2012-2013 Plays

May 3, 4, 5, 9. 10, 11, 12 2013
All Show times are at 8pm, except for 2pm Sunday Matinees

Music & Lyrics by Irving Berlin
Book by Herbert & Dorothy Fields
As revised by Peter Stone

Directed by Landon Shaw

When feisty tomboy Annie Oakley enters Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show sharpshooting contest, she aims to win it and the affection of her competition, Frank Butler. Winning the contest and joining the show was easy. Getting Frank to see her as a woman he could marry could mean giving up her holster and gun for satin and lace. Irving Berlin’s memorable songs, including “There’s No Business Like Show Business” and “Anything You Can Do,” have made this fun musical a perennial audience favorite.

March 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 2013
All Show times are at 8pm, except for 2pm Sunday Matinees

Adapted to the stage by F. Andrew Leslie
From the novel by William E. Barrett

Directed by Steve Callahan

Roaming the Southwest after his stint in the Army, the nomadic Homer Smith happens upon a group of German-speaking nuns working in dusty fields and offers a day’s work to fix a leaky roof. That evening, while waiting for his pay, he is drawn into their world and stays longer—helps them with their English, buys food and even begins building their chapel. But the struggle of building without resources is weighed against Homer’s desire to be on his own, and he must decide if he wants to be a free man or a legend. An uplifting story about how sacrifice can bring great rewards.

Move in-2/16/13

HOMER SMITH. A black man in his mid-twenties from the deep South, recently discharged from the army.  He’s tall, sturdy, with an air of quiet capability.  Homer is a free-spirited man of many skills.  Congenial, generous, strong-minded, he’s given to keeping his own counsel. 

NOTE:  The five nuns are all from East Germany where they served as teachers. Now they are trying to scratch a living from a run-down farm in a remote valley of the American Southwest.  They have learned Spanish, but only the Mother Superior has much English at all, and even hers is heavily accented. 

MOTHER MARIA MARTHE.  The Mother Superior, a small but vital woman of indeterminate age and boundless faith.  She is utterly devoid of frivolity, but mingled with the apparent sternness which guides her actions is a sense of underlying warmth and humility.  To Homer she is immediately recognizable as “the sergeant”, the boss. It is her vision of building a chapel—and then a school—which drives the play.

SISTERS ELIZABETH, GERTRUD, AGNES and ALBERTINE. 
They are considerably younger than Mother Maria Marthe.  (Homer refers to them as “girls”.)  Ages could range from eighteen to thirties.  They are innocent, faithful, and basically happy, though their lives are ones of hard work and little food.  These are small roles, with few spoken lines (mostly in Act I)—but all the nuns must be singers.  There will be opportunity to sing a Gregorian chant (in Latin), a Baptist hymn, a German hymn and a Mexican folk song.

FATHER GOMEZ.  The Catholic priest in Piedras—“a very small place, to be sure.”  He’s a young Mexican-American whose English is fluent though touched with a Mexican accent.  This is a large role, since Fr. Gomez serves as narrator.

JOSÉ GONZALES.  “A small, thin man with sad brown eyes” who runs the little café in Piedras.  Middle-aged.  He’s a friend to all and a great source of the town’s history—since all stories pass over his counter.

ORVILLE LIVINGSTON.   A building contractor in North Fork, some miles from Piedras.  He’s “a short, firm-jawed, brisk man of middle age, very sure of himself and much impressed with his worldly success.”  He’s a hard-nosed, but fair businessman—and not without generosity.

January 11, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20 2013
All Show times are at 8pm, except for 2pm Sunday Matinees

By Joe DePietro

Directed by Ken Clark

Passion—and its complications—can happen at any age. Widower and once aspiring former opera singer, Ralph, strays from his daily routine and meets elegant dog-lover, Carol. With renewed vigor, he attempts to woo her, disregarding the protests of his lonely live-in sister, Rose. When Carol offers him a dream trip to the opera in Italy with her, how will he balance his loves (both old and new) and his strong beliefs about family obligations? A sweet story that proves our hearts never stop singing.