The Clarence Brown Theatre announced the shows for their 2023-24 season. The stories that make up the season include beloved retellings, new modern plays and a musical about drag queens.

This is the first season Kenneth Martin oversaw as the head of the Theatre Department and Artistic Director of the Clarence Brown Theatre. In those two roles, he maintains the relationship between the two communities and makes the final decision on the Clarence Brown’s season. Martin described the chosen shows as life changing.

“Powerful stories that delve into issues of gender, race, sexuality, the idea of life itself, what it means to be alive … they are bold stories,” Martin said.

Although Martin has the final word, the process is also overseen by a committee of students and faculty who help select the shows. Anyone can submit a show to be considered. The committee read over 30 plays submitted by the community, and of those plays “The Moors,” “Anon(ymous)” and “Kinky Boots” were selected to be in the season.

Along with some new contemporary plays, the Clarence Brown also selected some well-known titles to line their season.

They will start the fall semester off with Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express.” The show opened last fall’s semester too, to great success, but was shut down shortly after opening due to COVID-19. This year is a redemption for the show and will be put on with the same cast and set as last year’s production.

The fall semester’s second show will be “The Moors,” a play written by Jen Silverman. It will be directed by Casey Sams.

Sams is a professor in the theatre department where she teaches movement, acting and musical theatre. She is also the associate head of the Theatre department and a company member with the CBT, where she has worked as a director, choreographer and intimacy coordinator.

This past semester, Sams directed “Hair,” a massive musical production. Directing it was a process Sams described laughingly as “cat-herding.” Moving to “The Moors”is a drastic change of pace for the director. It is a show with five characters, two of whom are animals played by humans. Sams described the modern dark comedy as having Emily Brontë energy.

“I imagine that it will be way more important on this project to be very clear about what the rules of engagement are, and making sure the actors feel really sure and confident about what they are doing,” Sams said.

As always, the fall semester will end with “A Christmas Carol.” After COVID-19, versions of “A Christmas Carol” continued to be put on, but they were scaled back from the version usually put on by the Clarence Brown.

“We’re going back to what is affectionately around here called the ‘clock version,’” Martin said.

The “clock version” — so named for its centerpiece prop of a giant clock — is a much bigger production that takes around 50 people to execute.

The spring semester will open with “The Giver.” This show, adapted from the famous Lois Lowry novel of the same name, was chosen because it is a story that is well known.

Following “The Giver” will be “Anon(ymous),” a retelling of the “Odyssey” which focuses on an immigrant refugee traveling through American to find his family.

“The opportunity to take stories that go from page to stage essentially, stories that people are familiar with and have a picture in their mind of what those stories look like, to be able to put them on stage and create a shared environment where people can see those stories … the chance to draw those comparisons feels really exciting,” Sams said.

The last show to be chosen will also be the show that finishes up next year’s season: “Kinky Boots.” The show was chosen while anti-trans legislation was passed and is, Martin admitted, a statement.

“It is a play that is perfect for this moment in time for Tennessee. If we are going to purport to create legislation that is anti-whatever, isn’t our responsibility as theatre people to get those audiences to walk a few feet, if you’ll excuse the expression, in those kinky boots?” Martin said.

The stories, which so essentially are about humanity, will debut next year. Season package tickets are available for purchase now.