Category Archives: 2011-12 Season

Tarantara! Tarantara! (May 10-19, 2012)

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A Musical

Book, music, and lyrics by Ian Taylor. With music by Sir Arthur Sullivan.

This delightful small-scale musical tells the story of the famous Gilbert and Sullivan partnership filled with the incredible successes and the divisions that would threaten their collaboration. We see the highs: their meeting, the association with impresario Richard D’Oyly Carte, the mounting achieve-ments in comic opera, but we also see the problems: the divergencies of temperament and conflicting ambitions, Gilbert’s obsession with his “lozenge” story and the trouble it caused, Sullivan’s lavish social life and its disruptive consequences, his ill health, and the famous tragi-comic quarrel over a new carpet for the theatre. All of these episodes and more are covered as musical excerpts from their well-known operas are threaded into this story.

Bus Stop (March 15-24, 2012)

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A Drama by William Inge

In this warm and affecting hit drama, with romantic and some comedic elements, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright William Inge examines some of the many faces of love. Bus Stop is about a group of strangers travelling by bus stranded in a rural Kansas diner during a freak snowstorm. The compelling narrative observes eight characters as they experience frustration, tears and laughter, examine their own motivations and forge unlikely romantic connections in a single night.

The Play’s the Thing (January 12-21, 2012)

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A Comedy by Ferenc Molnar

The Play’s The Thing is one of the funniest comedies ever written about the theatre. In it, playwright Turai and his collaborator bring a young composer, Albert Adam, on a surprise visit to a castle on the Italian Rivera with their prima donna, Ilona, Albert’s fiancee. When Albert overhears his beloved being wooed in her boudoir, Turai tells him it is all a silly mistake, explaining to the besotted young man that the passionate scene was merely a rehearsal for a new play. To support his fabrication, Turai stays up all night to write a play which includes the overheard love talk. The next day, during a public rehearsal, the suggestive dialogue is reborn as an innocent, harmless bit of dialogue from a play, but actually a barbed satire showing just how ridiculous a writer can make an actor appear, especially when the actor is in no position to protest!

Praise for The Play’s the Thing

 

Crown Matrimonial (November 17-26, 2011)

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A Drama by Royce Ryton

This year sees the 75th anniversary of the 1936 abdication crisis which brought the diffident and stuttering King George VI to the throne, an event depicted in the recent highly successful film, The King’s Speech. It is this crisis which is at the heart of Royce Ryton’s play, showing us the volatile relationship between Queen Mary and her son King Edward VIII caused by his love affair with a divorced woman, Wallis Simpson. The author shows us the King’s conviction that without Mrs. Simpson he could not do his job, and his readiness to sacrifice his throne and his family, espe-cially his stammering younger brother, who must succeed him.

The Winslow Boy (September 29 – October 8, 2011)

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A Drama by Terence Ratigan

Based on a true incident, The Winslow Boy is considered by some to be the finest work of the brilliant British writer Sir Terence Ratigan, a master of the “well made play” and immensely popular at the box office during his life time. In the play, young Ronnie Winslow is accused of theft and is expelled from the Royal Naval College at Osborne without a trial. Ronnie protests his inno-cence to his father, who is determined to clear his son’s name no matter what the cost. It is the father’s fight to “Let Right Be Done” in the face of injustice that captivates and enthrals the audience.

Praise for The Winslow Boy