Heritage Theatre Festival Postpones 2020 Season To 2021

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA – Wednesday April 1, 2020 – Heritage Theatre Festival officials announced today the postponement of the 2020 season. The announcement follows Monday’s stay at home order from Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and the subsequent cancellation of summer programming at UVA this year.

HTF Artistic Director Jenny Wales plans to produce the previously announced 2020 season of shows in the summer of 2021.

“It is with tremendous sadness that we must announce this news,” Wales said, “but also with an understanding and appreciation of these extraordinary times in which we are living. Just as the arts continue to sustain and fuel us in so many different ways during these difficult times, we are certain that the arts will play a leading role in our emergence from them, and we look forward to sharing an extraordinary collection of shows and artists with our community next summer.”

The rescheduled 2021 season (pending renegotiation of rights) will kick off with the Tony Award-winning  Frank Loesser musical Guys and Dolls, and also include Karen Zacarías’s The Book Club Play, a new comedy about what happens when a book club goes hilariously wrong; Noël Coward’s legendarily witty comedy Blithe Spirit; and Jeanne Sakata’s Hold These Truths, a powerful one-person play about unsung American hero Gordon Hirabayashi and his decades-long fight against the treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II – a fight that ultimately earned him the Congressional Medal of Honor.

“We stand with our fellow arts organizations as we work to move forward in unprecedented times,” Wales said, “and we look forward to celebrating the moment when we can, once again, share with our audiences the true magic that theatre brings.”

For more information, and to learn how you can continue to support the work of Heritage Theatre Festival leading up to its return in 2021, visit www.heritagetheatrefestival.org.