The Pear Theatre Announces Season 21

The Pear Theatre has announced its 21st season lineup featuring uplifting, celebratory stories and programming centered around diversity in community, and co-productions that foster strong, enduring communal alliances. This Big. Bold. Brave. season, The Pear will be focusing on Connecting Through Community, featuring an exciting new season structure with continued Pear Pairings (repertory productions) - a new tradition beloved by Pear patrons.

The Pear is thrilled to stage fearless productions that enhance and embolden representation, foster a coalition of allies in the arts, and galvanize the Bay Area at large in unifying ways. In addition to mainstage shows, The Pear will prominently feature consistent monthly programming including The Pear Improv Crew on the second Sunday of each month (August 2022 - May 2023), and the Pear Pressure Cabaret (in collaboration with Harmony Werks) on the fourth Sunday of every month (August 2022 - May 2023). New and continued partnerships include Harmony Werks, Silicon Valley Fringe Festival, and Perspective Theatre Company. Season 21 tickets and subscriptions will be available starting on July 31, 2022 at The Pear's Midsummer Magic Party hosted at the theatre. The Pear will hold General Auditions for its entire season in July.

"We've felt the loss of community so deeply over the course of the pandemic," shares The Pear's Executive Artistic Director, Sinjin Jones. "What theatre does so well is bring people together and we are excited to offer a season and additional programming that celebrates just that: all the different ways we form community."

Season 21 kicks off with two shows in repertory: Collective Rage: A Play in 5 Betties by Jen Silverman and Bull In A China Shop by Bryna Turner playing September 9 - October 2. In Collective Rage, Betty is rich; Betty is lonely; Betty's busy working on her truck; Betty wants to talk about love, but Betty needs to hit something. And Betty keeps using a small hand mirror to stare into parts of herself she's never examined. Five different women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and the "thea-tah." Inspired by the real letters between Mary Woolley and Jeannette Marks spanning from 1899 to 1937, Bull In A China Shop is a fast-paced comedy that asks: What is revolution? What does it mean to be at odds with the world? How do we fulfill our potential? And how the hell do we grow old together?

Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally plays next from December 1 - 18. The setting is a walk-up apartment on Manhattan's West Side where, as the curtain rises, Frankie (a waitress) and Johnny (a short-order cook who works in the same restaurant) are discovered in bed. It is their first encounter, after having met several weeks ago on the job, and Frankie is hopeful that Johnny will now put on his clothes and depart, so she can return to her usual routine of watching TV and eating ice cream. Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune explores intimacy and vulnerability in humanity's most sensitive moments, and encourages trust and companionship when something positive comes into one's life.

The New Year brings another two shows in repertory February 3 - 26 that will employ movement to convey two powerful tales, including a new adaptation of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley paired with Dontrell Who Kissed The Sea by Nathan Alan Davis. Frankenstein tells the story of gifted scientist Victor Frankenstein who succeeds in giving life to a being of his own creation. However, this is not the perfect specimen he imagines that it will be, but rather a hideous creature who is rejected by Victor and mankind in general. The Monster seeks its revenge through murder and terror. In this adaptation, we explore the depths of the search for community. Dontrell Who Kissed The Sea follows eighteen-year-old Dontrell Jones the Third who decides that it is his duty and destiny to venture into the Atlantic Ocean in search of an ancestor lost during the Middle Passage. But his family is not at all ready to abandon its prized son to the waters of a mysterious and haunting past. Blending poetry, humor, wordplay, and ritual, this is a present-day hero's quest exploring the lengths and depths we must go to redeem history's wrongs.

Previously lauded as "a solid collection of laughs" and an "eclectic mix of theatre that collectively appeals to a wide audience" by Bay Area critics, Pear Slices, our time-honored production of fully staged short plays written by The Pear Playwrights Guild, plays April 21 - May 14, 2023. Bay Area playwright Leah Halper, whose new works have been staged sixteen times in Pear Slices, shares, "I am so shaped and changed by my work at The Pear. I have worked at many other theatres, but Pear people are the best, and the vision to make theatre that speaks to both old and new audiences is very exciting to me."

The Pear concludes Season 21 with Falsettos, book and lyrics by William Finn and James Lapine with music by William Finn, playing June 30 - July 23. A seamless pairing of March of the Falsettos and Falsettoland, two acclaimed Off-Broadway musicals written nearly a decade apart, Falsettos is the tale of a neurotic New Yorker named Marvin, who leaves his wife Trina and young son Jason to live with his lover, Whizzer. In time, Trina marries his psychiatrist, Whizzer leaves him, and Marvin ends up alone. Two years later, Marvin and Whizzer reunite on the eve of Jason's bar mitzvah, just as AIDS is beginning its insidious spread. With the help of their neighbors, Charlotte and Cordelia, Marvin and his entire family learn to grow up and face their future with love and dignity.

Additional Pear programming featured throughout the season will include Fresh Produce, a developmental series of staged readings of full length plays from The Pear Playwrights' Guild, and our annual one-act festival, Fresh Baked Pears, in Spring 2023. Our education program, Pear Seeds, offered as a Winter Break Camp February 20 - 24, provides students with the academic skill sets that inspire, empower, advance, and equip the next generation of theatre artists with the comprehensive instruction and preparation they need to truly blossom and flourish. In collaboration with Harmony Werks, The Pear will also host SV Fringe Festival in Fall 2022.

The Pear Theatre was founded in 2002 by Diane Tasca and came under the leadership of its third Artistic Director, Sinjin Jones, in 2020. Its mission is to ignite the passions, awareness, actions, and lives of all who visit in transformative ways by sharing stories that represent the full spectrum of the human experience. The theatre, a state-of-the-art black box with a capacity of 75-99 seats, has been recognized by the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle with the Paine Knickerbocker Award. The Pear is home to The Pear Playwrights' Guild which hosts a developmental reading series, an annual production of new one-acts (Pear Slices), a theatre student immersion and education program (Pear Roots), and recently launched The Pear Seeds Youth Camp.