Weekend Comedy by Jeanne & Sam Bobrick
The celebrated co authors of such classics as Norman, Is That You?, Murder at the Howard Johnsons and Wally's Cafe and his wife have created another sure fire winner in which two couples rent the same Catskills cabin for the same weekend by mistake. One couple is staid and middle aged; the other free wheeling and young. They decide to share and before the weekend is over the youngsters have learned how to add stability to their relationship and the oldsters have learned to loosen up.
"Contemporary and spunky... It's home spun humor strikes chords regardless of a viewer's age and the laughter it kindles is as warm and spontaneous as the play's dialogue and situations."—Calgary Sun.
January 11 through January 27.
Agnes of God by John Pielmeier
Doctor Martha Livingstone, a court appointed psychiatrist, is asked to determine the sanity of a young nun accused of murdering her own baby. Miriam Ruth, the Mother Superior, seems bent on protecting Sister Agnes from the doctor, and Livingstone's suspicions are immediately aroused. In searching for solutions to various mysteries (Who killed the baby? Who fathered the child?) Livingstone forces all three women, herself included, to face some harsh realities in their own lives, and to re-examine the meaning of faith and the commitment of love. "Riveting, powerful, electrifying drama. . . . The dialogue crackles."—N.Y. Daily News. "Outstanding play [that] . . . deals intelligently with questions of religion and psychology."—N.Y. Times. "Unquestionably blindingly theatrical. . . . Cleverly executed blood and guts evening in the theatre."—N.Y. Post.
February 28 through March 16.
The Unexpected Guest by Agatha Christie
A thriller as well as a puzzler set in a foggy estate in Wales, this mystery opens as a stranger walks into a house to find a man murdered and his wife standing over him with a gun. But the woman is dazed and her confession unconvincing. So the unexpected guest decides to help her and blame the murder on an intruder. Later, the police discover clues that point to a man who died two years previously and a Pandora's box of loves and hates, suspicions and intrigues is opened to the night air. "The impact is tremendous... Just when the murder seems solved... Miss Christie pulls her almighty knock out punch. I admit her complete victory." —London Evening News. "Tantalizing ingenuity." —Tatler.
May 30 through June 15.
Same Time Next Year by Bernard Slade
One of the most popular romantic comedies of the century, the play follows a love affair between two people who rendezvous once a year. Twenty-five years of manners, morals and attitudes are hilariously mirrored by the lovers. "Genuinely funny, and genuinely romantic."
September 12 through September 28.
The Dining Room by A.R. Gurney
The play is set in the dining room of a typical well-to-do household, the place where the family assembled daily for breakfast and dinner and for any and all special occasions. The action is comprised of a mosaic of interrelated scenes—some funny, some touching, some rueful—which, taken together, create an in-depth portrait of a vanishing species: the upper-middle-class WASP. The actors change roles, personalities and ages with virtuoso skill as they portray a wide variety of characters, from little boys to stern grandfathers, and from giggling teenage girls to Irish housemaids. Each vignette introduces a new set of people and events; a father lectures his son on grammar and politics; a boy returns from boarding school to discover his mother's infidelity; a senile grandmother doesn't recognize her own sons at Christmas dinner; a daughter, her marriage a shambles, pleads to return home. Dovetailing swiftly and smoothly, the scenes coalesce, ultimately, into a theatrical experience of exceptional range, compassionate humor and abundant humanity.
November 7 through November 23.
The Gin Game by D.L. CoburnThis winner of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize, which originally starred Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronin and revived in 1999 with Julie Harris and Charles Durning, uses a game as a metaphor for life. Weller Martin is playing solitaire on the porch of a seedy nursing home. Enter Fonsia Dorsey, a prim, self righteous lady. They discover they both dislike the home and enjoy gin rummy so they begin to play and to reveal intimate details of their lives. Fonsia wins every time and their secrets become weapons used against one another. Weller longs for a victory to counter a lifetime of defeats but it doesn't happen. He leaves the stage a broken man and Fonsia realizes her self righteous rigidity has led to an embittered, lonely old age.
Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge by Christopher Durang
In this departure from Dickens, young Scrooge's exclamations of "Bah, humbug!" are an undiagnosed "kind of seasonal Tourette's Syndrome," and The Ghost of Christmas Past is played by a sassy African-American woman with enough attitude to portray all three spirits (which she does). She tries to show Scrooge his past, present and future in order to change him, but her magic keeps malfunctioning in Durang's version of the beloved holiday classic, and they consistently find themselves transported to the wrong time and place. She tries to take Scrooge back to see his old employers, the Fezziwigs—"always an audience favorite"—but instead she and Scrooge keep appearing in the present at the Cratchit's pathetic home. Mrs. Bob Cratchit, a minor character in the Dickens, takes center stage here. No longer loving and long suffering, Mrs. Bob is in a rage: She’s sick of Tiny Tim (the goody-goody crippled child), she hates her twenty other children (most of them confined to the root cellar), including oversized Little Nell, and she wants to get drunk and jump off London Bridge. As the Ghost loses more control, the plot morphs into parodies of Oliver Twist, "The Gift of the Magi" and "It’s a Wonderful Life"!
December 5 through December 14.
Live Staged Reading of Charles Dickens'
A Christmas Carol adapted by Louise Anderson from the original short story.
A group of Yuletide party guests are urged by their host to choose parts and read aloud the famous Christmas story, because "It simply wouldn’t be Christmas without hearing A Christmas Carol." At first it is no more than a lark, but as the reading progresses, the guests become more and more immersed into the characters they are reading, until the line between their real selves and the much-beloved Dickens' characters they are playing is blurred, perhaps irrevocably. A haunting, yet ultimately joyous, family-oriented holiday offering.
December 19 through December 21.
Special Thanks to:
Sustaining Sponsor, Shelter Bay Retail Group
Season Underwriter, Dey Laboratories, Inc.
* Main Stage/Five Show Passes, Complimentary Passes and Group Rates are valid ONLY for Main Stage productions.
