My Shows
News on your favorite shows, specials & more!

Aurora Theatre's Founding Artistic Director Barbara Oliver to Direct WILDER TIMES, 11/2-12/9

By:

Aurora Theatre Company founding Artistic Director Barbara Oliver returns to the company for its 21st season to direct WILDER TIMES, a collection of one-act plays by Thornton Wilder. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist and playwright, and former Berkeley resident, Thornton Wilder is best known for his full length play Our Town, but he was also an accomplished master of the short play form, specifically creating shorter works to be staged in spaces such as Aurora's, with the audience seated on three sides of the action or in the round.

Lifelong friends with Gertrude Stein and a mentor to Edward Albee, Thornton Wilder tirelessly experimented with theatrical forms and conventions. Aurora Theatre Company has put together a program of four of Wilder's greatest shorter works: Infancy (1962), a comedy about fulfilling basic human needs in which babies act like grown-ups and grown-ups act like babies; Childhood (1962), in which Wilder renders a child's-eye view of the grown-up world; The Happy Journey to Trenton and Camden (1931), which features the first appearance of Wilder's narrating Stage Manager character (seven years before Our Town was produced); and The Long Christmas Dinner (1931), perhaps Wilder's most famous short work, in which he breaks the boundaries of time as we measure it, following 90 years of an extended family's holiday dinners. WILDER TIMES features Heather Gordon, Gwen Kingston, Soren Oliver, Marcia Pizzo, Stacy Ross, Patrick Russell, and Brian Trybon.

DATES: Previews: November 2, 3, 7 at 8pm; November 4 at 2pm; November 6 at 7pm
Opens: November 8, 2012
Friday Forum: Friday, November 30 – Grow Up
Script Club: Monday, December 3, 7:30pm – Stein Time by Gertrude Stein
Wicked Wisdom: Friday, December 7 – Life and Death Situations
Closes: December 9

SHOWS: Tuesday at 7pm; Wednesday through Saturday at 8pm; Sunday at 2pm and 7pm
WHERE: Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA

TICKETS: For tickets (Previews $35; Regular Performances $32-50; Limited Opening Night Seating $60) the public can call (510) 843-4822 or visit auroratheatre.org. Half-off tickets for Under 30, student, and group discounts available.

Theater Fans' Choice Awards
2026 Theater Fans' Choice Awards - Live Stats
Best Sound Design - Top 3
1. Adam Fisher - The Lost Boys
36.6% of votes
2. Tony Gayle - Two Strangers (Carry a Cake Across New York)
11.1% of votes
3. John Shivers - Chess
7.2% of votes

Need more San Francisco / Bay Area Theatre News in your life?
Sign up for all the news on the Spring season, discounts & more...


Videos


The Play That Goes Wrong in San Francisco / Bay Area The Play That Goes Wrong
Hillbarn Theatre (4/23-5/17) PHOTOS
Anastasia the Musical in San Francisco / Bay Area Anastasia the Musical
Douglas Morrisson Theatre (5/22-5/31)
Mirabai, The Barefoot Princess in San Francisco / Bay Area Mirabai, The Barefoot Princess
Strand Theater, Rueff Space (5/17-5/17)
“El Tiempo Latine” in San Francisco / Bay Area “El Tiempo Latine”
Center for New Music, 55 Taylor St (5/16-5/16)
Tutti Frutti: The Musical - A Tribute to Little Richard (Concert Show) in San Francisco / Bay Area Tutti Frutti: The Musical - A Tribute to Little Richard (Concert Show)
The California Theatre of Santa Rosa (6/19-6/19)
Back to the Future The Musical in San Francisco / Bay Area Back to the Future The Musical
San Jose Center for the Performing Arts (6/02-6/07)
James Garner's Tribute to Johnny Cash in San Francisco / Bay Area James Garner's Tribute to Johnny Cash
Native Sons Hall (6/26-6/26)
Comedy Oakland at Quinn's Lighthouse Sun May 17 7pm in San Francisco / Bay Area Comedy Oakland at Quinn's Lighthouse Sun May 17 7pm
Quinn's Lighthouse (5/17-5/17)
An Evening with a Mentalist: Jay Alexander's Mind Tricks Live in San Francisco / Bay Area An Evening with a Mentalist: Jay Alexander's Mind Tricks Live
San Francisco Magic Theater (w/Jay Alexander) at the Marrakech (5/22-5/24)
The Fall Show in San Francisco / Bay Area The Fall Show
Shotgun Players Ashby Stage (9/26-10/25)