Written in 2009, Clybourne Park takes up where Raisin leaves off, in 1959 with a white couple selling their home to the Youngers and causing uproar among their middle class neighbors. The second act fast-forwards 50 years with neighborhood demographics radically shifted and the first family of gentrifying whites about to move into what is now a predominantly black community. Times have changed, but what about the no-holds-barred conversation about race and the politics of community?
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Debuting in 1959 and nominated for multiple Tony Awards, A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway.
In this groundbreaking drama proceeds from a life insurance policy give the Younger family hope for a better life. Can their “dreams deferred” be realized by moving into a home in an all-white neighborhood when they are confronted with conflicting desires within the family and racial prejudice outside their door?
A haunting musical adventure into the psyche of a composer trying to create an opera based on the classic novel Moby Dick. Desperately fighting a degenerative disease eating away at his mind, each day the artist must rely on a tape recorder hung around his neck and a muse born of his imagination to instruct him on his work. Grammy Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist Rinde Eckert displays his full creative force in this frenzied, funny and moving play.
The treasured holiday film comes to life before your eyes. 1940s radio players perform the story as a Christmas Eve broadcast with music and sound effects – then they actually become the characters, stepping into the iconic scenes that have warmed hearts for generations. A story of redemption that resonates with all ages, It’s a Wonderful Life has become our American Christmas Carol. Experience the true spirit of the season with this gift for the entire family.
A new adaptation of the best play ever written about the health care industry. A rich hypochondriac surrounds himself with a host of veritable quacks eager to take his money by promising cures to an array of suspect illnesses. This Invalid is smart, in your face, and wickedly funny, taking you from a Parisian drawing room to Purgatory for an epic battle between the forces of good and evil. The passing of years has only heightened the absurd accuracy of this dead-on take on healthcare as a system where no one is blameless – neither the doctors nor their patients.
Visionary director Dominique Serrand, artistic director/co-founder of Tony Award-winning Theatre de la Jeune Lune, helms this irreverent PlayMakers commission of a timeless classic. His longtime collaborator, Steven Epp, will be featured as the “Invalid.” Their production of The Miser seared stages at Berkeley Repertory Theatre and Boston’s American Repertory Theatre and was celebrated as everything Molière should be – poignant and hilarious,
grotesque and beautiful.
As our hit play Opus took you behind the music of a world famous string quartet, Red takes you into the studio of Mark Rothko, pioneer of abstract expressionism, and into the mind of an artist wrestling with the eternal struggle between art and commerce. Seen through the eyes of his young, increasingly challenging assistant, Rothko agonizes over a lucrative project painting murals for the new Four Seasons Restaurant. Has he sold out to fame and fortune or is he still a real artist?
The mother of all war stories told with stunning ferocity in a brilliant contemporary voice. Homer’s epic tale of mighty warriors, gods and goddesses, and the face that launched a thousand ships comes alive with the grit, glory, bloodlust and poetic loss that have held audiences enthralled through the ages. Featuring Ray Dooley as the storyteller, An Iliad is the perfect complement to last season’s hit PRC2 finale Penelope.
During World War II, student Gordon Hirabayashi fights the US government’s orders to forcibly incarcerate people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast. Struggling to reconcile his country’s betrayal with his passionate belief in the Constitution, he journeys toward greater understanding of America’s triumphs – and confrontation with its failures.
A theatrical tour-de-force combining Sondheim’s signature blend of intelligently stunning lyrics and beautiful music with a panoramic story of our nation’s culture of celebrity and the violent means some will use to obtain it, embodied by America’s four successful and five would-be presidential assassins.