SUMMER 10
subscription $42 • wed – sun: 8 pm • All seats $25 • Tickets & information: 401.247.4200
THE LATE CHRISTOPHER BEAN
Sidney Howard
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A small town Massachusetts doctor is unknowingly in possession of some very valuable paintings
by the late Christopher Bean. As his small country home is descended upon by New York City
bigwigs, the doctor's family, along with their true-to-heart maid, plunges head-long into the big
city art world, laden with unsavory swindlers. It's a hilarious game of "Painting, Painting, who
owns the Painting?" until the final truth is revealed and honesty wins the day!
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Painfully shy and socially inept Charlie retreats to a fishing cabin in Georgia to escape his
unhappy marriage in England. Since he is unwilling to meet new people, his buddy Froggy
creates a perfect ruse: to pretend that Charlie is a foreigner who doesn't understand a word of
English. Once Froggy leaves, the visiting guests (some good, some not so good) freely reveal
their secrets in front of the 'foreigner'. Through his careful disguise, Charlie discovers that a plot
is afoot and becomes the hero of the day, foiling the evil doers' plan in a side-splitting rescue
effort.
SEASON 10-11
Summer's all done so it just stands to reason,
Ed Shea should announce 2nd Story's new season.
Five comedies (more than a nudge and a wink),
They'll lead you to laugh while they leave you to think.
KIMBERLY's cute, effervescent, a pixie.
She's only 16, but she looks like she's 60.
She chatters, she worries, a typical teen:
Cute boyfriend, dysfunctional family scene.
She'll charm you, disarm you, perhaps bring a tear.
A lively first step to a lovely new year.
In love and in war, they say, everything's fair,
L'amour is a battle of wits to Moliere:
The dimwits, the prim wits, young lovers, old goats,
Deft rhyming, great timing, and pure comic notes.
So transfer your credits once autumn arrives:
Semester begins for Moliere's School for WIVES.
A tale set in Providence, told with great skill:
A blind date, a hedge fund, a mother, a will.
A smart play with startling je ne sais quoi —
Compelling! We're telling you: see Becky SHAW.
Its dark sense of humor, its rapier wit —
The mark of a major league, megawatt hit.
The west coast of Ireland's a cultural hub —
The language! The setting! The people! The pubs!
When young Christy Mahon arrives on the scene,
He dazzles the locals and feisty Pegeen.
This PLAYBOY, blasé boy, his blarney unfurled,
He can't but enchant the entire Western World.
Provocative! Sexy! Bodacious! Mae West!
A scandalous wit and a world famous chest.
Her antics (both on-screen and off) made the news.
She made people laugh while she shattered taboos.
Her legacy's lasted till now and beyond.
A legend with edge undimmed, that's Dirty BLONDE.
A teen who looks 60. A rhyming French fool.
Distraught 30-somethings. The Irish gene pool.
Then closing the bill is Mae West in her prime.
So why don't you come up and see them some time?
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SHOW TIMES
Thursdays at 7
Fridays, Saturdays at 8
Sundays at 3
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TICKET PRICES
Preview Tickets — $20
Regular Price — $27
Subscription Pkg — $115
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POST-SHOW TALKBACKS
Edification: 1st week after Previews
Shrinkrap: 2nd Friday after Previews
Culture Gulch: 2nd Saturday after Previews
Humanities: 2nd Sunday after Previews |
KIMBERLY AKIMBO
David Lindsay-Abaire
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SEP 24 - OCT 24 |
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of spending time with playwright Christopher Durang (Betty's Summer Vacation, The Marriage of Bette and Boo). I shared with him some of 2nd Story's experience with his plays. I told him how his work stimulated our audience and challenged our actors. It was hard to imagine how those wildly funny, outrageous comedies came out of the sweet, mild-mannered, polite man sitting on the other side of the café table.
During our chat, Chris suggested that if I was drawn to his plays, I should look into the work of a former student of his, David Lindsay-Abaire. That conversation led to our production a short time later of the uniquely funny Fuddy Meers. Lindsay-Abaire's absurdist sensibility and his irreverent humor are indeed reminiscent of Durang's work. But this ingenious young playwright has an episodic, flight-of-fancy story-telling style all his own.
So, this season, I am pleased to bring you David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo, a wild ride of a play set in the wasteland of suburban New Jersey. It's a hysterical and heartrending play about a teenager with a rare condition causing her body to age faster than it should. When she and her family flee Secaucus under dubious circumstances, Kimberly is forced to reevaluate her life while contending with a hypochondriac mother, a rarely sober father, a scam-artist aunt, her own mortality and, most terrifying of all, the possibility of first love.
This haunting, hilarious and totally charming dark comedy gives a whole new meaning to 'coming of age story'. And while howlingly funny, Kimberly Akimbo is, in the end, a loving study of how time wounds everyone.
It's the perfect kick-off for a perfect season.
