MEREDITH — This year will be one of transitions for the Winnipesaukee Playhouse. Announced late last year, the artistic director will be someone other than Neil Pankhurst, for the first time in the nonprofit theater organization’s history. And the organization has started to see signs that audiences are ready to move on from the caution of the pandemic years, and return to spaces of shared experiences.

“Audiences returning has been a big conversation in the field, broadly,” said Tim L’Ecuyer, who had served for many years as educational director for the playhouse, and who has stepped into the artistic director role.

For the playhouse, the sentiment is a hopeful “maybe,” said L’Ecuyer, as the most recent production, a traditional English panto version of “Sleeping Beauty” that ran through Dec. 31, drew the largest audience the playhouse has seen since 2019.

“The panto’s attendance felt normal,” said L’Ecuyer, though he added that there were several unique elements to that show. Falling during school vacation times, the novelty of a uniquely English — and very silly, theatrical production — could also prove it to be an outlier. “Do I think we’re out of the woods? No, not necessarily... One data point does not make a trend, but we’re certainly optimistic.”

L’Ecuyer is picking up the role of creative leader that Pankhurst, who has been with the organization since its founding in 2004, is leaving behind. Thom Beaulieu, who has worked on the finance and development side of the organization, has been named managing director.

In his announcement last fall, Pankhurst said his decision to retire was due to his own health, his desire to spend more time with family overseas, and because of his belief that it was healthy for the organization he founded to have fresh leadership.

Pankhurst hasn’t left the playhouse with a bare cupboard, though. Before he announced his retirement to staff, he had already built a schedule of shows that could make the 2023 season, which will be the organization’s 20th, its best year yet, from an attendance perspective.

L’Ecuyer said it’s a generous gesture that sets Pankhurst’s successors up for success.

“I’m in the leadership role, overseeing a season he’s chosen,” L’Ecuyer said. “It is a gift that he gave me.”

Whether or not Pankhurst was consciously thinking about his retirement when he selected the plays, a process he would have started in late 2022, there is a theme of transition tying the titles together.

The 13 titles, which were revealed last month, will be performed by the playhouse’s professional, community and educational programs. The productions include a mix of shows that the organization has put on before — “Charlotte’s Web” and “Mamma Mia!,” for example. There are shows such as “The Glass Menagerie,” which is a memory play, and an adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express,” in which the action takes place while on a moving train. “Shout!” is a musical about the 1960s, but written from a modern perspective. “Twelfth Night” is on the calendar, because it wouldn’t be a Pankhurst season without a Shakespeare play, and then there’s “Corduroy,” which explores new territory for the playhouse, as a professional production specifically for young audiences.

Though L’Ecuyer didn’t select the shows, he said he is “super excited” by many of the titles on the list. “Murder on the Orient Express” is one of them, a play written by Ken Ludwig and based on one of Christie’s classic mysteries. “I invite people to come and see how we’re going to get a train on stage,” L’Ecuyer said.

Another is “Fiddler on the Roof,” which will be a hybrid production involving both professional and amateur actors. “It is a gigantic musical in this year when we are super happy about our community coming back together. It is one of my favorites, and I’ve never directed it before. I’m super excited.”

In a strange twist of history, “Fiddler” was supposed to be part of the playhouse’s 2020 season, before the pandemic scrapped those plans. In the intervening time, though, the script, which is driven by Russian aggressors displacing people trying to live their lives in Ukraine, has taken on a tragic poignance.

To see the full show calendar, visit winnipesaukeeplayhouse.org.

The final show on the calendar, “Cinderella,” is a signal that, while Pankhurst may have retired, he will still be making at least a yearly return to direct a panto, the uniquely British holiday theater tradition that defies explanation but has found a firm fandom in the Lakes Region. L’Ecuyer said Pankhurst will direct “Cinderella” and, he hopes, many more pantos in following seasons.

“There will be an open invitation for him to do so,” L’Ecuyer said. “We’d be silly not to invite him back.”

These articles are being shared by partners in The Granite State News Collaborative. For more information visit collaborativenh.org.

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