2018-19 Season
2018 One-Act Festival
August 17 – 26, 2018
Two weekends of original one-act plays that will make you laugh, cry, and think.
Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight by Lauren Gunderson
Directed by Erin Bone Steele
September 14 – October 6, 2018
Emilie du Châtelet is witty, unconventional, rich, and a scientific genius who advances mathematics and physics in Baroque France. She and her sometime lover Voltaire play out in their passionate romantic battles by, among other things, publishing dueling scientific papers and taking other lovers. Tonight, Emilie is back and determined to answer the question she died with: love or philosophy, head or heart?
In this highly theatrical, fast, funny, sexy rediscovery of one of history’s most intriguing women, Emilie defends her life and loves; she ends up with both a formula and a legacy that permeates history. By the playwright of last year’s hit Silent Sky, Emilie: La Marquise du Châtelet Defends Her Life Tonight affords Emilie a chance to re-tell her own story.
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
Directed by Craig Allen Mummey
October 26 – November 17, 2018
In the Puritan world of Massachusetts in 1692, Abigail Williams and her cohort of girlfriends cover a multitude of their own sins by playing with, then being accused of, witchcraft. The action is largely driven by Abigail’s previous affair with the married John Proctor, and John and his wife’s subsequent efforts to retain their good reputation. Like a disease, the accusations of witchcraft and the web of lies spread to include other members of the community and bring down dozens of the best-regarded citizens of Salem as the town is rendered dysfunctional through mass arrests, property grabs, religious-political power-plays, hangings, and fear.
Season of Light: A Winter Fairytale by Steph DeFerie
Directed by Katie Rey Bogden
December 7 – 16, 2017
Magda is chosen to play the Sister of the Sun for her village’s Winter Solstice ceremony. But when the days keep growing shorter, Magda is blamed and exiled. In the forest, a group of players join her quest to bring back the light by going to the source: the real Sister of the Sun. What is Magda willing to sacrifice to save the world from darkness?
Equivocation by Bill Cain
Directed by Madeleine Smith
January 11 – February 2, 2019
England, 1605: A tight ensemble of star actors from the King’s Men company, including William Shakespeare, are commissioned to produce an impossible-to-write show about the foiled Gunpowder Plot, where conspirators attempted to blow up the King and Parliament. But as the acting company of the Globe investigate the plot, they discover that the King’s version of the story might, in fact, be a cover-up. Shakespeare and his actors are confronted with the ultimate moral and artistic dilemma. Speak truth to power—and perhaps lose their heads? Or take the money and lie? Is there a third option—equivocation?
In the Next Room, or the vibrator play by Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Jen Katz
February 22 – March 16, 2019
A comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity, In the Next Room is set in the 1880s at the dawn of the electrical age. In a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating “hysteria” in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor’s laboratory, his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter—and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new “hysterical” patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor’s home, Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it truly means to love someone.
Appropriate by Brandon Jacobs-Jenkins
Directed by Jeff Mikoni
April 5 – 28, 2019
Every estranged member of the Lafayette clan has descended upon the crumbling Arkansas homestead to settle the accounts of the newly dead patriarch. As his three adult children sort through a lifetime of hoarded mementos and junk, they collide over clutter, debt, and a contentious family history. But after a disturbing discovery surfaces among their father’s possessions, the reunion takes a turn for the explosive, unleashing a series of crackling surprises and confrontations.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
Directed by Bill Hurlbut
May 17 – June 8, 2019
One of the cleverest comedies by one of the greatest writers in the English language, The Importance of Being Earnest has delighted audiences since its premiere in 1885. Wilde’s scintillating, hilarious work introduces us to Jack and Algernon, charming bachelors who are each living a double life, aided by a fictional alter ego called “Ernest.” But the two fall truly in love with a pair of proper young women, Gwendolen and Cecily – both of whom are partial to men named Ernest. Will Jack and Algy be able to bring an end to the charade and convince the formidable Lady Bracknell that they are suitable candidates for marriage? Wicked wit and dead-on social satire are wrapped in a confection of dual identities, matrimonial matters, and the provenance of a particular handbag.
Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage
Directed by Seth Ghitelman
June 28 – July 20, 2019
New York City, 1905: Esther, a talented African-American seamstress, sews for rich white and poor black clients alike, and saves her earnings so she can someday open her own beauty parlor. She also longs for a loving husband and has a long-distance pen-pal romance with George, a black Barbadian laborer building canals in South America. But will George be all that Esther had hoped for when he shows up in person? “Intimate Apparel” explores the choices we make to move forward, despite the challenges life presents.