A Stardust Christmas Carol

a holiday musical comedy
by Harlowe Reed

November 26 to December 31, 2010

Celebrate the holidays with laughter, nostalgia, and a heart-warming tale of redemption. It’s December 1945 and the Stardust gang is enjoying their first post-war holiday. But just as the show is taking off, a radio producer crashes the party and sets up for a remote broadcast of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. When the Hollywood star scheduled to play Scrooge fails to arrive, the gang is called on to bring the classic tale to life on their own. Music, dance and comic chaos ensue as the team finds surprising ways to apply swing music to Victorian London. This is the sixteenth original episode in the Stardust series, a regional holiday tradition for the whole family.

The Last Schwartz

a comic drama by Deborah Zoe Laufer (End Days)

January 27 to February 19, 2011

The Schwartz family has gathered on the one year anniversary of their father’s death. Norma’s husband hasn’t spoken to her since she turned their 15 year old son in for smoking pot. After five miscarriages it appears Herb’s wife won’t provide him with an heir. Simon has one foot on the moon. Gene has a new girlfriend who has some news that will land like a time bomb in the old family home. A profoundly funny play about what it means to be a family when no one remembers how to hold it together.

boom

a sci-fi comedy by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb

March 24 to April 16, 2011

Let your brain go boom! A biology grad student’s awkward personal ad attracts an angry young journalism student to his subterranean research lab for an evening of “no strings attached” sex. But when global cataclysm strikes, their date takes on evolutionary significance and the fate of humanity hangs in the balance. A charming and hilarious comedy spanning billions of years, boom explores the influence of free will, fate and chaos on our passionate journey through cosmic history.

Unexpected Tenderness

a comic drama by Israel Horovitz

May 5 to 28, 2011

Travel back to 1950s New England with Roddy Stern, a happy, normal kid growing up in a crazy family dominated by his pathologically jealous father, who lurks outside his own house in hopes of catching his beautiful wife entertaining other men. The Father’s absurd suspicions and bursts of violence are variously ignored, mocked, provoked, and tearfully forgiven by the Mother, sister, and bickering Grandparents, while Roddy takes the brunt of the bruising. On the surface, Unexpected Tenderness is a charming family comedy, but--in true Horovitz fashion--it is punctuated with a tragic complexity that is alternately shocking, endearing and beautifully uplifting.

Summer in the Sixties

a Harlequin original musical celebration

June 16 to July 17, 2011

Summer--and our fabulous audience--just seems to cry out for rock’n’roll. And let’s face it: the ‘60s defined rock’n’roll. Rock'n'roll defined the '60s. We were determined to compile a definitive list for this year's Sixties Kicks, but by the time we whittled it down to 80 songs, there was nothing left to cut without imperilling the life of the patient. You deserve the whole enchilada! Turn up the heat! Turn up the volume! Celebrate the summer of our great release with Summer in the Sixties!

Mauritius

a comic thriller by Theresa Rebeck

August 18 to September 10, 2011

Enter the dark and dangerous world of...stamp collecting! Following their mother’s death, two estranged half-sisters reunite and discover their Grandfather’s rare stamp collection. One sister insists on placing the collection in a museum for sentimental reasons. The other slips off to try to sell it. When rumors of what the book may contain reach three seedy, high-stakes collectors, the situation quickly transforms into a deadly, five-way game of Rat and Mouse--which, at times, can be surprisingly difficult to tell apart.

Cyrano de Bergerac

a classic romance by Edmond Rostand, translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess

September 29 to October 30, 2011

We crown our 20th Anniversary Season with the return of this sumptuous tale of romance, honor and adventure. Cyrano is a poet/soldier with a fiery temperament, a noble pride, a courageous heart, a flashing sword, and a grotesque protuberance for a nose. Thinking himself too ugly for the beautiful Roxanne, he aids the handsome but inarticulate Christian in wooing her. He writes the poetic love letters that Christian uses to win Roxanne’s heart.