ARTIFACE and AFFECTIONS OF MAY Included in MSTW Summer Season

This year, Main Street Theatre Works (MSTW) celebrates 30 years of live theatre in Amador County. The company started in 1995 at the Sutter Creek Theatre, their home for 7 years. When they were forced out of the theatre, due to new ownership, they moved around to different local spaces performing dinner theatre, all the while looking for a permanent venue. In 2004 they partnered with the Kennedy Mine Foundation to build an amphitheatre on North Main Street in Jackson. With an army of volunteers working tirelessly all spring, the Kennedy Mine Amphitheatre was completed just in time for their inaugural performance of Much Ado About Nothing. This year is their 21st at the Amphitheatre, and their 30th year as a company.

MSTW performs two shows every summer and this year they’re presenting Artifice, by Anne Flanagan, directed by Steven Minow, and Affections of May, by Norm Foster, directed by Julie Anchor. Performances are at the Kennedy Mine Amphitheatre, 1127 N. Main Street in Jackson.

Their first show of the 2025 Summer Season is Artiface, and runs Friday and Saturday nights from June 20 through July 19. Maggie La Rue and art gallery manager Richard are rushing to put the finishing touches on their private showing, and hopefully sale, of paintings by Maggie’s late husband Payne, presumed dead in a skiing accident. His work largely ignored in life seems to have accrued considerable value with his passing, hopefully enough to pay off the sizeable debts the artist left behind. So in a near-blinding snowstorm, Maggie & Richard prepare to host high profile guests, with connections and lots of money. But the evening isn’t going quite as planned, as guests are snowed in including a bartender who knows little about serving at a classy event, a handsome but clueless soap opera star, a humorless art critic, and an unexpected guest, whose timing couldn’t be worse. There’s plenty of intrigue, and plenty of laughs.

The second show of the season is Affections of May, running Friday and Saturday nights from August 8 through September 6. May and her husband, Brian, have moved to the country for a quieter, less stressful life, by purchasing a Bed and Breakfast in a small resort town. The trouble is, Brian doesn’t like the country life and is eager to get back to the city, leaving May is alone in a small town, where everyone knows everyone’s affairs.  As the word quickly spreads about a new “single” woman in town, suitors soon appear at her door. There’s Quinn, a down on his luck handyman, looking to work for room and board after his trailer burnt down, and Hank, a lonely loan officer and a bit of a loser when it comes to love. His only passions are collecting coffee mugs and playing Scrabble, but that all changes when he meets May. And as the two men get to know May, long buried secrets are revealed and lives are changed, including May’s. There are plenty of laughs and mystery in this heart-warming story.

About Main Street Theatre Works 

Main Street Theatre Works is a professionally oriented theatre company, performing in the heart of Amador County. Now entering its 30th season, and our 21st Summer Season at the Kennedy Mine Amphitheatre, MSTW continues its dedication to bringing professional and community theatre artists together to produce classical and contemporary plays, striving for a balance that stimulates both artists and audiences.