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THE SHAPE OF
THINGS
By Neil LaBute
7:00 PM
August
16, 17, 18, 19 |
How far would you go for love? For art?
What concessions would you make? What price would you be willing
to pay? Such are the painful questions explored by Neil LaBute
in, The Shape of Things. A modern day retelling of the
fall of man. After a chance meeting in a museum, Evelyn, a sexy,
aggressive artist, and Adam, a shy, insecure student, become
embroiled in an intense affair. Before long, it veers into the
kind of dangerous, seductive territory that LaBute does best, as
Adam, under Evelyn's steady influence, goes to unimaginable
lengths to improve his appearance and character. |
THE ROCKY
HORROR SHOW
Book, Music and Lyrics
by Richard O'Brien.
7:00 PM
October
11, 12, 13, 14 |
That sweet transvestite and his motley crew
did the time warp on Broadway in a 25th anniversary revival.
Complete with sass from the audience, cascading toilet paper and
an array of other audience participation props, this
deliberately kitschy rock 'n' roll sci fi gothic is more fun
than ever.
"A socko wacko weirdo rock concert."-WNBC
TV.
"A musical that deals with mutating
identity and time warps becomes one of the most mutated, time
warped phenomena in show business."-N.Y. Times.
"Campy trash."-Time.
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THE OUTSIDERS
Adapted by
Christopher Sergel.
From the book by
S.E. Hinton.
7:00 PM
January
24, 25, 26, 27 |
S.E. Hinton, who wrote this modern classic
when she was 16 years old, comments: "The Outsiders,
like most things I write, is written from a boy's point of view.
That's why I'm listed as S.E. Hinton rather than Susan. (I
figured most boys would look at the book and think 'What can a
chick know about stuff like that!') None of the events are taken
from life, but the rest—how kids think and live and feel—is for
real. The characters—Dallas, who wasn't tough enough; Sodapop,
the happy-go-lucky dropout; Bob, the rich kid whose arrogance
cost him his life; Ponyboy, the sensitive, green-eyed Greaser
who didn't want to be a hood—they're all real to me. Many of my
friends are Greasers, but I'm not. I have friends who are rich,
too, but nobody will ever call me a Soc—I've seen what money and
too much idle time and parental approval can do to people. Cool
people mean nothing to me—they're living behind masks and I'm
always wondering "Is there a real person underneath?" This
entirely practical stage adaptation deals with real people, seen
through the eyes of young Ponyboy, a Greaser on the wrong side
of life, caught up in territorial battles between the
have-it-made rich kids "the Socs" and his tough, underprivileged
"greaser" family and friends. In the midst of urban warfare,
somehow Ponyboy can't forget a short poem that speaks of their
fragile young lives:
Nature's first green is
gold, Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief,
so dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.
"Robert Frost wrote it," Ponyboy tells
Johnny. "I always remembered it because I never quite got what
he meant by it." Cherry, a beautiful Soc, comes to share a
special sensitivity with Ponyboy as she discovers that he
remembers poems and needs to watch sunsets. At the same time,
Cherry's attracted to the older, tougher Dallas, and in a sense
she's caught in the violent space between the Greasers and the
Socs. While the Socs appear to have everything, the only thing a
Greaser has is his friends. As these young people try to find
themselves and each other, as the sadness of sophistication
begins to reach them and their battles and relationships reach a
resolution, Ponyboy's dying friend, Johnny, sends him a last
message … I've been thinking about the poem that guy wrote. He
meant you're gold when you're a kid, like green. When you're a
kid everything's new, dawn. It's just when you get used to
everything that it's day. Like the way you dig sunsets, Pony.
That's gold. Keep it that way. It's a good way to be. This is a
play about young people who are not yet hopeless about latent
decency in the midst of struggle.
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THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT
by Stephen Adly
Guirgis
7:00 PM
March
21, 22, 23, 24 |
"THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT shares many
of the traits that have made Mr. Guirgis a playwright to reckon
with in recent years: a fierce and questing mind that refuses to
settle for glib answers, a gift for identifying with life's
losers and an unforced eloquence that finds the poetry in
lowdown street talk…Mr. Guirgis is a zealous and empathic
researcher, and he presents dilemmas of ancient Galilee in terms
winningly accessible to the twenty-first century…" —NY Times.
"Stephen Adly Guirgis has written a
real jaw-dropper… expressionistic fantasy… raw language and
flamboyantly street-savvy characters…his imagination is dazzling
and his command of language downright thrilling." —Variety.
"…one of the most passionate and powerful
young playwrights to have come down the theatrical runway…a must
for anyone interested in the work of thoughtful and original
playwrights." —CurtainUp.
"An extraordinary play…not since
Angels in America have I seen a play so unafraid to
acknowledge the power of the spirit…" —The Guardian (UK).
THE STORY: Set in a time-bending, darkly comic world
between heaven and hell, THE LAST DAYS OF JUDAS ISCARIOT
reexamines the plight and fate of the New Testament's most
infamous and unexplained sinner.
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