Wednesday, December 17, 2008

BEOWULF ALLEY THEATRE'S 2008/2009 SPRING SEASON

BEOWULF ALLEY THEATRE’S 2008/2009 SPRING SEASON

Spring Subscription: 3 plays for $45; Single Tickets $20 General,

Online Tickets at www.beowulfalley.org $18, Preview Tickets $10,

January 10 - 25, 2009
Preview Performance January 9                                     Tucson Premiere!

DINNER WITH FRIENDS by Donald Margulies, Directed by Susan Arnold

Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Play, the Dramatists Guild/Hull-Warriner Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the American Theatre Critics Association New Play Award, and a Drama Desk Award nomination.

Cast includes: Art Almquist, Rhonda Hallquist, Carrie Hill, and Rick Shipman.

A funny, yet bittersweet, examination of the married lives of two couples who have been extremely close for dozens of years. Gabe and Karen, a happily married middle-aged couple, have been friends with Tom and Beth, another married couple. In fact, it was Gabe and Karen who fixed up their friends in the first place. While having dinner at Gabe and Karen's home one night, Beth tearfully reveals that she is getting a divorce from Tom, who has been unfaithful. Tom, who had been away on business, finds out that Beth has told their friends about the looming divorce, and hastens to Gabe and Karen's home. Tom and Beth had planned to tell their friends about their breakup together, but Tom now believes that Beth has unfairly presented herself as the wronged party, and feels he must present his own side of the story. Over the course of the play, we see both couples at different ages and stages of their lives, and we witness the effects of Tom and Beth's breakup on Gabe and Karen, who first feel compelled to choose sides, and then begin to question the strength of their own seemingly tranquil marriage.

February 14 - March 1, 2009
Preview Performance February 13                              Arizona Premiere!

3 GUYS IN DRAG SELLING THEIR STUFF by Edward Crosby Wells, Directed by Cynthia Jeffery

2000-2001 Winner of the Spotlight On Best Play Award for Excellence in Off-Off Broadway Theatre

Cast includes: Richard Chaney, Kenton Jones and Mike Sultzbach.

Diva, Lillian, and Tink (three men in drag) are having a yard sale to raise funds for a Faberge egg in which to place the ashes of Diva's dead husband.  Diva bosses Lillian, whose principal expertise is making punch with ingredients that could fuel a rocket. Tink is confined to a wheelchair, mostly comatose, but when she does try to make herself heard, the others invariably misunderstand, causing dire consequences. The miscommunications of this misfit trio cause a friend to be run over by a pickup truck while trying to cross the street with her walker. We meet an entire neighborhood of characters through the eyes of the "ladies" during the course of their yard sale, including Diva's mother who has the yard wired with eavesdropping devices and is listening in from her room in a nursing home across the street. Finally, in an explosive climax, the day's shenanigans result in a police shootout when someone plays with a starter pistol filled with blanks. This is a raucous, raunchy, gut-busting, more than a laugh-a-minute play. 

April 11 - 26, 2009
Preview Performance April 10

PROOF by David Auburn, Directed by Sheldon Metz

2001 Tony Award, 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Joseph Kesselring Prize, the Drama Desk Award

Cast includes: Jill Baker, Chris Farishon, Roberto Guajardo, and Jonathan Northover.

A comic drama, Proof is about Catherine, a young woman who has spent years caring for her father, Robert, a brilliant mathematician in his youth who was later unable to function without her help. His death has brought into her midst both her sister, Claire, who wants to take Catherine back to New York with her, and Hal, a former student of Catherine's father who hopes to find some hint of Robert's genius among his incoherent scribbling. The passion that Hal feels for math both moves and angers Catherine, who, in her exhaustion, is torn between missing her father and resenting the great sacrifices she made for him. For Catherine has inherited at least a part of her father's brilliance -- and perhaps some of his instability as well. As she and Hal become attracted to each other, they push at the edges of each other's knowledge, considering not only the unpredictability of genius but also the human instinct toward love and trust.

Location: 11 South 6th Avenue, Downtown between Broadway and Congress