Gamm Theatre Announces 25th Anniversary Season of Plays

Tony Estrella, artistic director of The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm), today announced the theater's 25th Anniversary Season (2009-2010), featuring 5 plays representative of its quarter-century history of staging a broad spectrum of entertaining, evocative plays of distinction, as well as social and political relevance.

"This landmark season gives us the unique opportunity to both celebrate The Gamm's rich history and strengthen our mission moving forward," Estrella said.

Season 25's kick-off event pairs two of the best and most beloved plays by William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing and Romeo and Juliet. These full productions, performed in repertory, can be seen at an interval, on consecutive nights or both on one day in November.

"For more than a decade, The Gamm has staked its reputation on intimate, explosive productions of Shakespeare's greatest plays including Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Twelfth Night, among others," Estrella said. "We celebrate this legacy in our season opener by revisiting our 2000 production of Much Ado About Nothing, reuniting Resident Director FrEd Sullivan, Jr. with some of the original cast, as well as many newcomers, to create a brand-new version of this classic comedy of adult love. Then we take it one incredible leap farther by pairing it alongside our first production of the greatest tragedy of young love ever written, Romeo and Juliet."

2010 begins with a searing examination of one woman's struggle for clarity and dignity, as she beats back the dark tide of depression in 4:48 Psychosis by the brilliant Sarah Kane, author the controversial and critically acclaimed Blasted of the last Off-Broadway season. This contemporary work is followed by a modern American classic, Tennessee Williams' intensely autobiographical The Glass Menagerie. This marks The Gamm's first Williams since its curtain-call production of Cat on
a Hot Tin Roof almost 7 years ago-the theater's final production in Providence before moving to Pawtucket in 2003.

The season concludes with one of the most powerful theatrical works of the last several years: the inimitable Tom Stoppard's intelligent and soul-stirring paean to art, music and freedom, Rock ‘n' Roll. Set between Czechoslovakia and Cambridge, England, and moving forward in time from the Prague Spring of 1968 to the fall of communism over 20 years later, Rock ‘n' Roll is a thrilling synthesis of cold war politics, love, family, music, and the many forms of dissent set to the music of the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd and The Beach Boys, among others.

"It's quite an anniversary year with plays that embrace the need to look back and assess our past so that we may learn and move ahead," Estrella said, adding, "We'll be doing this throughout the year in our main-stage season as well as with staged readings, humanities programming and celebrations surrounding the incredible journey that started 25 years ago as Alias Stage."

Founded in 1984 as Alias Stage, the nonprofit Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre performs great works of the classic and modern theater in an intimate setting that fosters the vital relationship between author, actor and audience. The Gamm seeks to engage and enrich the community
through affordable entertainment and educational programming. The Gamm is a member of New England Area Theatre (NEAT), a bargaining unit of the Actors Equity Association.

SHAKESPEARE IN REP!

Much Ado About Nothing & Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare
(Sept. 10-Nov. 29, 2009)
One company, two classic plays: A comedy about adult love and a
tragedy about young love comprise the exciting kick-off event of The
Gamm's 25th Anniversary Season.

Much Ado About Nothing, directed by FrEd Sullivan, Jr. (Sept. 10-Nov. 29, 2009)
Not about nothing, the Bard's Much Ado About Nothing casts the serious
themes of love, fear of commitment, jealousy and retribution in a
sexy, sizzling, side-splitting comedy about two very different (and
equally convoluted!) courtships. A military war has just ended, but
the "merry war" between confirmed bachelor Benedick and his long-time
sparring partner, Beatrice, is going strong. Can friends of the
would-be lovers trick them into admitting their true feelings to each
other? Meanwhile, can the love-at-first-sight romance between young
lovers Claudio and Hero survive the vicious lies of the evil Don Jon?
It's up to the blundering constable to save the day and clear the path
to true love. The Gamm revisits and reinvents its 2000 production of
Much Ado About Nothing, reuniting Resident Director FrEd Sullivan, Jr.
with Artistic Director Tony Estrella and Resident Actors Jeanine Kane
and Sam Babbitt as Benedick, Beatrice and Leonato.

Romeo and Juliet, directed by Tony Estrella (Oct. 22-Nov. 29, 2009)
Timeless, universal and beautiful, this Romeo and Juliet takes on
young love, unbridled passion and family dysfunction with the grit and
gravitas of real life. Thrillingly fast-paced, intimately engaging and
chillingly real, The Gamm's up-close and personal production of
Shakespeare's tragic tale of teenage star-crossed lovers soars with
the poetry of heartbreak and a doomed but perfect love.

4:48 Psychosis by Sarah Kane, directed by Tony Estrella (Jan. 14-Feb. 7, 2010)
From the brilliant, controversial and short-lived career of British
playwright Sarah Kane (author of the acclaimed Blasted), who exploded
onto the London scene at age 23 and committed suicide in 1999 at 28, a
harrowing journey into the depths of clinical depression. 4:48
Psychosis-named for the time in the early morning when Kane regularly
awoke to a brief period of clarity amid her despair- is perhaps as
intimate an exploration of mental illness as one can find.
Captivatingly raw and poetic in its intensity, with flashes of dark
humor, Kane's fifth and final play, says Time Out (London), is "as
compact and beautiful as a diamond."

"It's the pleasure that comes from being compelled to follow an
authentic and original voice into theatrical territory you have never
visited before." - The New York Times, on Blasted

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, directed by FrEd Sullivan,
Jr. (Mar. 4-April 4, 2010)
In a rundown apartment in a St. Louis ghetto, erstwhile Southern belle
Amanda Wingfield, her painfully shy daughter, Laura, and her aspiring
writer son, Tom, form a triangle of quiet desperation. Amanda, an
overbearing single mother, lives on memories of her glorious
flower-scented youth, while her children bear the weight of her
unrealistic dreams for their future. But when a gentleman caller
offers false hope to the family, their precarious world shatters with
haunting results. Winner of the 1945 New York Drama Critics Circle
Award and the literary masterpiece that launched Williams' career, The
Glass Menagerie continues to capture the imagination and hearts of
American audiences.

Rock ‘n' Roll by Tom Stoppard, directed by Judith Swift (April 29-May 30, 2010)
You won't want to miss the Rhode Island premiere of an extraordinary
theatrical event from four-time Tony Award winner Tom Stoppard
(Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Travesties, The Real Thing,
The Coast of Utopia). It's August 1968, and Russian tanks are rolling
into Prague. Jan, a recently repatriated Czech student, lives for rock
music. Max, a Cambridge professor and dyed-in-the-wool Marxist, lives
for Communism. By 1990, revolution has taken hold, the tanks are
leaving and the ideal of freedom is a glorious, complex and
market-driven reality. A sweeping drama spanning two countries and 22
turbulent years-punctuated by the soul-stirring sounds of legendary
groups like the Stones, Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead-Rock ‘n' Roll
is a complex, moving and electrifying exploration of society in the
throes of transformation.

Winner of the London Evening Standard Theatre Award and London
Critics' Circle Theatre Awards for Best New Play

"Triumphant. Rock 'n' Roll is arguably Stoppard's finest play."- The
New York Times

"Rock 'n' Roll touches the heart while stimulating the mind. An
intellectually challenging, intensely theatrical piece of work that is
destined to be talked about wherever playgoers gather."- The Wall
Street Journal

*Plays and dates are subject to change.

Subscriptions to The Gamm's 2009-10 Season are $100-$170. Early-bird
subscribers save even more! Subscriptions from $95-$165 available
through April 30. For sales, call 401-723-4266. For more information,
go to gammtheatre.org.

 

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