Performance Season

Fall 2010

JOHN GUARE'S  THE HOUSE OF BLUE LEAVES

The House of Blue Leaves is a heartbreakingly human comedy that explores the lengths people will go to in their quest for the American Dream. Declared by the New York Times as "enchantingly zany and original” The House of Blue Leaves fuses comedy, gritty drama and cultural commentary into an explosion of absurdity that pits disarmingly funny lines against the tragic circumstances of unfulfilled lives. With his comic examination of the pursuit of fame, John Guare depicts the destructive nature of the media on people’s dreams and personal lives.

The fanciful, swirling, eccentric world conjured by Guare garnered several prestigious awards, including the Obie, the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best American Play and in 1986 a Tony Award.

Direction by Glenn Gauer
Designs by Bruce Keller and Margaret Chapman

Performs Friday, Nov. 12 through Saturday Nov. 20, 2010 in Lincoln Performance Hall
at 7:30 p.m. on Wed. through Sat. performances
and 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 14

Winter 2011

ZOO STORY and MOUNTAIN LANGUAGE by Edward Albee and Harold Pinter

These one-act plays bookend the careers of two of the 20th century's greatest English language playwrights, American Edward Albee and Briton Harold Pinter. Zoo Story was penned  in 1958 at the beginning of Albee's career (1928-   ) and Mountain Language in 1988 at the zenith of Pinter's career (1930-2008). Albee has won three Pulizer Prizes and three Tony Awards. Pinter is the recipient of the Cohen Prize, the Olivier Award, the Légion d'honneur and the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Performs: Thursday January 13 through Saturday, January 22 in Lincoln Studio Theatre

at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday through Saturday performances
and 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, January 16

Thursday January 13 Preview - FREE

FEFU AND HER FRIENDS by Maria Irene Fornes 

Written by the pioneering avant-garde dramatist Maria Irene Fornes, this Obie award-winning play explores the lives of eight complicated, privileged women who gather together in Fefu's country New England home on a spring day in the 1930's. Hallucinogenic, mysterious, thought-provoking, and one of our most beloved off-Broadway plays, "Fefu and Her Friends" is a provocative, feminist exploration of the expectations, inconsistencies, and double standards that even the most aristocratic women endured - and continue to endure. This production will mark the West Coast premiere of Fornes' one-set version."

Direction by Devon Allen
Designs by Glenn Gauer and Margaret Chapman

Performs: February 24, Thursday at 7:30, Preview Performance
February 25 - 26, Friday - Saturday at 7:30
February 27, Sunday at 2:00
March 2 - 5, Wednesday - Saturday at 7:30

Spring 2011

OLEANNA by David Mamet

A seething investigation of "political correctness" in a time when the nation's morality has been tested by increased incidents of sexual harassment. "OLEANNA is likely to provoke more arguments than any play this year." —NY Times. "One of the ten best plays of 1992…reason enough to cheer for the future of the theatre." —Time Magazine.

Direction by Michael O'Connell

Performs: April 14 Thursday,  Preview Performance
Friday through Saturday, April 16 at 7:30
Sunday April 17 at 2:00 p.m.
Thursday through Saturday, April 21 through 23 at 7:30 

HAMLET  The First Quarto by William Shakespeare 

Hamlet, but not as we know it.

Since its rediscovery in 1823, the Q1 has proven puzzling to many. Half the length of the “canonical” versions of the Second Quarto (1604) and first Folio (1623) and significantly different in some of the most familiar speeches, the Q1 has often been labeled the “bad quarto” and therefore marginalized and too often ignored. However, recent scholarship has ‘rediscovered’ the Q1 yet again, and new thinking is reassessing not only the claims of it being a touring version and that it reflects Elizabethan performance practice, but also that its deeper language structures reveal a keen intelligence behind the edits and scene arrangements.  

As the editors of the third edition of the Arden Hamlet assess the Q1, “[This] is not the canonical Hamlet: it is a refreshing experience for actors and audiences who have become jaded with the longer texts; everything is at once familiar and oddly alien … it is Hamlet, but not as we know it.”

Direction by Karin Magaldi
Designs by Bruce Keller and Margaret Chapman

Preview Thursday, May 19
Performs Friday, May 20 through Saturday, May 28, 2011 in Lincoln Performance Hall
at 7:30 p.m. on Wed. through Sat. performances
and 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 22  

WHITE NIGHTS, Dostoevsky's  Short Story, adapted by Carolyn Holzman

Direction and design by Carolyn Holzman

Performs Friday through Sunday, June 3 - 5, 2011 in Lincoln Studio Theatre at 7:30 on Friday and Saturday and 2:00 on Saturday and Sunday

SPRING CHOREOGRAPHY CLASS PERFORMANCE

Lincoln Performance Hall, June 7 and 8, 2011, 7:30 PM.  Admission:  Free.