Uptown Players 2011 Season Includes VICTOR/VICTORIA, TEMPERMENTALS, et al.

Uptown Players, a professional theater group located in the Uptown area of Dallas, has announced its 2011 season, which will feature the regional premieres of Young Man From Atlanta, The Temperamentals, and an exciting musical to be named later, as well as the musical comedy Victor/Victoria at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. Uptown Players will also present its annual fundraising performance - Broadway Our Way, which will be held in May this year.
 
And new for 2011, Uptown Players has announced the first annual Dallas Pride Performing Arts Festival in September 2011. In addition, Uptown Players will present the regional premiere of Thank You For Being A Friend, The Musical in February at the Rose Room Theater inside the Station 4 nightclub on Cedar Springs.

Thank You For Being A Friend, The Musical: February 4-27, 2011
Uptown Players kicks off its 10th season with an unauthorized musical parody inspired by the beloved TV sitcom "The Golden Girls" entitled Thank You For Being A Friend. Written by Nick Brennan, with music and lyrics by Luke Jones and Jeff Thomson, the show will run from February 4 - 27, 2011 at the Rose Room Theatre inside the S4 nightclub on Cedar Springs. In Thank You For Being A Friend, four women (Blanchette, the varicose-veined vixen; Dorthea, the brainy ball-buster; Roz, the lovable airhead; and Sophie, the wisecracking spitfire) are spending their golden years together in a bungalow in Miami. But when gay pop superstar Lance Bass moves next door, his loud parties keep the quartet of cheesecake-loving retirees awake. The battle between the girls and Lance heats up at the annual Shady Oaks Retirement Home Talent Show. Singing, dancing and hilarity ensues!

Young Man From Atlanta: April 1 - 17, 2011
Uptown Players begins its second full season at the Kalita Humphreys Theater with the regional premiere of Young Man From Atlanta by the late legendary Texas playwright, Horton Foote, running April 1 - 17, 2011. Dallas-Fort Worth-area arts organizations are coming together next spring for a two-month  celebration of the late legendary Texas playwright Horton Foote. Uptown Players is pleased to be participating in this citywide festival. Foote is, without question, one of the most significant American Playwrights of the 20th century, and holds a unique place in the pantheon of great Texas theater artists. His plays are all set in the state of Texas, and are deeply saturated with Texas social life and culture. Foote's Pulitzer prize-winning play, Young Man From Atlanta, is about a middle-aged couple whose rags-to-riches American Dream suddenly turns into a nightmare. Will Kidder has just moved into his new $200,000 home when he is let go by the company for whom he has worked for nearly forty years. He decides to start his own business and hopes to use the money he gave his wife and his late son, who committed suicide. But Will soon learns that both wife and son gave all their money to Bill's roommate, a young man from Atlanta, and Will is left to face a troubled and uncertain future. The Kidders' painful but often funny story won the 1995 Pulitzer prize for drama.

Broadway Our Way: May 6-15, 2011
Now in its ninth year, Uptown Players' fundraiser, Broadway Our Way, light-heartedly pits the men against the women to determine who the true Divas of the Dallas stage really are. The evening features selections from your favorite Broadway shows both past and present, done with an Uptown Players twist! It is sure to be a hot ticket for its seven performances in May 2011. The show's dates are May 6 - 15, 2011.

To-Be-Announced Regional Premiere: June 10 - July 2, 2011
From June 10 through July 2, 2011, Uptown Players continues its season with the regional premiere of a Tony Award winning musical so exciting that we can't tell you the name of it until February 1, 2011. Watch for the exciting announcement early next year.

Victor/Victoria: July 29 - August 21, 2011
Uptown Players will present the musical comedy, Victor/Victoria, July 29 - August 21, 2011. With a book by Blake Edwards, music by Henry Mancini, and lyrics by Leslie Debuting, Victor/Victoria is an appealing, sophisticated musical, based on the movie of the same name. It is the story of a penniless soprano, named Victoria, who colludes with a struggling gay impresario to disguise herself as a man named Victor, who entertains as a female impersonator known as "Victoria" - and as a result becomes the toast of Paris. We know we're in Paris, but is this person a man or a woman? The confusion gets more complicated when a Chicago mobster sees the act and finds himself attracted to the star. Life's complications are both hilarious and touching.

