Blackbird Announces Third Season

New Season Features John Logan’s Red and Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus

Continuing its dedication to intelligent entertainment, Blackbird Theater proudly presents two penetrating, award-winning shows for its 2012-2013 season: Red by John Logan and Amadeus by Peter Shaffer.

Blackbird is thrilled to be presenting the Nashville premiere production ofRed, winner of six Tony Awards in 2009 including Best Play. Written by Oscar-nominated screenwriter John Logan, Red delves unflinchingly into the work and ideas of famed artist Mark Rothko as he struggles to finish a series of paintings for the Four Seasons restaurant, one of the most lucrative and notorious commissions in the history of modern art. “Because it’s written by a top Hollywood screenwriter, Red has all the punch and precision of a great film,” says Blackbird’s Managing Director Greg Greene. “We love stories that explore the process of creation, and this show is one of the best about the power of great art and the pain in producing it.”

Red will run October 4 – 20, 2012, and will be directed by Mike Fernandez, chair of the Lipscomb Department of Theatre and Blackbird board member.

Blackbird’s second show will be Peter Shaffer’s masterwork Amadeus, a Tony winner as well, and source for the Oscar-winning film. Amadeus takes a trenchant look at the troubled life, brilliant music, and tragic death of Mozart through the envious eyes of Salieri, the rival who claimed to have killed the great composer. “Shaffer is one of my favorite playwrights,” says Wes Driver, Artistic Director of Blackbird Theater and director of this production. “He has such a unique theatrical imagination, which I don’t think was ever more fully realized than in this funny, ferocious, tour-de-force of a show. It’s truly a modern masterpiece.”

Amadeus will run March 7 – 23, 2013. Both productions will be presented in collaboration with the Lipscomb University Department of Theatre and will be performed in Lipscomb’s Shamblin Theatre.

Blackbird Theater is a non-profit theater company in Nashville, Tennessee, that has gained popular and critical acclaim with productions of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia, G.K. Chesterton’s Magic, and Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Pacific Overtures. Their first show, Twilight of the Gods, an original play written by Driver and Greene, was selected as “Best New Play” for 2010 by the Nashville Scene.