World Premiere of Josh Piven's NO RESERVATIONS Set for Adrienne Theater, 11/26-12/15

By: Nov. 06, 2013
Enter Your Email to Unlock This Article

Plus, get the best of BroadwayWorld delivered to your inbox, and unlimited access to our editorial content across the globe.




Existing user? Just click login.

New York Times best-selling humorist Josh Piven gives theater audiences a best-case scenario this holiday season with the World Premiere farce No Reservations. Piven trades the volcanoes, quicksand, and alligator wrestling for holiday survival among the mistletoe, scrapple, and paparazzi. Penned by the author of The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook and directed by Allison Heishman, the production runs November 26 through December 15, 2013 at Skybox @The Adrienne Theater. The ensemble cast of Philadelphia favorites features Jared Michael Delaney, Wendy Staton, Brian McCann, Mary Beth Shrader, Colleen Corcoran and Brandon Pierce. Tickets are available now for $18 to $25 at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/449685.

No Reservations is a thoroughly modern retelling of the Nativity, a classic tale re-imagined for our times: iPhones, TMZ, the Twitterverse, and an unforgettable "reality" show featuring a very timely birth. This highly original madcap holiday comedy satirizes our celebrity-obsessed, media-saturated culture, and asks what the age-old story of Christmas might look like today.

Meet Mr. and Mrs. Harris, the cash-strapped innkeepers of The Speckled Partridge. They have cleared their reservation books for a quiet Christmas. But when two young women-one of them very famous, and very pregnant-appear through a snowstorm, desperate for a place to stay, the relaxing holiday quickly begins to unravel. In short order the innkeepers are juggling a band of sarcastic carolers; a self-absorbed reporter; a fundamentalist carpenter; a washed-out Idol winner, and a big-shot TV producer-along with their own pseudo-feminist daughter-all fighting off a blizzard to take advantage of an innocent single mother on her way to Bethlehem. But how innocent is she, really?

"We've developed such a fascination with the cult of celebrity, and there's now a virtual imperative to put our entire lives online," Piven says, "I thought it would be fun to re-imagine such a traditional story using modern themes: not only social media but also the housing crisis, reality television, and same sex marriage. If the Nativity is a story for all time, then No Reservations is definitely a story for our times."

No Reservations runs November 26 through December 15, with a preview night on Tuesday, November 26 and opening night on Friday, November 29, 2013. Tickets are $18 to $25 and are available online at www.brownpapertickets.com/event/449685. Performances take place at The Skybox @ The Adrienne Theater, 2030 Sansom Street, 3rd Floor, in Center City, Philadelphia.



Comments

To post a comment, you must register and login.

Vote Sponsor


Videos