Have you ever wondered what actually happened with Hansel and Gretel in that candy house? What really took place between the Little Mermaid and the Handsome Prince under the sea? What does "Kamikakushi (gasp!)" really mean? Wonder no more as Actors' Repertory Theatre unveils the real experiences of Hansel & Gretel, The Little Mermaid and the Japanese legend of Kamikakushi - all rolled into one joyous world premiere musical comedy that takes audiences on a truly theatrical journey, rooted in traditional story-telling and exploding into a multi-media event of epic proportions as the troupe of seven actors portray dozens of separate characters, spaces and places. The audience becomes part of the adventure, along the way offering a thumbs down to selfishness, gluttony, pollution and waste, and assuring that the stories reach their deserved happily-ever-afters.
In this hilarious and moving new comedy/drama, Rochelle, a middle-aged Jewish woman struggling with a crisis of faith, is convinced to join a flamenco class for out of shape women – and her life is changed forever.
HOT CAT is an original play created with the unique talents of Theatre Movement Bazaar, featuring performers from Theatre of NOTE’s ensemble, using a synthesis of dance and theatre, a mixture of comedy and philosophy to create an original and proactive theatrical experience.
I’m Not Rappaport (1985) is set in New York’s Central Park, where Midge, an African American man and Nat, a Jewish man, both elderly, meet and slowly develop a friendship. Midge has been a custodian in his building for many, many years and may face the prospect of soon losing his job. Nat, an old-school leftist who manipulates people by changing identities and affiliations as casually as most people change their clothes, decides to do something about it, despite Midge’s reservations. They’re not alone in the park. There’s a lovely young artist, Laurie, whom the men befriend. There’s Gilley, a kid with a knife running a protection racket. And there’s a far more dangerous character, The Cowboy, the drug connection to whom Laurie is deeply in debt and who plans to do Laurie great bodily harm if she can’t pay her bill. When Nat and Midge attempt to intercede on Laurie’s behalf, they are placing themselves in deadly danger. Can Nat and Midge, so very different, ever really become close friends? Who is Nat, really? (Who he says he is keeps changing.) Will Midge be evicted? Will Laurie, Nat and Midge get themselves killed?
Tony Award winner Phylicia Rashad directs Joe Turner's Come and Gone from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson. Part of Wilson's 10-play cycle chronicling the experience of African-Americans in the 20th century, Joe Turner's Come and Gone was a Tony nominee for Best Play in 1988. Set in the dawning days of a century without slavery, this historical drama finds Herald Loomis -- haunted by seven years on a chain gang -- in Pittsburgh searching for his wife and a new life.
KILL ME examines the fuzzy lines between belief and reality. After a horrific car accident, a young woman emerges from a coma convinced that beings from another dimension have made her immortal. Her sister and lover think she is suffering from mental illness… until the same beings start affecting them as well. Have they opened the gates of Hell upon themselves, or is it all a product of the mind? And ultimately, is there a difference?
A bright and witty story about mid-life dating, with characteristic angst and comedic drama, this story is a hilarious romp through the world of the temporarily unattached. The story begins with two pairs of friends about to meet on a blind double date. Ever unsure about what to expect and how to impress, the four stumble around romance like hapless teenagers.
Helen's entire life has been dictated to her. She she does what society
expects of her, however resistant she may feel. She marries her boss,
whom she finds repulsive and has a baby with him. Followed by an affair
with a younger man who fuels her lust for life, she is driven to murder her
husband. She is found guilty and is executed in an electric chair. Inspired
by the real life case of executed murderess Ruth Snyder. Its 1928
Broadway premiere is considered one of the high-points of American
Expressionist theatre.
Tara Grammy is at the Whitefire Theatre for a limited run of her award-winning one-woman show, Mahmoud. A winner at both the New York and Toronto Fringe Festivals, this irreverent and capriciously clever performance sees Grammy slipping into the personas of an aging Iranian engineer-cum-taxi driver, a fabulously gay Spaniard and a young Iranian-Canadian girl, all trying to get through the daily grind in the big city. Over the course of an hour, their stories come together, and themes of displacement, immigration, home, and culture are explored through the connections formed with the audience and between each character.
From the Pulitzer Prize-winning Thornton Wilder, THE MATCHMAKER is a charming all-American farce about love and money. Businessman and penny-pincher Horace Vandergelder is searching for a wife and obtains the help of social hurricane and matchmaker extraordinaire, Mrs. Dolly Levi (the inspiration for the Broadway musical, HELLO DOLLY!). This big-hearted comedy is complete with mistaken identities, hijinks galore and a dose of Wilder’s sage wisdom.
Winner of the Tony Award for Best Play, THE MIRACLE WORKER is the true-life story of young Helen Keller, blind and deaf, and her struggle to overcome adversity with the help of an extraordinary teacher who taught her to communicate with the world. A miraculous story of determination, hope and love.
August Strindberg's classic about sex, greed and manipulation is adapted by the modern master of such tantalizing topics: Neil LaBute. The scandalous turn of the century drama, banned in Britain for nearly fifty years after its publication, chronicles the night-long flirtation and seduction between the wealthy lady of the house and one of her father's household employees. Set on Long Island just before the 1929 stock market crash and featuring one of theater's most commanding female characters, this world premiere adaptation couples provocateurs Strindberg and LaBute who capture the timeless consequences of passion and power.
My Mother's Keeper moves fluidly back and forth between 1914 and the present, taking place within the memories of four generations of women in a show business family. Looking through the lens of the mother-daughter dynamic, My Mother's Keeper is an examination of our matriarchal inheritance, with all its inherent and inherited blessings and curses. It is a moving, sometimes very funny, sometimes disturbing, ultimately healing work.
When a ruthless splinter group seizes power in Washington, a bureaucrat for the State Department runs off with the new regime’s top-secret Enemies List. With Department of Homeland Security agents trailing him, he finds himself trapped in a police station in a small Missouri town. His last hope for survival is in the people around him: an unsympathetic police chief, an ambivalent administrative assistant, and a fellow prisoner a motor-mouthed local who’s turned herself in for drunk driving. The North Plan is a sharp, dark, dystopian comedy set in the here and now.
ONE WHITE CROW is the story of a journalist given an unexpected assignment and asks the question: is there such a thing as after death communication? Tess O’Neill, topnotch journalist, recently lost her science-writer father to cancer. Her assignment is to profile famous television medium Judith Knight. An exclusive like this is impossible to turn down. But when Judith tells her this profile is all the idea of the spirit of Tess’s dead father, Tess enlists the help of her father’s protégé, renowned skeptic Alex Rimbaud, to help prove Judith to be a fraud. As the profile moves forward, however, Tess’s search for the truth proves to be a far more slippery and elusive process than she thought.
Opening Night is a laugh riot. Even though it pokes some fun, it nonetheless affirms that the theatre is a place of magic, where wonderful things happen, in particular for members of the audience.
This radically fresh retelling of the JM Barrie classic explores the original ideas and inspirations behind the iconic fantasy of Peter Pan. Peter Pan: The Boy Who Hated Mothers is a dark new retelling of the story of the boy who wouldn’t grow up. This is ‘Peter Pan’ as you have never seen it before, but how it was always meant to be told. “This dark, disturbing, yet magical adaptation based on JM Barrie’s original ideas behind Peter Pan is one of the most thrilling scripts I have read in years,” said The Blank Artistic Director Henning. “Michael Lluberes’ adaptation and Michael Matthews’ visionary direction are a perfect match. I am excited for our audiences to experience Peter Pan as they have never experienced it before.”
