ASSASSINS
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
Music Director, Dan Rodriguez
September 15 – October 15, 2023
A darkly humorous musical that reminds us that not all American dreams should come true.
With the American dream out of reach, nine of the most notorious figures in our nation’s history ignite a chain of monumental nightmares. The white picket fence is set on fire in Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s tragically funny and unnerving musical which peers inside the shattered minds of presidential assassins (both successful and failed) from John Wilkes Booth to John Hinckley, Jr. This gallery of historical misfits jolts us into their blurry points of view with unapologetic humor, fiery anthems, carefree tunes, and unbridled energy that boldly blurs the lines between ambition and madness.
THE GAME’S AFOOT: HOLMES FOR THE HOLIDAYS
By Ken Ludwig
Directed by Fred Sullivan, Jr.
November 10 – December 17, 2023
A laugh-out-loud comedy mystery that makes a memorable multigenerational holiday outing for everyone.
It’s a blustery December night in 1936 at the Connecticut mansion of actor William Gillette whose life was recently threatened by a rogue gunshot while he was onstage performing his most celebrated role, Sherlock Holmes. A cavalcade of quirky friends arrive upon his request for a weekend of revelry all with the intent of finding out who pulled the trigger. But when one of Gillette’s glitzy and glamorous guests is stabbed to death, the survivors are trapped inside a fun house of hidden passageways and trick mirrors where any of them could be the killer. From the team that brought you The Play That Goes Wrong, slapstick and hilarity ensues amid the murder and mayhem that will keep you laughing and guessing until the moment the killer is revealed.
TROUBLE IN MIND
By Alice Childress
Directed by Dawn M. Simmons
January 12 – February 4, 2024
A Black actress makes her 1955 Broadway debut in a backstage story crackling with wit and startling revelations.
It’s 1955, and after enduring indignities and lost opportunities, Wiletta Mayer, a seasoned Black actress, is finally making her Broadway debut. Written by a white playwright, her star vehicle is the allegedly progressive Chaos in Belleville, which turns out to be anything but. Leading a cast of both younger and experienced actors, Wiletta challenges not only the soft racism of her white director but also the veiled prejudice that limits her aspirations and success. With warmth, humor, and sharp insight, this moving backstage look at identity and stereotypes cracks open searing truths about the American theater that remain heartbreakingly contemporary.
THIRST
By Ronán Noone
Directed by Courtney O’Connor
February 23 – March 17, 2024
Two Irish immigrant women search for love, serenity, and a place to call “home” in this impassioned, heartfelt drama.
There’s a whole other story unraveling on the other side of the kitchen wall of Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night. Two Irish immigrants including a disappointed cook whose shuttered heart only blooms when she has a bottle in her hand and a vibrant young maid who survived a trip on the Titanic pass the day amid their gloomy daily chores alongside a resilient American chauffeur with a troubled past. As tensions rise, high-spirited humor and harsh cynicism boil over as the trio confront abandoned dreams and heart-breaking misfortunes. Underneath it all, hope is not as far away as it seems.
THE DROWSY CHAPERONE
Music & Lyrics by Lisa Lambert & Greg Morrison
Book by Bob Martin & Don McKellar
Directed and Choreographed by Larry Sousa
Music Director, Matthew Stern
April 5 – May 12, 2024
A refreshing musical cocktail that’s like a bubble bath for your heart. But with tap dancing. And spit takes.
A comfortable chair with an old record crackling away is the perfect cure for the “blues” for a charming but lonely “Man in Chair”, our guide into the world of the show-within-a-show, The Drowsy Chaperone. His favorite cast album from the Jazz Age comes to fizzy life complete with a self-admiring showgirl, her gin-soaked chaperone, a saucy Latin lover, a bumbling best man, a clueless soon-to-be groom, and a cornucopia of characters from a befuddled producer, to a dippy hostess and gangsters posing as pastry chefs. This bubbly love letter to musical theater sparkles with one show-stopper after another, mix-ups, mayhem, and a wedding (or two).
YELLOW FACE
By David Henry Hwang
Directed by Ted Hewlett
May 31 – June 23, 2024
An Asian-American playwright and activist gets tangled in a complicated and humorous web of lies as he struggles to win back his integrity.
Truth and fiction blur in David Henry Hwang’s satiric memoir about DHH, a playwright plunged into a whirlpool of missteps and unintentional hypocrisy after a vocal protest against the casting of Jonathan Pryce as a Eurasian hustler in the Broadway production of Miss Saigon. What he condemns as “yellowface” soon comes back to haunt him when he later misidentifies a Caucasian actor for mixed-race and casts him in his own Broadway-bound comedy. His personal integrity is compromised as he proceeds to conceal his blunder aiding the narrative of this “born-again Asian.”. Ultimately a forceful argument for representation, this provocative and comical sideways glance at race and assimilation asks “who has the ownership of a culture?”
