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| Join
us for some terrific shows on the Mainstage... (and
a little apple pie).
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May 5,
11, 12, 18, 19 at 8pm
May 6
at 7pm & May 20 at 3pm |
By WILLIAM
INGE
The classic
American drama. When William Inge’s play, Bus Stop, opened on
Broadway March 2, 1955, it was an immediate commercial and critical
success. The story involves a pair of young lovers and their
struggle to find love in the modern world.
It’s 1:00 a.m. at a diner in a
small Kansas town. Grace, the diner’s owner, and Elma, a young
waitress, are waiting for the Topeka bus to arrive. There’s a good
possibility they’ll be open all night, because the roads up ahead
are blocked by a snowstorm. When Will, the town sheriff, arrives, he
informs them that the bus passengers (if there are any) will be
staying until the road to Topeka is passable. The bus pulls up and
off steps Cherie, a pretty, young nightclub singer, Dr. Lyman,
a professor of English Literature, Carl, the bus driver, Bo, the
cowboy who has his heart set on marrying Cherie, and his friend
Virgil.
A lot can happen on a lonely,
snowy evening.
Directed by Terri Brockmann
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July 7, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21 at 8pm
July 8 and 15 at 7pm
July 22 at 3pm |
by ANTHONY MARRIOTT & ALISTAIR FOOT
An unbridled,
silly farce.
A young bride who lives above a bank with her husband
who is the assistant manager, innocently sends a mail order off for
some Scandinavian glassware. What comes is Scandinavian pornography.
The plot revolves around what is to be done with the veritable
floods of pornography, photographs, books, films and eventually
girls that threaten to engulf this happy couple. The matter is
considerably complicated by the man's mother, his boss, a visiting
bank inspector, a police superintendent and a muddled friend who
does everything wrong in his reluctant efforts to set everything
right, all of which works up to a hilarious ending of closed or
slamming doors.
This farce ran in London over eight years and also
delighted Broadway audiences.
Directed
by David Mossey |
Music & Lyrics by CAROL HALL
Book by LARRY KING & PETER
MASTERSON
Sept
14, 15, 21, 22, 27, 28, 29 at 8pm
Sept. 16, 23 at 7pm
Sept. 30 at 3 pm |
The Best Little Whorehouse
in Texas ran on Broadway for 1,584 performances between 1978 and 1982 and is
based on a true story that began as a magazine article written by Larry L.
King. It was then fashioned into a theater script with the help of Peter
Masterson to tell the story of the legendary Texas brothel known as the
Chicken Ranch that operated quietly and successfully from the 1830s to 1973
when it was finally shuttered by the governor due to the efforts of a
crusading Houston television commentator. Although many Texas politicians
were known to have been customers of the house of ill repute, they were
eager to preserve their political careers and loudly denounced the Chicken
Ranch and its inhabitants. Despite the protection of the local sheriff, Edna
Milton, the proprietress of the Chicken Ranch, was forced to pack her
belongings and the brothel was closed.
Yes, this is a surprising
subject for a smash Broadway musical, but the play is more about the lives
of the characters, not the kind of house they inhabit. You might come
thinking one thing, but leave thinking something else because this
production is more heart than tart.
Directed by
Cynthia Topps
Musical Director Joel Flowers
Choreographed by David Mossey |
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And join
us for something extra in our Fall Finale... (because
a good thing is never enough).
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by YASMINA REZA
Nov 2, 3, 4 at 8pm
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The 1999 Broadway hit "Art" is a
deceptively simple comedy about a well-off Frenchman named Serge who
spends 200,000 francs on a painting that is nothing more than a
white background with some diagonal white brushstrokes across it --
not much of a painting, it would seem, and certainly not worth
$200,000. That's what Serge's good friend Marc thinks, anyway. A
classical thinker not fond of the modernist movement, he bluntly
calls Serge's purchase "[****]." This leads to an argument: Serge is
pretentious for pretending to love a painting simply because it's a
status symbol, and Marc is narrow-minded for refusing to accept the
possibility that Serge might actually like this painting.
Marc goes to their mutual friend Yvan,
a pudgy, newly engaged nebbish whom Marc is certain will agree with
him about the painting. Yvan, predictably, straddles the fence, but
tends to land more on the side of thinking the painting is at least
somewhat valuable. So there are the three positions: worth $200,000,
OK as a modernist work, and [****]. From this simple Seinfeldian
set-up stems a vast array of personal and interpersonal conflicts.
They range from the fancy -- how do we decide whether we like a work
of art or not? -- to the down-to-earth -- how do we decide whether
we like a person or not?
Directed
by Michael Frohnhoefer |
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