2011-2012 Season

 

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Hamlet & The Prince Formerly Known As Hamlet

by William Shakespeare & Bruce Kane
May 4 – May 20, 2012
Directed by Bobby Jones & Samara Golabuk

A night of one acts that both tell the same story, only from different angles. The first is an edited and revised version of one of Shakespeare’s masterworks: Hamlet, it is told in the traditional fashion, just far more condensed. The second involves the tough talking, hardboiled detective Justin Thyme as he travels to 11th century Denmark to find out who whacked Hamlet’s old man and runs into a king named Claudius who wants him dead, a prince named Hamlet who doesn’t know what he wants and a dame named Ophelia who wants everything including Thyme.


The Aunts

by Gary Bonasorte
March 30 – April 15, 2012
Directed by Katie Kirkpatrick

This drama, set in the living room of a house in Pittsburgh in 1979, is about three women one niece and two aunts. Aunt Meg has come to be with her sister Nan, whose husband is upstairs in agony, dying of cancer. She is also taking advantage of this opportunity to flee her abusive husband. The niece, Pita, arrives to try and cheer everyone up; but the only effect she has is to make everyone even more nervous and upset particularly when they learn that ungainly, plain, not too bright Pita is going to have a baby.


Love Letters

by A.R. Gurney
February 3 – February 19, 2012
Directed by Carol Velasques-Richardson
Featuring the talents of Jerry and Vivian Rose

The play centers on just two characters, Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III. Using the epistolary form sometimes found in novels, they sit side by side at tables and read the notes, letters and cards – in which over nearly 50 years–from their meeting in the second grade until one of them dies–they discuss their hopes and ambitions, dreams and disappointments, victories and defeats – that have passed between them throughout their separated lives.


Galileo of Gainesville

co-written over 2 years by dozens of denizens of Gainesville’s streets and woods
January 13 – January 29, 2012
Directed by Dan Kahn

A modern-day drama centering around an astronomy professor, cosmology, spirituality, and homelessness. This is an original script written by a Gainesville resident, and we are very excited to be able to bring it to our stage!

Inspiration comes hard and squirrely into the mind of an astronomy professor. As his accustomed structures crumble, other things are rising…and shining. From classroom to living room to parkland to dreamscape, and from the heights of academia to the grime of street-living, our hero’s journey must include all voices, all visions, to give sense to his expanding sensibilities.


A Christmas from Heck

by Rob Nash
December 2 – December 18, 2011
Directed by Jessica Arnold

Typical of every good middle class family in Austin, the Hecks gather for a Christmas with their kept secrets but we all know what happens after that set up falls apart…. Austin Heck and his wife Kiama steel themselves for one last Heck yuletide hurrah before the divorce. Their autistic son Bowie Heck recites lines from old movie comedians while awaiting a probation hearing for counter attacking a nasty bully at school. Austin’s little brother, Bowie’s uncle and godfather, the chronically poor, chronically underemployed comedy writer Travis Heck shows up with less-than-half-his-age date Chloe who immediately falls in love with all things Heck. Baby sister Crockett Heck arrives late snarfing eggnog, deliberately and shamelessly tumbling off the wagon. And of course there’s that stranger’s final act pistol which blasts recovering alcoholic Dad’s and Alzheimer’s suffering Mom’s secrets out into the open. Can a typical dysfunctional Christmas force typical Austin, Texas dysfunctional suburban family to find a safe harbor in each other? We’ll bring the eggnog, you bring the family!


Oleanna

by David Mamet
October 28 – November 13, 2011
Directed by Aran S. Graham

Oleanna is a thought-provoking play that looks at the issue of sexual harassment on-campus in a radical light. On stage are two characters. An under-grad student, waiting, seated in front of her professor (whose class she has failed) to discuss her grades. He is on the phone, discussing the impending purchase of his house? And he starts addressing the student. She starts fumbling for words, starts taking notes, the exorcism begins! Before the play is halfway through, the Professor is brought before Tenure Committee for sexual harassment. Who is right, who is wrong? In the process, it questions the basic fabric of the entire society.


Hunter Gatherers

by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb
September 23 – October 9, 2011
Directed by James T. Henri

In Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s critically lauded satire “Hunter Gatherers”, two married couples join together for a dinner party in celebration of their mutual anniversaries. As the evening wears on, the tension becomes unbearable, egos are bruised, and truths are revealed.

“Hunter Gatherers” explores the primal beasts burrowed below the surface of our human guise, examining buried complexities within sustained relationships with a quick wit, twisted plotting, and full of sparkling details which will aim a light toward the darker natures lurking within our core.

*Mature Audiences Suggested: “Hunter Gatherers” contains Adult Themes, Adult Situations, Adult Language, & 1980′s Music.


You Know I Can’t Hear You When The Water’s Running

by Robert Anderson
August 19 – September 4, 2011
Directed by Jerry Rose

A collection of four unrelated one-act comedy plays.

In The Shock of Recognition, playwright Jack Barnstable auditions Richard Pawling for a role that requires nudity and discovers the overeager actor is more than willing to show his stuff. The Footsteps of Doves focuses on Harriet and George, a married couple shopping for twin beds after many years of marriage. George, who is opposed to the change, strikes up a conversation with Jill, a considerably younger fellow shopper who shares his view. In I’ll Be Home for Christmas, Chuck and Edith realize how empty their marriage has become as they await the arrival of their adult children. I’m Herbert is a scattered conversation between Herbert and Muriel, an elderly couple with memory problems who try in vain to recall their earlier relationships.