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Our 23rd Season
TWT’s 23rd Season includes 3 Musicals, 7 Dramas and 1 special, one-man show, each contributing to The Weekend Theater’s mission of personally, inter-personally and educationally reducing prejudice, cruelty, and indifference through live theater.
KIM LABBATE, Board President —
The Board of Directors and I are delighted to announce The Weekend Theater’s upcoming 23rd Season, which is packed with stories that challenge conventional thoughts and ideas. The shows are full of laughter and tears, designed to take our audiences on incredible journeys, exploring our sense of humanity and how we communicate with each other. We welcome back some veteran directors and look forward to showcasing some new talent both on the stage and behind the scenes. It looks to be a remarkable season, and I invite you to come share it with us.
JAMES NORRIS, Executive Director —
I was attracted to The Weekend Theater by its mission to make the world a better place through live theater and became Executive Director in November of 2013. Since that time, TWT has produced some of the most engaging, beautiful, gut-wrenching, entertaining and thought-provoking theater I’ve ever seen. With the retirement of Founder and Artistic Director, Ralph Hyman, our Play Selection Committee considered over 200 plays — submitted by patrons like you — to present our 23rd Season; a season filled with shows that will undoubtedly make you “Laugh. Cry. Think. Act.” I hope to see you at the theater soon!
The Addams Family: A New Musical
Book by Marshall Brickman and Rick Elice
Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa
Based on Characters Created by Charles Addams
June 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 19, 20, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 2015
Directed by Tom Crone
Music Direction by Lori Isner
Two families with vastly divergent cultures, mores, and expectations collide when the Addams hosts a dinner for Wednesday Addams’ “normal” boyfriend and his parents. Trust and fear, love and truth, acceptance and forgiveness are just a few things on the menu in this magnificently macabre new musical comedy created by Jersey Boys authors, Marshall Brickman & Rick Elice and Drama Desk Award winner, Andrew Lippa (The Wild Party).
+ More about The Addams Family: A New Musical at The Weekend Theater
American Idiot
Music by Green Day
Lyrics by Billie Joe Armstrong
Book by Billie Joe Armstrong and Michael Mayer
July 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, 31, August 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 2015
Directed by Frank O. Butler
Music Direction by Lori Isner
The two-time Tony Award-winning hit musical — based on Green Day’s Grammy Award-winning, multi-platinum album – is an energy-fueled rock opera that brings us face-to-face with the perils of war, drug addiction, escapism, and the power of true friendship, as Will, Johnny, and Tunny struggle to find meaning in a post-9/11 world.
Contains adult language and situations.
+ More about the musical American Idiot at The Weekend Theater
Two Trains Running
By August Wilson
August 21, 22, 28, 29, September 4, 5, 2015
Directed by Jamie Scott Blakey and Margaret Parker
Written by Pulitzer Prize winning author, August Wilson, this is a story about love, hate, and the struggles that ordinary African Americans faced in a Pittsburgh neighborhood in 1969. The gossip, debates, philosophizing, and storytelling that take place in Memphis’ restaurant reflect the oral tradition of African American culture. Wilson’s characters appear engaged in talk that seems detached from the racial riots, assassinations, and antiwar protest that marked this era and damaged black areas economically. The restaurant and the neighborhood are on the brink of economic development. Wilson explores their social and psychological manifestations of changing attitudes toward race. Seeking to escape from poverty, racism, and “Jim Crow” laws, many black Americans migrated to northern industrial cities during the early and mid-20th century where Wilson reveals simple truths, hopes and dreams for a community on the brink of change.
+ More about Two Trains Running at The Weekend Theater
The Shape of Things
By Neil LaBute
September 25, 26, October 2, 3, 9, 10, 2015
Directed by Byron Taylor
This modern day retelling of the fall of man challenges our most deeply entrenched ideas about art and love. In The Shape of Things, Evelyn, a sexy, aggressive artist, and Adam, a shy, insecure student, become embroiled in an affair after meeting in a museum. Before long, Adam, under Evelyn’s steady influence, goes to unimaginable lengths to meet her approval, and the show veers into the kind of dangerous, seductive territory that LaBute does best.
+ More about The Shape of Things at The Weekend Theater
God’s Man in Texas
By David Rambo
November 6, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 2015
Directed by Allison Pace
Faith and egos collide in the age of mass-market religion at Houston’s Rock Baptist Church. A search committee has been secretly formed to find a successor to Rock’s legendary pastor, and a young up-and-comer is asked to audition for the job. The Biblical struggle climaxes during Rock’s spectacular Christmas parade.
