Arts Center (EPAC) announced the show titles for the upcoming 2023 season. The season will feature three plays, three musicals, and one youth production.

The season will open with a cabaret tribute to Stephen Sondheim, featuring some of EPAC's favorite performers. This one-night-only performance will play on February 28th.

EPAC follows this with Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive, running from March 16th to March 25th. This groundbreaking play follows the story of a woman's coming of age through the 60's and 70's, how turbulent and complex family dynamics can shape a person's past, present, and future, while also proving to find compassion and humor in the places you'd least expect, and will be a dynamic night of theatre in EPAC's intimate venue.

Following How I Learned to Drive will be one of Stephen Sondheim's lesser-known but highly-esteemed and polarizing works, Passion, playing April 27th to May 13th. Passion tells the story of a young soldier stationed at a Milan outpost in 1863 who finds himself entangled between two women, and examines the impact of love, power, beauty, and manipulation on relationships, and challenges the difference between true passion and obsession.

The summer will be filled with hilarity in two parts, starting with The Little Dog Laughed, which will run June 15th to June 24th. Written by critically-acclaimed, Wyomissing, PA-raised playwright Douglas Carter Beane, The Little Dog Laughed is biting and timely, and is filled with hilarity and realism while questioning what a happy ending should look like as a closeted gay actor, Mitchell, hopes to land the leading role in a Hollywood action film, but falls in love with a hustler, which may derail his career before it even gets started.

Following that will be the Broadway and film phenomenon, The Prom, playing July 27th to August 12th. Four down-on-their-luck Broadway actors who seek a new place to shine and end up in a conservative town in Indiana, where a local girl is being denied bringing her girlfriend to prom, and the actors make it their mission to bring more acceptance into this community. Winner of the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical, The Prom is filled with heart, hilarity, and an upbeat score that is sure to delight all audience members.

In the fall, Clybourne Park will hit the EPAC stage from September 7th to16th. A spin-off of Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park is truly a theatrical treasure. With each act set over 50-years apart, we see how race and upward mobility play a role in a Chicago neighborhood. While filled with sharp wit, hilarity, and insight, the drama proves to still feel fresh today.

The final installment in what will be EPAC's season-long tribute to Stephen Sondheim is one of his most produced and popular works, A Little Night Music, playing October 12th to 28th. This romantic comedy is full of twists and turns, jealousy and suspicion, delight and charm, and endless surprises, all coupled with one of the most beautiful and lush scores Sondheim ever penned. Audiences are sure to be swept away by what the magic of music provides.

EPAC concludes its season with a follow-up to the wildly popular 2021 production of Les Miserables: School Edition, as we have decided to up the ante and present Andrew Lloyd Weber's world-famous and iconic, The Phantom of the Opera, playing December 8th through 30th Love, passion, and horror all descend on an 1800's Parisian opera house as Christine, a young soprano, becomes the obsession of an enigmatic and phantasmic musical genius, who seeks to make her his protege. The Phantom of the Opera will serve as yet another showcase for the extraordinary local youth talent in our community.

Audition information for EPAC's 2022 season will be released soon. Ticket information, when available, will be found at epactheatre.org.