ROUGH CROSSING, LEAR, CACTUS CHRISTMAS et al. Set for Beowulf 2011-2012 Season

Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 South 6th Avenue in Downtown Tucson, presents a collection of activities for the 2011-2012 Fall Season of Performances. Offering various programs and activities suitable for a wide range of ages, Beowulf Alley Theatre is committed to reaching out to our community and encouraging participation as audience, performer and volunteer support. For more information about our programs, please explore our website at www.beowulfalley.org or call (520) 882-0555.

On the Baron Stage

Main Stage at Beowulf Alley Theatre offers five plays in the subscriptions series plus one holiday special event at special pricing. Subscriptions are available now! Single tickets go on sale soon with online discounts available.

September 8-October 2, Thursday Preview then Fridays-Sundays: Rough Crossing by Tom Stoppard, directed by Dave Sewell. It's a romping 20s-style farce with music. The famous playwriting team of Turai and Gal are onboard the cruise liner Italian Castle bound for New York. Will Turai and Gal avert disaster, calm their neurotic composer and finish their play before the ship arrives in New York? Of course they will: it's a romping 20s-style farce!

October 27-November 20, Thursday Preview then Fridays-Sundays: Lear by William Shakespeare, adapted and directed by Michael Fenlason. Considered to be the ultimate Shakespearean tragedy, we bring you this contemporary adaptation of a classic work. One of the greatest plays in world literature, Shakespeare's tragedy strips away the trappings of society to reveal the unforgiving truth about the human condition: love and deceit, power and poverty, good and evil. This play's special understanding of old age explains in part why this most devastating of Shakespeare's tragedies is also perhaps the most moving.

December 9-23, Thursday Preview then Wednesdays-Sundays: Holiday Special: A Cactus Christmas by John Vornholt, directed by Pat Timm. This family-friendly holiday story takes place in the ghost town of Wishbone, AZ at a run-down saloon where two desert rats, Alice and Pete, in search of The Treasure Trove of the Lost Turk, have taken up residence declaring squatter's rights. When a family of well-off East Coast visitors arrives looking for a tour of ghost towns, Pete drums up a plan to take advantage of the Easterners' good fortune but somehow that darned ghost keeps interfering. (Special pricing for season subscribers)

January 26-February 19, 2012, Thursday Preview then Fridays-Sundays: We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay! by Dario Fo, Translated by Ron Jenkins and directed by Susan Arnold. A housewife comes home with groceries she has swiped as part of a spontaneous community action where 300 women did the same. In her effort to keep her secret from her husband, she hides some of the groceries under her best friend's raincoat. Her husband and his friend, the accomplice's husband, notIce The bulge, of course, but they believe the explanation that the accomplice is pregnant! Hilarity is piled upon hilarity as the characters try to extricate themselves from the mess they have gotten into. Eventually, they all unite to support the spontaneous resistance to eviction in their housing project.

Old Time Radio Theate
Live presentations of classic productions and reproductions from the golden days of radio. Performances are on the first and third Tuesday of each month at 7 p.m.

September 6
RAISING JUNIOR
SUSPENSE: The Dark Tower

September 20
EASY ACES: Jane Thinks Mink
ESCAPE: The Abominable Snowman

October 4
MA PERKINS
SUSPENSE: Leiningen vs. the Ants (January 14, 1948)

October 18, 2011
OZZIE & HARRIET: Haunted House
MERCURY THEATRE: Dracula

November 1
FIBBER McGEE & MOLLY: Fall Housecleaning
SUSPENSE: Three Skeleton Key (March 17, 1950)

November 15
NBC'S GREAT MOMENTS IN HISTORY: The Landing of the Pilgrims
LIGHTS OUT: Bon Voyage

December 6
ARCHIE ANDREWS: Christmas Shopping (December 13, 1947)
RADIO CITY PLAYHOUSE: Twas the Night Before Christmas (December 24, 1949)

December 20
IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE (March 17, 1947)
Plus, a special for the kids

Out to Lunch Theatre

Developed with the intent to provide downtown employees a mid-day escape but fun for everyone, OTL delivers half-hour performances based on original material by local playwrights. Lunches may be ordered a day ahead of time or patrons may opt to bring their own brown bag. The current productions are based on one of our OTL season openers: Waiting for Norma by David Sewell. Set in Casey's Watering Hole, a place on the way to somewhere else. Virge the Bar Keep and Crazy Sadie serve as a backdrop for the various and sundry characters drifting in and out of the hole, serving up sunflower seeds and the spirit of the moment. September 16, 23 & 30, Fridays, 12:15 p.m.: Episode Three: Hang Down Your Head, Doris Dooley

Active Imagination Theatre

Directed by John Vornholt, the Active Imagination Theatre Ensemble Company performs original plays in which children from the audience are invited onstage to enjoy the fun and creativity of theater. Perfect for ages 4-8. We also tour schools, churches, and community events to foster an appreciation of theater.

October 15-30, Saturdays and Sundays, noon: A Weenie Halloween: A stuffy princess wants to ban Halloween from her kingdom. She instructs her evil wizard to erase everyone's memory of everything to do with Halloween is banned, but one little girl remembers that she used to have a black cat named Spookers. With help from the audience, our heroine goes in search of Spookers and rediscovers all the fun of Halloween.

Season Opening Special:

ONE NIGHT ONLY! September 22, Thursday, 7:30 p.m. Kevin J Thornton in Concert: Back by popular demand after a great reception at the Tucson Fringe Festival! In a way, Kevin J Thornton is a throwback to the golden age of entertainers on the vaudeville circuit-- he sings, he tells jokes, he truly entertains his audiences in clubs and on the underground Fringe Festival circuit. However, Thornton's show is anything but old fashioned. His stories and songs comment on sexuality (the straight and gay kind), religion and American life in a new century. His one-person odyssey's are a fusion of hilarious stand-up comedy, engaging storytelling and self-penned folk/country songs from his 2011 release "January Dreams." The Orlando Sentinel called Thornton "an enthusiastic musician, a quick-witted comic and a really funny storyteller." *Adult language not suitable for children. www.kevinjthornton.com

 

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