Dallas Pride Performing Arts Festival: September 9-17, 2011From September 9 - 17, 2011, Uptown Players will present the first annual Dallas Pride Performing Arts Festival, a nine day festival of plays, musicals and cabaret acts celebrating Dallas Gay Pride. The festival will feature the world premiere of a new musical, Crazy Just Like Me, by Louis Sacco and Drew Gasparini, along with a surprise special guest cabaret acts, a show from one of our past seasons, and others. The full schedule of plays, musicals, and cabaret acts will be announced February 1, 2011, along with information on individual show tickets and complete festival passes to allow you to see as many of the shows as you wish.

The Temperamentals: October 7-23, 2011
Uptown Players will close its 2011 season with the regional premiere of the recent award-winning off-broadway play, The Temperamentals. "Temperamental" was code for "homosexual" in the early 1950's, part of a created language of secret words that gay men used to communicate. Written by Jon Marans, The Temperamentals tells the story of two men - the communist Harry Hay and the Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich - as they fall in love while building the first gay rights organization in the pre-Stonewall United States. Nominated for the Lortel Award for Best Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding new off-broadway play, the New York Times called the show "intellectual, emotional and sexual". "With style and a sense of humor, it mixes politics with campy comedy and unexpected bursts of emotional candor", according to Time Out New York. The show will run October 7 - 23, 2011 at the Kalita Humphreys Theater. 

Tickets for all shows, except Broadway Our Way and the Dallas Pride Performing Arts Festival are $25 - $40. Performances at the Kalita Humphreys Theater, 3636 Turtle Creek Blvd. at Blackburn, will run at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday evenings and 2 p.m. on Sundays with an added Thursday show at 8 p.m. on April 14 (Young Man From Atlanta), May 12 (Broadway Our Way) and June 30 (Musical TBA), August 18 (Victor/Victoria), and October 20 (The Temperamentals).
 
Tickets for Thank You For Being A Friend at the Rose Room Theater at S4, located at 3911 Cedar Springs Road, are $20-25 with performances on Friday and Saturday evenings at 8 p.m. and Sunday evenings at 7 p.m. Four, five or six show season ticket flex packages are also available and include great discounts on premium seating. Individual and season tickets can be purchased online at www.uptownplayers.org or by phone at 214-219-2718.

Now beginning its 10th season, Uptown Players has gathered a dedicated following with an annual audience base of over 15,000 patrons, including 1,000 season subscribers. The response from the community and critics has been remarkable, including over 25 Leon Rabin Awards from the Dallas Theatre League, several hundred "The Column" Awards and 21 Theater Critics Forum Awards in its first nine seasons. Uptown Players has also been named the best theatre company by the Dallas Voice Readers in 2006 through 2009 and by the Dallas Observer in 2004, 2005, and 2009. Uptown Players was also featured in D Magazine in 2009 and on the WFAA A-list of theaters.

Uptown Players is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization, presenting plays and musicals that challenge audiences artistically, build cultural bridges, and strive to create greater positive public awareness and acceptance through the performing arts. There is no other theater group with this unique mission in the Dallas area.

Uptown Players 2011 Season:
Thank You For Being A Friend - Feb 4 - 27, 2011 (Rose Room Theater at S4)
Young Man From Atlanta - April 1 - 17, 2011 (Kalita Humphreys Theater)
Broadway Our Way - May 6 - 15, 2011 (Kalita Humphreys Theater)
Musical title to be announced - June 10 - July 2, 2011 (Kalita Humphreys Theater)
Victor/Victoria- July 29 - August 21, 2011 (Kalita Humphreys Theater)
Dallas Pride Performing Arts Festival - September 9 - 17, 2011 (Multiple Venues)
The Temperamentals - October 7 - 23, 2011 (Kalita Humphreys Theater)

 

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