2007-2008 SEASON

Click here to download a 2007-2008 season brochure.
 

Torch Song Trilogy: Part II/ Fugue in a Nursery by Harvey Fierstein
Aug 10,11, 17, 18, 23, 24, 25, 2007

Torch Song Trilogy began as The International Stud. It continues as Part II/Fugue in a Nursery, a play that truly straddles genres, existing as both comedy and a melodrama. Beginning one year after Ed and Arnold's last meeting, Laurel phones and  invites Arnold to the country for the weekend. He initially resists, but Arnold’s new lover, Alan, wants to go, so he agrees.

The author has noted that he hopes  audiences will recognize themselves in the exchanges between the lovers and in the relationship between mother and child. The plays popularity among a wide range of viewers indicates that it has. Although it is about homosexuals, at its heart it is a play about family, love, and survival. It appeared just as AIDS was recognized as a major medical problem. The play’s reinforcement of the importance of love in all relationships, hetero and gay, served to counter the attacks against gays as promiscuous pleasure seekers.

It opened on Broadway in June, 1983, enjoying a long and successful run, and won several awards, including two Antoinette "Tony" Perry Awards.

Agnes of God by John Pielmeier
October 12, 13,19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 2007

Agnes of God is superficially about a psychiatrist who becomes more in touch with herself and her view of the world while she is analyzing Agnes, a nun barely out of her teens who has given birth in a convent to a child she is now accused of murdering. Agnes claims no memory or knowledge of the event, and her Mother Superior, Mother Miriam Ruth, insists that Agnes does not understand what happened.

Dr. Martha Livingstone, the court- appointed psychiatrist, seeks to find the truth of the matter hidden in Agnes's veiled and cloistered mind. Is she clinically insane, blinded by her faith, a shrewd liar, or just plain dumb?  A psychological war ensues between her and Mother Ruth over Agnes’s mental and spiritual health, and the play highlights the contrasts between science and religion, between the temporal and spiritual, and between facts and faith.

As Dr. Livingstone digs deeper, experiences in her own past threaten to destabilize the investigation and cast doubt on her motives and judgement, and explores the gulf between the secular modern world and the traditional beliefs of Christianity.

NunCrackers by Dan Goggins
November 30, December 1, 7, 8, 13,14, 15, 2007

The Nunsense Christmas Musical, NunCrackers, is presented as the first TV special taped in the Cable Access Studio built by Reverend Mother in the convent basement with part of the prize money won earlier by Sister Mary Paul (aka Amnesia). A live camera with two television monitors is used to create the actual TV Studio feeling for the audience.

It stars all the nuns you love, plus Father Virgil, and four of Mount Saint Helen’s most talented students. Featuring all new songs including Twelve Days Prior to Christmas, Santa Ain’t Comin’ to Our House, We Three Kings of Orient Are Us and It’s Better to Give than to Receive, this show is filled with typical Nunsense humor, some of your favorite carols, and a “Secret Santa” audience participation.

We’re certain this show will make you laugh, and maybe tug at your heartstrings. It’s the perfect way to insure that your holiday season is merry and bright!

The Goat by Edward Albee
February 8, 9, 14*, 15, 16, 21, 22, 23, 2008  (* Special Valentine’s day Performance)

A bold new play by legendary playwright Edward Albee (Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?) concerns Martin, an architect, husband and father. In the same week that he’s received an international prize, been awarded a lucrative contract and celebrated his 50th birthday, he also has to confess to his wife and son that he's involved in a relationship which will probably destroy his marriage, his career and his professional life.

The Goat is a daring and controversial play that has entertained and stunned audiences and critics, alike. The winner of the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play, it was also voted Best Play of 2002 by the New York Drama Critics Circle, received a New York Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Play, and was a finalist for the 2003 Pulitzer Prize in Drama.

Albee described The Goat this way: “Every civilization sets quite arbitrary limits to its tolerances. The play is about a family that is deeply rocked by an unimaginable event and they solve that problem. It is my hope that people will think afresh about whether or not all the values they hold are valid.”

Sordid Lives by Del Shores
April 11, 12, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, 2008

Looking for a little something from the lunatic fringe? Sordid Lives is a tragic tale of loss, love and white trash etiquette. The setting is Winters, Texas, and the characters have names like Sissy, Noleta, Latrelle, La Vonda and Brother Boy.

Sissy is trying to quit smoking, mamma has just died an accidental death at a local cheap motel and Brother Boy has been locked up in the mental institution because he thinks he’s Tammy Wynette...And you thought you had problems!  Filled with references that we can identify with: Laugh-In reruns, Thelma & Louise, and Oprah, it is a laugh a minute farce of twisted lives, death, tears, infidelity, nymphomania and other ‘comic events’.

The  denizens of this cultural black hole certainly put the ‘fun’ back in dysfunctional, and play out their lives against a backdrop of cigarettes, roll-up hair curlers and Airstream trailers. There’s gossiping, pill-popping, eating, talk of honky-tonkying, gun handling, and motorcycle riding. You’ll just hate to admit how much you enjoy the company of these White Trash folks!

This show has some strong  language.

The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh
June 13, 14, 20, 21,26, 27, 28, 2008

This drama tells the tale of Katurian, a fiction writer living in a police state who is interrogated about the gruesome contents of his short stories, and their similarities to a number of bizarre incidents occurring locally. It turns out someone’s been killing children using the same horrific methods described in his stories.

Katurian of course denies these allegations, stating that although his stories are horrendous, it is the job of a storyteller to tell a story. But once you start hearing the stories themselves, in all their enchanting and repulsive glory, it begins to be less clear what is being told here, what’s a story, what’s real, and whether Katurian is really such a sympathetic character after all.

Pillowman is the most provocative work yet from the celebrated author of The Beauty Queen of Leenane, and also his most tender, examining how the redeeming and restorative powers of love and creativity can mitigate or be undone by darker impulses. The Pillowman is unlike anything else you’ll see,  a crackling and sublimely twisted night out.