Mirvish’s 2013–2014 season features everything from Kafka to Aladdin

Mirvish Productions unveiled its 2013–2014 season this morning. While we complained last year about the lack of risk-taking, this year’s lineup features a charmingly bizarre assortment of 14 shows. Of course, there’s the usual array of crowd-pleasers like Les Miserables, The Lion King, Cats, Stomp, Heartbreak of Home, a new show from the Riverdance producers, and the latest Disney tie-in, Aladdin, which moves to Broadway after its Toronto debut (a pattern we haven’t seen in a while). But there are also oddball productions, like the “tango rock opera” Arrabal, as well as a stage adaptation of Kafka’s Metamorphosis with music by Nick Cave. What’s more, the three-show Off-Mirvish series, which launched half way through last season, will feature George F. Walker’s Afghanistan war play Dead Metaphor, a work that was supposed to run at the Factory Theatre before the Ken Gass affair. This time last year, who’d have imagined a Walker/Gass play in a Mirvish season?