A “reimagined” 2020-21 season is in store for TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, with the next production now not scheduled to open until next October.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced substantial changes on all businesses, with theaters being some of the hardest hit due to the close proximity of live audiences, actors and backstage crews to each other.

So rather than a July start date for the 2020-21 season and an August slot for the annual New Works Festival, TheatreWorks’ new artistic director Tim Bond and retiring artistic director Robert Kelley announced a revised play lineup that doesn’t get going until the fall.

First up will be “Queen,” a play by San Jose native Madhuri Shekar, which runs Oct. 7-Nov. 1. Winner of an Edgerton Foundation New Play award, “Queen,” directed by Jeffrey Lo, weaves together a story about science, conscience and the heart.

A novel twist on that age-old Christmas film favorite, “It’s a Wonderful Life,” is TheatreWorks’ holiday offering. Joe Landry’s stage adaptation of the original 1946 movie is “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play.”  Directed by Giovanna Sardelli, “Wonderful Life” runs Dec. 5-27.

Bond will make his directing debut with the company in January 2021 with “Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years.” Obie Award winner Emily Mann adapted the play from a best-selling memoir about two centenarian sisters, and it received three Tony Award nominations in 1995.  “Having Our Say” opens Jan. 16.

Kelley directs “Sense and Sensibility,” Paul Gordon’s musical adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel, which opens March 13 at Palo Alto’s Lucie Stern Theater.  Kelley also directed last season’s “Pride and Prejudice,” which ran last December and broke box office records for the company.

A week later on March 20, longtime TheatreWorks favorite Hershey Felder returns as “Monsieur Chopin” at Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.  In previous years, Felder has performed as Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and Irving Berlin at TheatreWorks.  This time he’ll give his audiences a piano lesson about Polish composer Chopin, whom he describes as the “poet of the piano.”

In April, TheatreWorks opens the regional premiere of the hit Broadway comedy, “The Lifespan of a Fact,” directed by Bond.  “Fact,” which opened on Broadway in 2018, covers the timely topic of the importance of ethics vs. artistic liberty in the newspaper industry.

To round out the season, Kelley returns to direct “Ragtime” in June of next year.  Based on E. L. Doctorow’s best-selling novel, the 1998 Tony-winning musical was originally stage by TheatreWorks in 2002 in a production also directed by Kelley.  It was originally scheduled to open in April at TheatreWorks.

As for the company’s annual New Works Festival, which is usually held in August, it’s now been moved to early 2021, with specific dates to be announced. Nationally acclaimed playwrights and composers come together annually at the popular festival to give Bay Area audiences a look at works in progress.

For more information on the 2020-21 season, visit www.theatreworks.org or call 650-463-1960.