+ More about God’s Man in Texas at The Weekend Theater
The Foreigner
By Larry Shue
December 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 2015
Directed by Matthew Mentgen
Winner of two Obie Awards and two Outer Critics Circle Awards as Best New American Play and Best Off- Broadway Production, this off-beat comedy demonstrates what can happen when a group of devious and bigoted characters, including a two-faced minister and his bigoted associate, must deal with a stranger who (they think) knows no English but who has heard more than he should of their unscrupulous plans.
+ More about The Foreigner at The Weekend Theater
Standing On Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays
By Mo Gaffney, Jordan Harrison, Moisés Kaufman, Neil LaBute, Wendy MacLeod, José Rivera, Paul Rudnick, and Doug Wright
Conceived by Brian Shnipper
January 15, 16, (22 CANCELED), 23, 29, 30, 2016
Directed by Duane Jackson
This collection of monologues and short stories celebrates the recent advances in winning marital rights for gay and lesbian couples, and how the changing laws are changing lives. This mostly genial and often funny omnibus holds a magnifying glass to the highs and lows, joys and fears, courage and silliness, of people bucking trends and making history.
+ More about Standing on Ceremony: The Gay Marriage Plays at The Weekend Theater
Once On This Island: A Musical
Book and Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Music by Stephen Flaherty
Based upon the novel “My Love, My Love” by Rosa Guy
February 12, 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, 26 , 27, 28, 2016
Co-directed by Monica Clark-Robinson & Crystal C. Mercer
Music Directed by Leah Thomas
From the Tony Award-winning songwriting team that brought you Seussical and Ragtime, comes this Tony nominated, Olivier Award-winning musical set in the Caribbean Sea concerning a peasant girl on a tropical island, who uses the power of love to bring together people of different social classes. From the first song you will be enthralled by the music and engaging lyrics of this magical story which includes hints of Romeo and Juliet and the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, The Little Mermaid.
+ More about Once on This Island: A Musical at The Weekend Theater
Vincent
By Leonard Nimoy
Based on the play “Van Gogh” by Phillip Stephens
March 18 and 19, 2016
Directed by Alan Douglas
In van Gogh’s lifetime, he sold only one painting and critics labeled his work madness. His story, however, is so much more than that of the misunderstood genius who cut off his own ear. In this play, Vincent’s brother, Theo, movingly reveals Vincent as few knew him, arguing the bigger meaning and significance of his brother’s life to all humankind. As seen through the eyes of Theo, Vincent van Gogh lives on as a symbol of inspiration, courage, passion, and the lust for life that art kindles in all of us.
+ More about Vincent at The Weekend Theater
Driving Miss Daisy
By Alfred Uhrey
April 1, 2, 3, 8, 9, 10 15, 16, 17, 2016
Directed by Andy Hall
The place is the Deep South, 1948, just prior to the civil rights movement, where Daisy Werthan, a rich, sharp- tongued Jewish widow of seventy-two learns that she must rely on the services of a chauffeur, a thoughtful, unemployed black man. In a series of absorbing scenes spanning twenty-five years, the two, despite their mutual differences, grow ever closer, realizing they have more in common than they ever believed possible.
+ More about Driving Miss Daisy at The Weekend Theater
2016-17 Gala and 24th Season Reveal
Saturday // April 23rd, 2016 // 6:30pm
* Live Entertainment! * Music & Dancing! * Fabulous Silent Auction! * Food & Drink! * And of course, the 2016-17 Season Reveal! *
Tickets: $50.00 | Buy Online at weekendtheater.Tix.com
Come Celebrate the Magic of Live Theater With Us!
Location:
Elks Lodge
123 E. Broadway St.
North Little Rock, AR 72114
A Piece of My Heart
By Shirley Lauro
May 6, 7, 13, 14, 20, 21, 2016
Directed by Betty Fernau
This is a powerful, true drama of six women who went to Vietnam: five nurses and a country western singer booked by an unscrupulous agent to entertain the troops. The play which was recently been named “The most enduring play on Vietnam in the nation,” by The Vietnam Vets Association, portrays each young woman before, during, and after her tour in the war-torn nation, drawing attention to the largely unsung American women who served in Vietnam.
+ More about A Piece of My Heart at The Weekend Theater
