Chester Theatre Company Announces 2016 Season

Chester Theatre Company is proud to announce its 2016 season, the 27th since the theater was founded in 1990 and the first under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer. The four-play season will run from June 30th through August 28th at the Chester Town Hall,15 Middlefield Road, Chester, MA.

"I am extremely excited about the range of stories we'll be telling," said Kramer, who served as CTC's Associate Artistic Director from 2012 to 2015. "This season will take our audiences to very different worlds, from Jane Eyre's England, to God visiting a therapist in Israel, to a mysterious encounter in a dilapidated cabin on Cape Cod, to the Lorraine Motel on the last night of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life."

Plays include:

My Jane by Daniel Elihu Kramer, June 30-July 10th, 2016
World Premiere
Adapted from the novel by Charlotte Bronte?, Kramer's newest play is his second for CTC, following his hit box office hit Pride@Prejudice in 2011. A contemporary classic, My Jane weaves Jane's romantic story with the lives of her readers, all of whom have their own beloved "Jane." My Jane will be directed by New York-based Knud Adams, whose immensely popular production of Body Awareness was presented at CTC in 2013.

Oh God by Anat Gov, July 14-24, 2016

Produced in partnership with Israeli Stage
Regional Premiere
Called "delicious," "amusing," and "outrageously risky..."* Oh God centers around a therapy session in which psychologist Ella has only one chance to talk her new patient, a very depressed God, out of destroying his most disappointing creation-humankind. Oh God will be directed by Israeli Stage's artistic director, Guy Ben-Aharon, and feature three-time IRNE Award-winner Maureen Keiller as Ella and Norton Prize honoree Will Lyman as God.

Sister Play by John Kolvenbach, August 3-14, 2016
Regional Premiere
Family secrets are revealed, preconceptions are overturned, and a sister's overbearing love is tested when a mysterious drifter appears at a moldy cabin on Cape Cod. When it opened in 2014 at the Harbor Stage Company in Wellfleet, Sister Play was hailed as "fresh and potent" by the Boston Globe. CTC Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer directs this witty Massachusetts original.

The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, August 18-28, 2016
Regional Premiere
On the last night of his life, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. meets Camae, an irreverent maid at the Lorraine Motel who challenges everything he believes about his humanity, mortality, and legacy. Winner of the 2010 Olivier Award in London, The Mountaintop explores the very real, flawed man behind the myth. Director to be announced.

There will be audience talkbacks following Thursday matinees and Saturday evening performances and a panel discussion featuring outside experts after the first Sunday matinee of each play.

New this season at Chester will be a change in the Friday performance schedule, with a matinee at 2:00 p.m. and no evening performance. This will allow for another talkback with casts and other CTC artists, after the Friday matinees.

All performances will take place in the intimate setting of Chester's Historic Town Hall, 15 Middlefield Road, Chester, MA. Show times are 8:00 p.m. Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays; and 2:00 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays. Ticket prices are $37.50 for general audiences and $10.00 for students. Tickets may be purchased online at chestertheatre.org, or by phone at 1.800.595.4TIX (4849). Special rates for groups of 10 or more are available.

Chester Theatre Company (CTC), a professional theatre company located in the foothills of the Berkshires, has been presenting high-quality productions with top-notch actors, directors, and designers from across the country since 1990. Now in its 27th season-the first under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer-CTC produces 4 thought- provoking plays each summer in an intimate setting at Chester's Historic Town Hall on 15 Middlefield Road in Chester, MA. Numerous CTC productions have gone on to Off-Broadway, regional, national and international engagements, among them Kramer's own Pride@Prejudice. For further information, please call CTC at 413.354.7770, or visit www.chestertheatre.org.

*The Arts Fuse, Boston's online arts magazine