2023-2024 Season
Doubt: A Parable
by John Patrick Shanley directed by Robin Sutton Underwritten by Alan Bryant Performances October 5 - 21 at 7:30 Sunday Matinee October 15 at 2pm In this brilliant and powerful drama, Sister Aloysius, a Bronx school principal, takes matters into her own hands when she suspects the young Father Flynn of troublesome conduct. Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. “All the elements come invigoratingly together like clockwork in John Patrick Shanley’s provocative new play, DOUBT, a gripping story of suspicion cast on a priest’s behavior that is less about scandal than about fascinatingly nuanced questions of moral certainty. Something rare for this season: a laudable new American play.” —Variety. “How splendid it feels to be trusted with such passionate, exquisite ambiguity unlike anything we have seen from this prolic playwright so far. Blunt yet subtle, manipulative but full of empathy for all sides, the play is set in 1964 but could not be more timely. In just ninety fast-moving minutes, Shanley creates four blazingly individual people. DOUBT is a lean, potent drama…passionate, exquisite, important and engrossing.” —NY Newsday. “A beautifully balanced drama. Shanley is a writer working at the top of his craft, making the most of a muted but evocative palette in the pursuit of truth’s shadows. Here, for the first time in a long time, is a play that is about something.” —Chicago Tribune. “An eloquent and provocative investigation of truth and consequences. A gripping mystery, tightly written.” —Time Out NY. DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE 
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On Golden Pond
by Ernest Thompson directed by Robin Sutton Underwritten in loving memory of Larry Ezell Performances Nov 30 - Dec 16 Sunday Matinee December 10 at 2pm Auditions October 9 & 10 This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the forty-eighth year. He is a retired professor, nearing eighty, with heart palpitations and a failing memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant and eager for life as ever. Ethel, ten years younger, and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist fiancé, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the "grandchild" the elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness—and slang—in return. In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits. “ON GOLDEN POND is a work of rare simplicity and beauty, and in Thompson our theatre has found a fresh new voice.” —NY Daily News. “…a rare and memorable theatrical experience…” —Variety. “What courage it must have taken for Mr. Thompson in the 1970s to write a play with so much affection in it!” —The New Yorker. DRAMATISTS PLAY SERVICE 
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Whose Life Is It Anyway?
by Brian Clark directed by Nancy Woods Fully Underwritten by Cynthia C. Christner Thursdays through Saturdays February 8-24 at 7:30 Sunday Matinee February 18 at 2pm Auditions December 4&5 A brilliant battle of wits takes place in this extraordinary play. Ken Harrison, a successful sculptor, is paralyzed in a car accident and kept alive by support systems in a hospital. Outwardly he's cheerful and often very funny, but he's overwhelmed by the fact that he has lost control of his own life. As the play begins, he is coming to the decision that if he can't live as a man, he does not want to exist as a medical achievement. His physician, however, is utterly determined to preserve Ken's life, regardless of its quality. Finally, despite the pleas of the doctor and his involved nurse, Ken invokes the law of habeas corpus and a judge joins the battle to determine "Whose Life Is It Anyway?" "A battle of ideas and a battle for life. It is a rare successful effort to use a tense and provacative argument, carried on in unashamed vigor and prolixity, with a play that lives and moves." -The New York Times "As relevant today as it was when it won the Society of West End Theatre's best play award." -London Theatre Guide DRAMATIC PUBLISHING COMPANY 
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The Burial at Thebes
by Seamus Heaney directed by Kathryn Sutton Performances April 4-20 Sunday Matinee April 14 Auditions Feb 12 & 13 In The Burial at Thebes, a young woman defies the law of the king with violent and tragic consequences. This version of Sophocles' original play 'Antigone' explores the dangers of pride and absolute belief regardless of personal, political and moral consequences especially in the eternal struggle between the individual and the state, between conscience and society and between divine law and human law. Adapted from the original play 'Antigone' by Sophocles. Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney’s concise, accessible and lyrical translation speaks clearly to modern audiences without sacrificing the play’s classic grace. “A Young Girl Before the King: Seamus Heaney takes possession of a classic and in the process gives us a play for our time.” -The Irish Times IRISH PLAYOGRAPHY 
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The Rainmaker
by N. Richard Nash directed by Jay Thompson Performances May 30 - June 15 Sunday Matinee June 9 at 2pm Auditions April 8 & 9 At the time of a paralyzing drought in the West we discover a girl whose father and two brothers are worried as much about her potential future as an old maid as they are about their dying cattle. For the truth is, she is indeed a plain girl. The brothers try every possible scheme to marry her off, without success. Nor is there any sign of relief from the dry heat, when suddenly, from out of nowhere, appears a picaresque, sweet-talking man with quite the sales pitch. Claiming to be a “rainmaker,” the man promises to bring rain, for $100. It’s a silly idea, but the rainmaker is so refreshing and persistent that the family nally consents, banging on big brass drums to rattle the sky. Meanwhile, the rainmaker also turns his magic on the girl, and persuades her that she has a very real beauty of her own. She believes it, just as her father believes the fellow can actually bring rain. Rain does come, and so does love. "[The Rainmaker's] underlying theme - the need for faith in oneself and others - is universal." - Chicago Reader "The notion of dreams coming true might seem a preposterous conceit in a more cynical era, yet The Rainmaker, N. Richard Nash's unabashedly optimistic 1953 teleplay-turned-Broadway-hit, still has the power to keep disbelief at bay [...] After nearly half a century, The Rainmaker still makes a handsomely staged case for miracles." - Los Angeles Times “The Rainmaker” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com
FUNDRAISER
Holiday Singalong with Mark Bendiksen One night only! December 21 at 7:30 Join us for an evening of holiday singing and help raise FUNds for StageCenter. Season Tickets/Flex Passes cannot be used for this event. 
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Present Laughter
by Noel Coward directed by Jennifer Hargis Underwritten by Alan Bryant Performances August 1 - 17 Sunday Matinee August 11 at 2pm Auditions June 3 & 4 Noël Coward’s Present Laughter follows a self-obsessed actor in the midst of a mid-life crisis. Juggling his considerable talent, ego and libido, the theater’s favorite leading man suddenly nds himself caught between fawning ingénues, crazed playwrights, secret trysts and unexpected twists. At the center of his own universe sits matinee idol Garry Essendine: suave, hedonistic and too old, says his wife, to be having numerous affairs. His line in harmless, infatuated debutantes is largely tolerated but playing closer to home is not. Just before he escapes on tour to Africa the full extent of his misdemeanors is discovered. And all hell breaks loose. "Sharp, withering and funny." -The New York Times "Sharpness and wit...in each succeeding act." -New York Post “...Noel Coward's sublime comedy of manners is as delightful, delicious, and ‘delovely’ as ever.” -NY1 “Present Laughter” is presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Samuel French, Inc. www.concordtheatricals.com
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