April 30 - May 23 RETURN OF THE FORBIDDEN PLANET Ever feel like our world is getting more dangerous every day? Like technology is advancing faster than our ability to control it? If so, you're not alone... Come back to the future with us! The future of the 1950s, that is... when the atomic bomb had everyone scared of Mad Scientists and the ever lurking dangers of Science Run Amok. Fear was one of the main staples of 1950s sci-fi -- fear of science, fear of sex, fear of the Russians, fear of The Bomb. (The more things change, the more they stay the same...) It was a time when the most innocent lab experiments could result in giant monster bugs and mutated humans... or so the movies told us... And the only thing Americans feared more than Russia and the atom was rock and roll...! New Line Theatre's 18th season continues April 30-May 23, 2009, with the St. Louis premiere of the outrageous rock and roll musical RETURN TO THE FORBIDDEN PLANET, Bob Carlton's hilarious take on the classic 1956 sci-fi film Forbidden Planet and (sort of) on Shakespeare's The Tempest. Like a crazy cocktail of Rocky Horror and Star Trek, this smart, subversive piece of rock theatre taps into Americans' perpetual fear of technology (and sex!), and it reminds us of that famous quote by Lord Acton: "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely." New Line Theatre (314) 773-6526 July 16 - August 8 THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE Do you ever feel like the pressure to succeed is just too great? Like you just might lose your job to the brown-noser in the next cubicle, like everything you are is wrapped up in whether or not you get that next raise or promotion? And when you remember back to your childhood, does it seem like it wasn't really any better back then...? New Line Theatre's 18th season closes July 16-August 8, 2009, with the first St. Louis production of the hit Broadway musical comedy, THE 25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE, with a book by Rachel Sheinkin and music and lyrics by William Finn (Falsettos, A New Brain), based on C-R-E-P-U-S-C-U-L-E, an original play created by Rebecca Feldman and performed by The Farm, a New-York-based improvisational comedy troupe. The show places us at an actual spelling bee -- surely among the fiercest and cruelest of America's gladiatorial arenas -- complete with a few audience members among the spellers. But underneath the sharp, biting comedy, there's an insightful, sometimes difficult look at the dark side of American ambition and competitiveness, and the insecurities and fears we all face every day. We are these kids, we finally realize, always being tested one more time, never able to rest on our laurels. You'll laugh your ass off and then spend the next New Line Theatre (314) 773-6526