Play Synopses, Character Descriptions and Approximate Schedules
Rehearsal Schedules: Rehearsal days and times are determined closer to the rehearsal start date by the director and cast members with final approval of the schedule by the Managing Director.
Performance Days: Thursdays – Saturdays, 7:30 p.m. and Sundays, 1:30 p.m. In the event of additional performances, we will first schedule within the performance opening to close dates rather than schedule a holdover beyond the closing date.
Play’s Name: The Vertical Hour, by David Hare
Drama, Full Length
Rehearsals: Approximately August 15, 2009 through Opening Date
Performance Dates: September 25 – October 11, 2009
Cast: (3 Males, 2 Females)
Character descriptions:
Oliver Lucas – (late 50’s) English, a retired medical doctor, undemonstrative, casually dressed, a man of strong social and liberal views
Nadia Blye – (mid-30’s) American, pale, poised, casual style, formerly a foreign correspondent, now a professor of political science and a woman of strong conservative views
Dennis Dutton – (early 20’s) American, from a wealthy business background, uncompromising in his views about business and finance, unusually dressed for someone his age, in suit and tie, floppy hair and trainers
Philip Lucas – (early 30’s) English, a professor, in love with Nadia, obviously handsome and the only son of Oliver, who holds uncompromising personal views about his father
Terri Scholes – (20) African American student at Yale, with a brilliant mind but depressed, who sees both the human and political truth clearly and honestly
Synopsis: The Vertical Hour intriguingly explores the relationship between people and their politics. The play’s three main characters, Oliver, Nadia and Philip hold uncompromising views, and thereby enter into an emotional ‘war zone’ of dynamic clashes that will change their lives forever. Nadia, the play’s central character, is a brilliant and politically influential woman who finds herself battling between love, power and conscience. How will her “inner-war” affect her life’s direction? David Hare has written a powerful drama about how “war begins in the hearts of men, AND women”. He asks us to take a journey of conscience towards self-realization.
Play’s Name: Rabbit Hole, by David Lindsay-Abaire
Drama, Full Length
Rehearsals: Approximately September 20th through Opening Date
Performance Dates: November 6-22, 2009
Cast: (2 M, 3 Female)
Character descriptions:
Becca - late 30s/early 40s
Howie - Becca's husband
Izzie - Becca's sister - early 30s
Nat - Becca and Izzie's Mother - mid sixties
Jason - a 17 year old boy
Synopsis: A Pulitzer Prize winning play, the profoundly human story focuses on Becca and her husband, Howie, as they separately cope with the accidental death of their 4 year old son. As they approach the one year anniversary of the tragedy, Becca’s mother, Nat, and her sister, Izzie, try to lift their spirits, but each has their own set of problems....Nat also lost a son, while Izzie just found out she is pregnant. When the young man who killed their son contacts Becca and Howie seeking closure, everyone's lives are thrown for an additional loop. Despite the subject matter, Rabbit Hole is by turns funny, ironic, bittersweet and poignant.
Play’s Name: Fool for Love by Sam Shepard
Comedy/Drama
Rehearsals: Approximately December 1, 2009 through Opening Date
Performance Dates: January 15-30, 2010
Cast: (3 Males, 1 Female)
Character Descriptions:
May – (early 30’s) madly in love with Eddie but it is painful, confusing and consuming
Eddie – (late 30’s) broken down rodeo cowboy, old before his time, controlling, macho, and a need for power in his relationships
Martin – (mid-30’s) solidly built, larger than Eddie but caring, curious, sensitive and kind
The Old Man – (early to mid 60’s) scruffy looking from a hard life, surreal, funny, offering a contrary point of view
Synopsis: The scene is a stark motel room at the edge of the Mojave Desert. May, a disheveled young woman, sits dejectedly on a rumpled bed. Eddie, a rough-spoken rodeo performer, crouches in a corner fiddling with his riding gear. When he attempts to console May, who is distressed by Eddie's frequent absences and love affairs, she seems, at first, to soften—but then she suddenly attacks him. As the recriminations pour out, and the action becomes, at times, physically violent, the desperate nature of their relationship becomes apparent—they cannot get along with, or without, one another, yet neither can subdue their burning passion. The poignancy of their situation (they are half-brother and half-sister as well as lovers) is pointed out by the play's two other characters: a hapless young man who stops by to take May to the movies and becomes the butt of Eddie's funniest yet most humiliating jokes; and a ghostly old man (perhaps their father) who sits in a rocking chair at the side of the stage, sipping whiskey and commenting wryly on what he observes. Eventually May and Eddie tire of their struggle and embrace—but it is evident that the respite is temporary and that their love, the curse of the past which haunts them, will remain forever damned and hopeless.
Play’s Name: Flaming Guns of the Purple Sage by Jane Martin
Comedy, Full Length
Rehearsals: Approximately January 15, 2010 through Opening Date
Performance Dates: February 26-March 14, 2010
Cast: (3 Male, 3 Female)
Character descriptions:
Big 8—(40-50) a retired rodeo competitor who now provides respite for wayward and broken cowboys
Shirl—(40-50) Big 8’s sister, works as butcher in local slaughter house, dating the Baxter Blue, local lawman
Rob Bob—(20s) young cowboy holed up at Big 8’s, studly
Shedevil—(20s) tattooed head to toe, on the run, happens upon Big 8’s claiming that Big 8’s son is the father of her child
Baxter Blue—(40-60) Local lawman dating Shirl
Black Dog—One-eyed Ukrainian biker after Shedevil cuz she stole his coke stash
Synopsis: Big 8, a feisty rodeo competitor, is a bitter critter, facing foreclosure on the Wyoming ranch where she rehabilitates injured rodeo cowboys. The arrival of a tattooed and twitchy Shedevil and a one eyed Ukrainian biker named Black Dog ushers in outrageous violence and horror in this shoot ‘em up, knock ‘em up, cut ‘em up comic romp that roasts the cowboy mentality of pulp western writers like Zane Grey.
Play’s Name: Last of the Boys by Steven Dietz
Drama, Full Length
Rehearsals: Approximately February 22, 2010 through Opening Date
Performance Dates: April 9-25, 2010
Cast: (3 M, 2Female)
Character descriptions:
Jeeter (mid-50s) Vietnam veteran, a professor who teaches a course on "The Sixties” and spends his summers drifting from place to place in search of some great enlightenment which will most likely come in the form of a young woman
Ben (mid-50s) Vietnam vet, lives alone in what used to be a populated trailer park but now his trailer is now the last one standing; a man of few words who is still dealing with demons from the war, all of which are contained in his friendship with Jeeter.
Salyer (mid-30s) a woman who has recently become Jeeter's girlfriend, covered from head to toe with tattoos of men's names, but she keeps this a secret by covering every inch of her skin with clothes. She is haunted by ghosts of the past and is trying to come to terms with the loss of her father.
Lorraine (50s) is Salyer's mother and comes to Ben's to find Salyer and bring her home. Lorraine was abandoned by Salyer's father and believes that he used the war as an excuse to get away from her.
The young soldier is a phantom whose identity isn't entirely fixed. He is not seen by all of the characters in the play - only by those who seek to make peace with him.
One paragraph synopsis: On a road outside Dak To in 1967, the lives of two soldiers (Ben and Jeeter) were changed forever. Thirty years later, they are still haunted by the specter of America's longest war. One night, in an abandoned trailer park somewhere in the Great Central Valley of California, they discover that their friendship may be the latest casualty of a war that will not end.
