Two hundred years after Washington Irving introduced the little hamlet of Sleepy Hollow and its superstitious denizens to the canon of American literature, the legend remains among the most enduring of stories that capture the imagination of adults and children alike, inspire questions about the supernatural realm, and scare the bejesus out of its audience.
Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) will open its 43rd Season with the hilarious whodunit, The 39 Steps – a mix of Alfred Hitchcock's juicy spy flick with a dash of vintage Monty Python – from September 14 to October 2, according to Nancy L. Donahue Artistic Director Courtney Sale and Executive Director Bonnie J. Butkas.
Jessi D. Hill's production of 'Ushuaia Blue' offers us a performance piece that is part tone poem, part personal tragedy, part environmental meditation. Shifting with ease from one time and place, and from one frame of mind, to another, the cast offers us a glimpse of how our understanding of global climate change needs to expand-beyond the microscopes and bathyscaphes, beyond the labs, beyond those cute penguins, and out onto the ever-more-endangered ice of Antarctica.
Jacqueline Goldfinger's 'Babel' was written in, and for, a different time and a different nation. Although designed as a comedy, watching its action unfold in the Marinoff Theatre at this year's Contemporary American Theatre Festival, in Shepherdstown, West Virginia, it's striking how the end of Roe vs. Wade, and the already-engaged battle over women's bodies nationwide, can force an entirely different reckoning from the audience.
For the first time in 21 months, Merrimack Repertory Theatre will return to The Nancy L. Donahue Theatre for indoor performances when it presents a world premiere holiday comedy, The Rise and Fall of Holly Fudge by Trista Baldwin, from November 26 to December 12, according to Artistic Director Courtney Sale and Executive Director Bonnie J. Butkas.
From September 24 to October 16, 2021, SpeakEasy Stage Company will present the Boston-area premiere of the gripping drama THE SOUND INSIDE by Adam Rapp.
Merrimack Repertory Theatre will present the New England premiere of A Woman of the World by Pulitzer Prize finalist Rebecca Gilman from May 15-30.
The Boston premiere of Lucy Kirkwood's 2018 Tony Award-nominated play THE CHILDREN at SpeakEasy Stage Company is an affecting drama, thanks to a combination of the playwright's excellence at her craft, Director Bryn Boice's focus, and the trio of Elliot Norton Award-winning actors whose portrayals constitute a collective master class. Inspired by the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, THE CHILDREN puts issues of climate change, the environment, and a generation's responsibility for stewardship under an unforgiving spotlight, challenging the audience to engage in self-reflection.
From February 28 to March 28, SpeakEasy Stage Company will proudly present the Boston premiere of the acclaimed drama THE CHILDREN by British playwright Lucy Kirkwood.
Huntington Theatre Company has announced the extension of We All Fall Down written by Boston area playwright and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Lila Rose Kaplan and directed by Obie Award winner and artistic director of Hartford Stage Melia Bensussen.
Merrimack Repertory Theatre presents the second installment of what will become a trilogy co-written by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, about the close-knit sisters from Jane Austen's PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. Paralleling the upstairs Christmas-time festivities featured in last year's MISS BENNET: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY at Pemberley Estate, the lives, loves, and intrigues of the downstairs denizens take center stage in THE WICKHAMS: CHRISTMAS AT PEMBERLEY. Mr. Darcy, lord of the manor, his wife Lizzy, and her sister Lydia are all back to link the two worlds, and they are joined by Lydia's roguish husband, George Wickham, and three of the hard-working house staff.
Huntington Theatre Company has announced the casting for We All Fall Down, a new comedy about a family trying out tradition for the first time, written by Boston area playwright and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Lila Rose Kaplan. Directed by Obie Award winner and artistic director of Hartford Stage Melia Bensussen, We All Fall Down will begin performances at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (527 Tremont Street, Boston) on Friday, January 10, 2020 and runs through Sunday, February 9, 2020. The official press opening night will be Wednesday, January 22, 2020. Tickets are on sale now.
Huntington Theatre Company has announced the creative team for We All Fall Down, a new comedy about a family trying out tradition for the first time, written by Boston area local playwright and Huntington Playwriting Fellow Lila Rose Kaplan. Directed by Obie Award winner and artistic director of Hartford Stage Melia Bensussen, We All Fall Down will begin performances at the Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA (527 Tremont Street, Boston) on Friday, January 10, 2020 and run through Sunday, February 9, 2020. The official press opening night will be Wednesday, January 22, 2020. Tickets are on sale now.
Merrimack Repertory Theatre (MRT) will celebrate the holidays with the imaginative and radiant The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley, a new companion piece to last season's Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley a?" both based on the characters from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, according to Executive Director Bonnie J. Butkas and Interim Artistic Director Terry Berliner.
The cast of characters in Sarah Ruhl's THE CLEAN HOUSE, which opens the 2019-2020 Portland Stage season, leads anything but tidy lives. The 2004 play, which received its world premiere at the Yale Repertory Theatre, is a metaphorically absurdist exploration of neuroses, obsessions, and the quest for laughter and love. The drama which employs a kind of a?oemagical realisma?? brings together five quirky characters who only find their humanity as their neat little lives unravel and they allow chaos, passion, empathy, laughter, and tears to fill their souls.
Gloucester Stage Company opens its 40th Anniversary Season with a nostalgic romp in the park, specifically Neil Simon's 1963 hit play, BAREFOOT IN THE PARK. Pairing McCaela Donovan and Joe Short (who are married in real life) as the young newlyweds moving from their blissful six-day honeymoon into a Manhattan sixth-floor walk up is a stroke of luck for Director Shana Gozansky. Making her GSC debut, she didn't have to worry about establishing trust and comfort in the romantic aspects of the characters' relationship. Not only do Donovan (Corie) and Short (Paul) fit together hand in glove, but Paula Plum and Richard Snee, another offstage married couple, complete the cast and contribute immeasurably to the hilarity.
With a picnic hosted by the Board of Trustees, the Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University welcomes 2019 company members. Attended by CATF partners, donors, and community members, this annual event is the first time CATF's 2019 company comes to celebrate the six new plays they are about to create. These artists, from around the country, including cities such as New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, gather in historic Shepherdstown to create the future of American theater.
THE HAUNTED LIFE opened at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Boston on March 20 and is running through April 14, 2019.
It's a different time and a different war, but the protagonist in this coming of age story faces many of the same challenges as would a young person today. What do I want to do with my life? Where do I fit in the world? How can I make my mark? Meanwhile, set in the City of Lowell in 1941-2, as it is struggling to come to terms with a surfeit of immigrants, that city today remains a diverse community in a nation that is roiled by the debate over how to deal with a flood of immigrants and asylum seekers. Artistic Director Sean Daniels has adapted Lowell native Jack Kerouac's unfinished, long-lost novel THE HAUNTED LIFE into a play of the same name, now having its world premiere at Merrimack Repertory Theatre, with Daniels co-directing with christopher oscar peña.
City Theatre is thrilled to announce the details of the fifth show of the season: the world premiere of The Burdens by Matt Schatz. The Burdens is a dark comedy for the digital age. It is directed by City Theatre's returning Artistic Director, Marc Masterson, and will run on the City Theatre Lester Hamburg Stage, April 6 - May 12, 2019. Tickets are on sale now.
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