Our Season

THE BESPOKE OVERCOAT

written by Wolf Mankowitz

 

Inspired by Nicolai Gogol’s famous short story, Wolf Mankowitz’s The Bespoke Overcoat is by turns a deeply comic and unforgettably poignant reimagining of Gogol’s most famous classic tale, The Overcoat. Reset by Mankowitz into the Jewish East End of London, this story about an old clerk who can’t afford a new overcoat is a tale of love and resilience told with dignity and humor. Immediately hailed as one of Britain’s most exciting young playwrights when the play opened in London in 1953, Mankowitz adapted it into a film that won the Oscar at the 29th Academy Awards for Best Short Subject Film in 1957. The son of a Jewish bookseller in London’s East End, Mankowitz was a prolific dramatist, novelist, and screenwriter often known for depicting acts of humanity in a flawed but facinating world.

 

Directed by

Marilyn Fox and Dana Jackson

With

Robert Lesser
Harry Herman
Bruce Nozick
Tobia Echeverria

Creative Team

Set Deisgn – Rich Rose
Lighting Design – Leigh Allen
Sound Design – Chris Mosciatello
Costume Design – Audrey Eisner
Stage Managers – Bianca Martucci-Rikheim, James Morris, Teak Piegdon

VANYA AND SONIA AND MASHA AND SPIKE

written by Christopher Durang

 

Winner of the 2013 Tony award, Durang’s play is set in an old farm house in Buck’s County, Pennsylvania, where two siblings (Vanya and Sonia) toil away in mourning for their lives as they recover from 15 years of caretaking for their dementia-suffering professorial parents, who had clearly had a penchant for Chekhov during their lives. Their prophesying housekeeper Cassandra peppers Vanya and Sonia’s existence with foreboding warnings. Enter movie star and successful sister Masha, with her new love, Spike, and a lovely young actress from across the pond-and the play explodes into rivalries young and old.

 

Directed by

Victoria Pearlman

With

Brad Greenquist
Cyndy Fujikawa
Martha Hackett
Miranda Wynne
Zach Kanner
Tania Getty
Taubert Nadalini
Nell Yukiye Murphy

Albee/Pinter

FAM & YAM written by Edward Albee
Directed by
Marilyn Fox
THE DUMB WAITER written by Harold Pinter

 

Directed by
Elina de Santos
Marilyn Fox

 A retrospective of two early one-acts, running in tandem, both first produced in 1960. Tony Award winners Edward Albee and Harold Pinter, who have left their indelible marks in world theatre, give voice to the outlandish and amusing behavior of humans.

Albee’s Fam and Yam, set in an upper Eastside penthouse, examines an encounter between two unnamed playwrights, one famous, one not. This brief curtain raiser is an eloquent example of Albee’s biting wit and incisive satire.

In Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, two hitmen wait in a basement for their next assignment. Often called the best of Harold Pinter’s early plays, it combines the classic characteristics of early Pinter – a paucity of information and an atmosphere of menace, working- class small-talk in a claustrophobic setting – with an oblique but palpable political edge, and can be seen as containing the germ of Pinter’s entire dramatic oeuvre.

With

Jason Downs
Brad Greenquist
Anthony Foux
Jennifer Knox

Creative Team

Set Design – William Wilday
Lighting Design – Matt Richter
Sound Design – Christopher Moscatiello
Costume Design – Audrey Eisner
Stage Manager – Teak Piegdon
Movement Director  – Myrna Gawryn
Consultant – Michael Rothhaar

STALLED

Book by
Liesl Wilke
Director
Cal Brady
Executive Producer
Marilyn Fox

 

Written by Liesl Wilke and inspired by her Raymond Carver Award winning short story “Stalled Symphony,” STALLED is an entertaining, perceptive, and rewarding study of the going’s on inside a high-end executive ladies room. Using music, song, and spoken word, STALLED follows four women, all stuck – but ready: to find their way forward. With music by Andy Marsh and Lyrics by Liesl Wilke and Andy Marsh, STALLED is a heartfelt, insightful, and compelling look into motherhood, love and identity.

Composer/Co-Lyricist
Andy Marsh
Musical Director
Jeremy Mann
Featuring

Joanna Daniels
Jennifer Knox
Mia Michaud
Klea Scott
Lauren Han
Marwa Bernstein
Faith Lister
Nicolette Norgaard
Julia Wilke
Lillie Silva-Muir
Sook Hyung Yang

Creative Team

Set Designer
Rich Rose

Lighting Designer
Chris Sahagun

Sound Designer
Jacob Menke

Costume Designers
Juliette Lunger &
Keilani Gleave

Prop Design
Cameron Rose

Cello Arrangments
Oliver Kraus

Stage Manager
Ruthie Geronimo