The Gamm Theatre Announces Their 26th Season

Tony Estrella, artistic director of The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm), today announced the theater s 26th Season (2010-2011) an exhilarating lineup of 5 plays including a U.S. premiere and two Rhode Island premieres.

Winding up a season-long celebration of the non-profit theater s 25th anniversary, The Gamm has taken stock and is now heading down a path with an emphasis on the new, Estrella said. Next season will bring a diverse roster of productions that include three premieres and two classics that have been far too long away from Rhode Island stages.

The season opens with a pair of back-to-back stories about grift, theft and manipulation, starting with that classic American masterpiece about men at work, Estrella said of season-opener Glengarry GLen Ross, David Mamet s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama about the cut-throat world of real estate. The Rhode Island premiere of Theresa Rebeck s recent Broadway hit Mauritius follows, exploring a seedy underbelly to the well-mannered world of stamp collecting.

A Doll s House, Henrik Ibsen s powerful and still-chilling 10th-century classic about domestic catastrophe opens the new year, with the U.S. premiere of Paul by the provocative British dramatist Howard Brenton on its heels.

This brilliant, secular re-imagining of the Christian myth surrounding the conversion of Saul of Tarsus to Saint Paul anatomizes the origins and evolution of belief, Estrella said of Paul. In my mind, it completes a kind of belief trilogy that includes our 2007 production of Sin: A Cardinal Deposed and last season's Grace. The first two plays examined the ramifications of supernatural belief in the modern world. Paul goes back in time and across the world to Christianity's origins and dares to ask how this belief was born, and how and why it has survived.

Season 26 closes with yet another premiere, the Rhode Island debut of American satirist Christopher Durang s Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them. This screwball depiction of our love affair with fear and revenge in the context of the country s very recent history will have audiences laughing till it hurts.

Season 26 / 2010-2011 Plays

Glengarry GLen Ross by David Mamet
September 2 October 3
As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.

Scathingly funny, with a thrilling who-dunit at its core, Mamet s Pulitzer Prize-winning drama exposes a dog-eat-dog world in which small-time real-estate brokers vie for the hot leads at a Chicago firm selling shoddy properties. With money, egos and jobs on the line, the cut-throat salesmen will stop at nothing to get their fair share of the American Dream. This gritty story of shifting values in the male-dominated workplace, revived on Broadway in 2005, is as potent and exhilarating as ever! Winner of the New York Drama Critics Award. Recommended for mature audiences only.

*Rhode Island Premiere*
October 21-November 21
Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck
Mom has died, leaving half-sisters Mary and Jackie with a rare stamp collection. Mary wants to keep it for its sentimental value. Jackie wants to sell it for the fortune it might be worth. Enter three foul-talking shady stamp dealers determined to get the sale, and an elaborate con game over the dubious inheritance unfolds. At once a gripping family drama and a delightfully sinister comedy, veteran playwright Rebeck s 2007 Broadway hit twists and turns and takes you for a ride until its final shocking scene.

January 20 February 20
A Doll s House by Henrik Ibsen
It s Christmas Eve and sweet, cheery Nora Helmer, arms brimming with gifts, is reveling in her role as wife and mother until a knock at the door threatens to destroy her doll house of a world forever. Blackmailed for a forgery she committed years ago to save her husband s life, Nora schemes to squelch her secret and the consequences of its revelation to her husband s burgeoning career. As matters spin out of control, she must make a life-changing decision that has shocked and divided audiences for more than a century.

*U.S. Premiere*
Paul by Howard Brenton
March 17-April 17
Arab: Forgive me, brother, let s keep our relationship strictly commercial. I hear people get killed in Judea because of religious arguments. All I want is a tent, not a new god.

The road to Damascus, A.D. 34. Saul of Tarsus has built a fierce reputation snuffing out the followers of a growing religious cult. So when its recently crucified leader, Yeshua (Jesus), appears to him in a flash of light, Saul does an about-face, changing his name to Paul and devoting his life to spreading the good news. But what if Paul s vision were the result of an epileptic fit or a well-meaning hoax? British Playwright Howard Brenton s intriguing secular take on the evolution of a belief was produced to acclaim and controversy at London s National Theatre in 2005. The Gamm is proud to present the North American premiere of this powerful, provocative new play.

*Rhode Island Premiere*
Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them by Christopher Durang
May 5 June 5
FELICITY: I have a funny feeling about him. I m afraid he might be a terrorist. Or maybe he s in the Mafia. Or maybe he s bipolar. Or maybe he s a serial killer. Or maybe he s just a drug addict and alcoholic and out of prison on parole.
MOTHER: Who are you talking about, dear?
FELICITY: My husband, my husband, my husband!

From the screwball imagination of American playwright Christopher Durang (The Marriage of Bette & Boo, Beyond Therapy), an uproarious new comedy about America s ongoing war on terror. A young woman, Felicity, wakes up to a strange man, a hangover, and a whole lot of questions: Is her new husband, Zamir (who claims to be Irish), a terrorist, a crazed alcoholic, or both? Is her father s hobby of butterfly collecting for real, or is it a cover for his involvement in a right-wing shadow government? Is her mother a theater-loving eccentric, or is she actually insane? The Rhode Island premiere of Durang s 2009 Off-Broadway hit answers all these questions and more with the author s trademark rollicking wit!

*Plays and dates are subject to change.

Subscriptions to The Gamm s 2010-11 Season are $115-$190. Early-bird subscribers save even more! Subscriptions from $110-$175 available through March 31. For sales, call 401-723-4266. For more information, go to gammtheatre.org.

About The Gamm Theatre
Founded in 1984 as Alias Stage, the non-profit Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre creates the finest of live theater, engaging the audience intensely in current and recurrent issues of consequence. The Gamm further serves the public with educational outreach programming designed to support the theatrical experience, and help sustain and enhance the intellectual and cultural life of its community. The Gamm is a member of New England Area Theatre (NEAT), a bargaining unit of the Actors Equity Association.