NEW YEAR - NEW BLOG

So it's the new year. And I've decided to do this blog thing from the Artistic Director's point of view. The goal is to keep people informed about OnStage Playhouse and to open dialog for questions/comments about our theatre. You can always click on the link to find out more about us: make reservations, find our about auditions, look at publicity photos....

Where to start? How about with an announcement! Our 2007-08 season is solidly in place. Sounds like a long way off, right? Actually, it’s right around the corner. With the first show of our next season opening in mid-July, that’s only 7 months away!

A lot of coordinating, reading and planning went into selecting our six shows for the upcoming season. I received 20 submissions from 12 directors. A couple were new works from local playwrights. A few were pushed aside for several reasons: OnStage may have done the show in the recent past, the rights weren’t available, or the logistics were too large for our facility. I even received a few suggestions from patrons requesting that OnStage consider certain shows. I am pleased to say that one director proposed a show suggested by a patron and a different director submitted a play by the same playwright as another patron-suggested show.

Season tickets are not yet available for purchase, but we’d like to whet your appetite for our next season. I’m sure you will find it well-balanced and intriguing. We’re presenting an outrageously silly farce, a Pulitzer Prize-winning black comedy, an American classic, a movie adaptation, a baseball-lover’s comedy, and a musical retrospective of a well-loved comedian. Come play with us!

THE COMPLEAT WORKS OF WLLM. SHAKSPR. (ABRIDGED)
By Adam Long, Daniel Singer & Jess Winfield
Directed by James “Mike” McCullock
July 13-August 11, 2007
An irreverent, fast-paced romp through the Bard’s plays. A mix of pratfalls, puns, willful misreadings of names and dialogue, clunky impersonations, clean-cut ribaldry, and broad burlesque.

HOW I LEARNED TO DRIVE
By Paula Vogel
Directed by Carla Nell
September 07-October 06, 2007
Winner of the 1998 Pulitzer Prize, this is the story of a woman who learns the rules of the road and life from behind the wheel. A wildly funny, surprising and devastating tale of survival as seen through the lens of a troubling relationship between a young girl and an older man. (adult content)

THE NIGHT OF THE IGUANA
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by Jennifer Jonassen
November 02-November 30, 2007
Tennessee Williams at his most poetic, emotionally wrenching, mordantly funny best. Four lost souls - a defrocked minister, a randy widow, a free-spirited girl and “the oldest living practicing poet” - commune one stormy night in a desolate Mexican hotel.

ORDINARY PEOPLE
Based on Judith Guest’s book, dramatized by Nancy Gilsenan
Directed by Jay Mower
January 11-February 09, 2008
Conrad Jarrett had an older brother and now he’s gone. What’s left pf Conrad’s family, with his successful well-intentioned father and his organized and remote mother, is in terrible jeopardy, as is Conrad himself. They are all ordinary people, and they are each fighting a hard battle.

BLEACHER BUMS
By Joe Mantegna & the Organic Theatre Co.
Directed by Bruce Wilde
March 07-April 05, 2008
In the bleachers at Chicago's Wrigley Field, die-hard Cub fans root for their team. They bet among themselves; go out for hot dogs, beer and frosty malts; and occasionally watch the game. Will the Cubs win the home game and who will the real winners turn out to be? Come to the game and find out!

GROUCHO: A LIFE IN REVUE
By Arthur Marx & Robert Fisher
Directed by Bob Christiansen
May 02-May 31, 2008
This inspired bio musical about The One and Only begins with Groucho as an old man doing his famous Carnegie Hall show. It then returns to the beginnings of the Marx Brothers and their struggles to make it in vaudeville, their rise to stardom and their eventual break up.