Old Globe’s 2023 season includes four world premieres

Four world premiere productions, including a reflection on the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and the activism that defined those memorable Games, highlight the Old Globe Theatre’s recently-announced 2023 season.

Kemp Powers’ “The XIXth (The Nineteenth)” chronicles the protests in Mexico City by Black American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Directed by Carl Cofield, it begins previews March 17 on the Old Globe’s Donald and Darlene Shiley main stage.

Other world premieres:

• The Globe-commissioned “Under a Baseball Sky” by Jose Cruz Gonzalez, inspired by the immersion of the sport in San Diego’s Mexican American community (coming Feb. 11 to the Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre under the direction of James Vasquez);
• The time-traveling “Exotic Deadly: Or the MSG Play” by Keiko Green, directed by Jesca Prudencio (previews begin April 8 in the White Theatre);
• And (roll over, Dostoyevsky) another Globe commission — “Crime and Punishment, A Comedy,” written by Gordon Greenberg and Steve Rosen, creators of the Globe’s holiday-season “Ebenezer Scrooge’s BIG San Diego Christmas Show” (coming July 15 to the White stage).

Opening the Globe’s 2023 season (performances begin Jan. 21) is “The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,” adapted by Tony Award winner Mary Zimmerman, who also directs. The play is drawn entirely from da Vinci’s own notebooks and treatises.

The cast of “Passengers”

(Courtesy photo by Kevin Berne)

Also announced for next year:

• The homage to telenovelas “Destiny of Desire” by Karen Zacarias in May;
• The magical and multidisciplinary “Passengers” from Montreal’s artist collective The 7 Fingers, conceived by Shana Carroll, in July;
• And the West Coast premiere of South Asian comedian Alaudin Ullah’s “Dishwasher Dreams” in late September.

The Old Globe’s popular Summer Shakespeare Festival in the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre will feature a production of The Bard’s “Twelfth Night,” directed by Kathleen Marshall beginning in June, and arriving in late July, “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” with Globe Resident Artist Vasquez directing.

A musical production for the fall will be announced after the completion of details.

For more information on the 2023 season, visit theoldglobe.org.

Coddon is a freelance writer.