Our 2020-2021 Season!
The Drowning Girls
September 4th - September 27th, 2020
Written by Beth Graham, Charlie Tomlison, Daniela Vlaskalic
Directed by James P. Darvas
Bessie, Alice, and Margaret have two things in common: they are married to George Joseph Smith, and they are dead. Surfacing from the bathtubs they were drowned in, the three breathless brides gather evidence against their womanizing, murderous husband by reliving the shocking events leading up to their deaths. Reflecting on the misconceptions of love, married life, and the not-so-happily ever after, The Drowning Girls is both a breathtaking fantasia and a social critique, full of rich images, a myriad of characters, and lyrical language.
The Mad Ones
October 30th - November 22nd, 2020
Written by Brian Lowdermilk and Kait Kerrigan
Directed by Leigh Scarritt
Samantha Brown balances on the edge of her future, car keys in hand. As she sits in the driver's seat, she faces a choice: will she follow in her mother's footsteps, or take the dare of her impetuous best friend and chart a new path? This contemporary and compelling score from one of NYC's most exciting new songwriting teams immerses audiences in the complex inner life of a young woman on the brink of change. When every choice feels like life and death, how do you turn the key?
Admissions
January 8th - January 31st, 2021
Written by Josh Harmon
Directed by James P. Darvas
Bill and Sherri are the white, progressive-and-proud headmaster and dean of admissions at Hillcrest, a mid-tier New Hampshire boarding school. Over the last fifteen years, they’ve worked to diversify the school’s mostly white population. But when their high-achieving son Charlie’s Ivy League dreams are jeopardized, the family's reaction blasts open a deep rift between their public values and private decisions. A no-holds-barred look at privilege, power, and the perils of whiteness from the author of Bad Jews.
The Other Place
February 19th-March 14th, 2021
Written by Sharr White
Directed by Sandra Ruiz
Just as Juliana Smithton’s research leads to a potential breakthrough, her life takes a disorienting turn. During a lecture to colleagues at an exclusive beach resort, she glimpses an enigmatic young woman in a yellow bikini amidst the crowd of business suits. One step at a time, a mystery unravels as contradictory evidence, blurred truth and fragmented memories collide in a cottage on the windswept shores of Cape Cod.
Turning Off the Morning News
April 9th - May 2nd, 2021
Written by Christopher Durang
Directed by Adam Parker
Cliff and Salena are happily living a nice, normal life in the suburbs. But their neighbors, Jimmy and Polly, threaten to disrupt their domestic bliss. They’re sometimes a little strange—and sometimes completely unhinged. Equally unnerving and delightful, TURNING OFF THE MORNING NEWS takes hilarious aim at the absurdity of our modern world.
The Blue Period
June 4th - 27th, 2021
Written by Charles Borkhuis
Directed by James P. Darvas
While reading John Richardson’s A Life of Picasso (vol.1 1881-1906), I became fascinated by a series of incidents following 19-year old Picasso’s arrival in Paris in 1900. These events culminated in the Blue Period, before which, as Norman Mailer suggests in his Portrait of Picasso as a Young Man, “… we cannot say [Picasso] possesses a style.”
An emotionally riveting, chaotic narrative began to emerge around several young Spanish painters living in Montmartre, who frequented the Parisian music halls, museums, and bordellos during the turn of the 20th century. I found myself drawn to a central story that involved Picasso, his young painter-friend Carles Casagemas, Germaine, a French model, and Manyac, a Spanish art dealer living and working in Paris. One of the questions I began to ask was: What led the immensely gifted young Picasso, who soaked up the artistic bohemian lifestyle and cultural “banquet years” of Paris, into the deepest depression of his life? Ironically, Picasso’s near nervous breakdown resulted in producing the Blue Period, an artistic breakthrough that Gertrude Stein characterized as “… the foundation of all his subsequent art.”