DEATH AND THE MAIDEN

By Ariel Dorfman

Directed by Brenda Wentworth

October 19,20,26,27 at 8 pm

October 21 and 28 at 2 pm

Arena Stage, Performing Arts Center

Set in an unnamed country (which is not unlike the author's own native Chile), Death and the Maiden is a psychological thriller about a woman, Paulina, who believes that a stranger who accidentally arrives at her home is the same man who, under a previous military dictatorship, tortured and raped her many years ago. When the tables are turned between victim and oppressor, Paulina's husband (and the audience) must choose sides between Paulina's certainty and the stranger's proclaimed innocence, forcing difficult decisions on the natures of morality, justice, and revenge.

FIGARO'S MARRIAGE

By Pierre Beaumarchais

Adapted and Directed by Jeffrey Bleam

November 13 - 17 at 8 pm

November 18 at 2 pm

Center Stage, Performing Arts Center

The play which inspired Mozart's famous opera and planted the seeds for the French Revolution, Figaro's Marriage is a biting satire on class, gender, and sexual politics. Negotiating a web of neglected wives, drunken gardeners, and scheming spinsters, the wily Figaro enacts a series of ploys and masquerades to save his fiance from the lecherous Count Almaviva. Featuring outlandish fashions, rolling furniture, and a "Techno-Baroque" soundscape, our production offers a strangely current vision of a society spinning out of control.

Repertory Dance Theatre presents:

PERFECT PAIRS

February 21 - 23 at 8 pm

Center Stage, Performing Arts Center

Under the direction of Sage Award winner April Sellers and Tracy Vacura, Repertory Dance Theatre presents Perfect Pairs. Using the choreographic form of duets, Perfect Pairs puts a magnifying glass on relationships; examining gender roles, codependency, and toxic love. The evening will feature works by guest artists John Munger and Hijack. With music ranging from Barry Manilow to Bach, audiences are sure to find their perfect pair.

GOODNIGHT DESDEMONA (GOOD MORNING JULIET)

By Ann-Marie MacDonald

Directed by Brian Leahy Doyle

April 1 - 5 at 8 pm

April 6 at 2 pm

Arena Stage, Performing Arts Center

Assistant Professor Constance Ledbelly sets out to discover the missing tragic fool in Shakespeare's Othello and Romeo and Juliet in Canadian playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald's madcap comedy, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet). Time-warped to the battlements of Cyprus and the streets of fair Verona, Constance unintentionally deconstructs the plots of both tragedies, becoming the missing Fool she has been searching for with antic aplomb. A witty, humorous and imaginative theatrical tour de force!

THE BIG KNIFE

By Clifford Odets

Directed by R. Bruce Hyde

April 22 - 26 at 8 pm

April 27 at 2 pm

Center Stage, Performing Arts Center

Cliffor Odets' dark drama of Hollywood in the 1940s concerns the dilemma of movie superstar Charlie Castle. Charlie longs to break his studio contract and return to the stage in order to fulfill his early promise as a "serious" actor. But he is thwarted by the megalomaniacal studio head, Stanley Shriner, who blackmails him into signing a new contract by threatening to reveal a criminal secret from Charlie's past. In the background, rumblings of McCarthyism (which later threatened Odets' own screenwriting career) are beginning to be heard in the movie industry. Staged in film noir style, Charlie's story is a fascinating look into the world of powerful gossip columnists, Machiavellian studio flunkies, and Hollywood starlets hungry for a break.