2015-16 Mainstage Season

"Theatre is a gift. The most finely wrought, labyrinthine, enduring, and unrepeatable gift of live performance that we get to share with one another."
-From the 2015-16 season introduction by John Green

 
 
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Glockenspiel

At a time when the United States’ volunteer army is stretched
to the breaking point, Glockenspiel explores the war on the home front, the alliances formed by those left behind, and the sense of betrayal and rage that undermines trust, support, and hope. While tackling issues of race, class, and sex, the play also celebrates the humor and spirit of ordinary people trapped in an extraordinary situation. 

 
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The Drowsy Chaperone

An homage to American musicals of the Jazz Age and the effect they had on one adoring far. The Man in Chair, an agoraphobic Broadway fanatic with a “non-specific sadness” is comforted by a recording of “The Drowsy Chaperone,” a fictional 1928 musical comedy. As he listens to this rare recording, the musical’s characters inhabit his dingy apartment and transform his life.

 
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Blues for an Alabama Sky

The creative euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression as a handful of friends navigate high times and dire challenges. Guy dreams of designing gowns for and sipping champagne with Josephine Baker in Paris. In the meantime he keeps his best friend Angel as close to fabulous as their limited budgets will allow. Dumped by her gangster boyfriend, Angel has her eye on a kind widower looking to fill the hole in his heart. 

 
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Women on the Verge of a Breakdown

Madrid. 1988. The city pulses with art, industry, and passion. Pepa’s world, however, is unraveling. First, her lover Ivan leaves her. And then she meets his ex-wife. And his son. And his new girlfriend. All with grief and unresolved issues of their own. Meanwhile, Pepa’s best friend is entangled in a romantic crisis with a suspected criminal. The story revolves around women and the men who pursue them: finding them, losing them, needing them, and rejecting them. 

 

Love and Information

Technology makes it possible for everyone to make contact at lightning speed, and yet the process has also made it almost impossible for people to genuinely connect and experience intimacy. In the age of information overload, how do we find the time to distinguish between the superficial and the genuine? Flicking through TV channels with the remote, or surfing the internet, the digital society has rendered our lives as shards and slivers of reality open to limitless interpretation. 

 
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Death and the King's Horseman

Yoruba tradition dictates that when the king dies, his horseman must continue to serve him in the afterlife and voluntarily join him in death. Honored and prepared to do what is expected of him, Elesin, the king’s loyal horseman, prepares for the impending ritual with the support and blessings of his family and village. But the occupying British authorities have their reasons for wanting to keep the horseman alive and arrest him to prevent his departure. Based on a real incident in Nigeria in 1946, the persistent roar to honor sacred traditions takes the horseman’s journey through many unexpected turn.