So that's #1. Stay tuned for #2.
Ed |
SCHOOL FOR WIVES
MoliÈre
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NOV 12 - DEC 12 |
As I explained in an earlier email, the season will include five comedies -- with teeth. We'll alternate between quirky modern and enduring classics. The best of both worlds. So, in keeping with that plan, we'll follow David Lindsay-Abaire's uniquely offbeat Kimberly Akimbo (2000) with Molière's perennial favorite, School for Wives (1662).
With Wives, Molière becomes 2nd Story's most produced (and popular) playwright.
In seasons past, The Learned Ladies, Tartuffe and The Misanthrope were all enormous successes; each performance was a veritable party. The appeal of the rhyming verse, the mercurial shifts from the sacred to the profane, the soaring poetry and the base humor, all help make Moliere's comedies as fresh today as when they were first written.
Richard Wilbur's magnificent translations capture the hysterically lyrical (or is it lyrically hysterical?) roller-coaster ride that is Moliere. Now, to all those for whom Molière's timeless classic is -- pardon the pun -- virgin territory, you're in for a treat. And for those who think they've seen it before, think again. There's always room for invention with Moliere: Remember our Misanthrope in hoop-skirts? Our shag-carpeted, love-beaded Tartuffe?
As I look back at the more than fifty full-length plays we've done in the last decade, Molière's classic comedies have been among the most enjoyable, challenging and creatively satisfying of all. I can't wait to tackle School for Wives; I'm sure it will live up to (and perhaps exceed) the reputation of its predecessors.
It might just be -- pardon my French -- le pièce de resistance!
Hmmm. La pièce de resistance?? Oui? Non?
Ah, well. Vive la comedie, eh?
So that's #2. Stay tuned for #3.
Best,
Ed
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BECKY SHAW
Gina Gionfriddo
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JAN 21 - FEB 20 |
I LOVE Becky Shaw.
Any attempt to outline the plot of this 2009 Off-Broadway hit wouldn't do it justice.
It's a brilliant, engrossing, shocking, current, acerbic, hip, sharp, caustic, compelling, sexy, complex and profound play. It's also subversively charming and improbably funny.
Count on a lively ride home from the theatre.
The rehearsal process will be invigorating; the performances will be riveting, and the discussions will be hot.
By the time we near production I might be able to sum up the plot in a pithy way.
But for now, let's just say that Gina Gionfriddo's Becky Shaw is difficult to describe and impossible to forget.
Brace yourself!
So that's #3. Stay tuned for #4.
Best,
Ed
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PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD
John Millington Synge
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MAR 11 - APR 10 |
Here's the 2010-11 year-of-comedy rundown so far:
We have quirky: Kimberly Akimbo, classic: School for Wives, and quirky: Becky Shaw.
That means it's time for another classic. And what a classic!
JM Synge's 1908 Playboy of the Western World is the Irish comedy against which all other Irish comedies are measured.
And still, more than a century later, Synge's masterpiece remains the undisputed 'King of the Hill'.
The adventures of young Christy Mahon at a remote pub on the west coast of Ireland are at once funny and lyrical, witty and winsome, farcical and melancholy.
I can state, without reservation, that Playboy is the most joyful play I have ever encountered.
And I could use some joy these days. How 'bout you?
So that's #4. Stay tuned for #5.
And then watch your mailbox for the subscription brochure.
Best,
Ed
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DIRTY BLONDE
Claudia Shear
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APR 29 - MAY 29 |
For the final play of the season, I like to find something a little off-beat and fun. In years past, Christopher Durang's Betty's Summer Vacation and The Marriage of Bette and Boo provided shock 'n' guffaws, while Steve Martin's The Underpants served as a kind of theatrical maypole.
This season, Claudia Shear's sizzling Dirty Blonde will usher in the summer heat.
Here's what the NY Times (May 2000) had to say about the fifth and final play of our 2010-11 year-of-comedy:
"Hands down the best new American play of the season. Take off your hats boys, Mae West is back on Broadway in a compact Rolls Royce of a vehicle. This is no evening of mere impersonation; Dirty Blonde is a multi-layered study of the nature of stardom, as experienced by one of its avatars and two adoring fans. Shaped with remarkable fluidity and inventiveness, Dirty Blonde presents one of the canniest portraits on record of that floating dialogue between icons and idolizers that remains so much a part of American culture. Dirty Blonde finds enduring substance in the smoke and mirrors of one actress' stardom, allowing Mae West to shock and delight once again."
Bawdy, naughty, sexy, racy and hot, Dirty Blonde is a 21st Century burlesque.
In the words of Mae West, "Virtue has its own reward, but has no sale at the box office".
Sound advice. I think we'll take it.
So that's #5.
Check your mail box. The colorful and irreverently fun subscription brochure arrives within a few days. Check it out, fill it out, send it in.
Best,
Ed
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