Saturday, June 2
Two different readings in one day!
2 pm performance
The Story of Beautiful Joe
Written by Stephen Metcalfe
Directed by Peter Zapp
Beautiful Joe is faced with a cheating wife and a likely-to-be-fatal brain tumor. Throwing caution to the wind, he takes up living at a nothing-to-lose pace in this frantic romantic comedy. Mix in a gorgeous, gambling-addicted stripper with a hard shell and golden heart, and mobsters who are threatening murder over her unpaid gambling debts; romance is sure to follow!
7 pm performance
Divirtimenti
Written by Stephen Metcalfe
Directed by David Florek
Divertimenti examines friendship and the reasonable limits each of us would set for testing it. We know that when times are good there is no challenge, but when things begin to go south and we’re not feeling quite so generous, how much trouble would it take to end our best friendship? An up-and-coming playwright and her best friend—a talented and struggling actress—have collaborated and supported each other for years. Now, trouble is a-brewing when they find themselves living together and asking “Is this the end of our friendship?” Testing limits always seems to lead us inward, which requires both a sense of humor and the willingness to examine crippled emotions.
Saturday, June 9, 7 pm; Sunday, June 10, 2 pm
Queen of the Night
Written by Ron Strauss
Directed by Peter Zapp
An opera in two acts set in 1903 Vienna, Queen of the Night (based on Arthur Schnitzler’s novella Das Schicksal des Freiherrn Leisenbohg (Baron von Leisenbohg’s Destiny) follows the Baron’s obsession with a charismatic soprano who lures him into the coils of an unforeseeable fate. The opera is based on a tale by Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler (1862–1931), known for his variations on the theme of illusion vs. reality and his keen take on sexual politics. In fact, when criticized for working time and again with the same subjects, the writer famously replied “I write of love and death. What other subjects are there?”
Saturday, June 16, 2 pm and 7 pm
Compromise
Written and directed by Israel Horovitz
What would you do if you won the lottery or inherited a fortune from a long lost relative or signed a hundred-million-dollar contract as a sports star? How would you handle the windfall? Who else would have strong opinions about that, and what would those opinions be based upon? Compromise ventures some guesses when a brilliant Jewish medical scientist, his equally brilliant surrogate son and collaborator, his sensitive and emotional poet daughter, and his long-time black maid (the mother of his surrogate son) attempt to work out their family identity in a time of crisis. They confront the ambiguity and contradictions inherent in such issues as loyalty, charity, love, honor, altruism, racism, pride, greed and philanthropy.
Saturday, June 23, 2 pm and 7 pm
Wild Dogs
Written by Carol Carpenter; Director TBA
Disney’s blockbuster movie Wild Hogs is shooting in the politically radical village of Madrid, NM—and many of the locals are irate. As citizens set out to unravel the production through competing strategies, they discover that organizing activists is like herding cats. In the meantime, a wild dog is on the loose and might do more damage to Disney—and Madrid—than the villagers could ever have accomplished on their own. Wild Dogs is a comic political drama that examines the conflicting values that underlie the American West—individualism and collectivism, capitalism and communalism, fascism and egalitarianism—and one town’s struggle to define its values for itself.
