UNCLE VANYA, ARTIST DESCENDING A STAIRCASE and More Make Up Harbor Stage's 2014 Season

Building on the momentum garnered by two groundbreaking seasons, the Harbor Stage Company returns to its iconic seaside home for another summer of challenging live performance.

The 2014 Harbor season will open on June 19th with the company's take on Chekhov's enduring masterpiece, Uncle Vanya. In this intimate study of a small estate overrun by grand passions, a family's fabric is threatened when its patriarch returns home with his much younger bride. Working from a raw new version adapted and directed by Artistic Director Robert Kropf (Hedda Gabler, The Seagull), the production will play through July 12th and feature an ensemble that includes company co-founders Kropf and Stacy Fischer, as well as Harbor Stage favorites Jeff Zinn (Fool for Love, The Agony & Ecstasy of Mike Daisey) and Amie Lytle (Church). Rounding out the cast will be Justin Campbell (Chester Theater's Turn of the Screw, WHAT's Hysteria) in the title role. The company has been invited to transfer Uncle Vanya to Suffolk University's Modern Theatre in Boston for a limited run in September 2014; their 2013 transfer of The Seagull was lauded as one of WBUR's standout theatrical events of the year.

The company's second offering will be Tom Stoppard's mind-bending comedy, Artist Descending a Staircase. Stoppard's metaphysical whodunit chronicles the lifelong comradery and competition of a trio of modern artists, and how that tangled history colors a sudden and suspicious death. A murder mystery with an avant garde edge, the piece has rarely been produced since its debut in 1972, and will be staged at the Harbor in its originally intended radio play form, complete with live foley effects and a cast to include company co-founders Jonathan Fielding and Brenda Withers, and guest artist Jason Lambert, who Harbor audiences will remember from his gripping one-man performance in last summer's Shimmer. Artist Descending a Staircase will run July 17th through August 9th.

The season will conclude with the Harbor Stage Company's world premiere of John Kolvenbach's Sister Play. Kolvenbach, a longtime summer resident of Wellfleet, sets this poignant jewel of a play in a dilapidated Cape Cod cabin, where two sisters, haunted by the memory of their departed father, encounter hope and heartache in the visage of a mysterious stranger. All four members of the company will appear in the piece, and are thrilled to bring the work of a writer they admire to life. Sister Play will run at the Harbor August 14th through September 6th and enjoy continued life in Spring 2015 at San Francisco's Magic Theatre, a longtime champion of the playwright's previous work (Goldfish, Mrs. Whitney). Kolvenbach will be in residence for and is set to direct both productions.

The co-founders, who double as the company's administrators, are committed to maintaining an atmosphere of artistic integrity and ambitious optimism as they head into their third year. In keeping with their mission to present great plays at affordable prices for the right reason, single tickets remain priced at $20 and will go on sale in early April. Three Play Subscriptions are available for $55, and the group will once again host a Pay-What-You-Can night on the First Friday of each production's run. More information on performance dates, donations, and individual ensemble members can be found at www.harborstage.org.

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