Covid was a wild time for performers
Here’s what we did to cope…
The Problem
The Problem, by A.R.Gurney.
Problem #1 - The Wife is pregnant
Problem #2 - The Husband is perturbed
And thus a train of dominoes is set off, exploring a seemingly unending sequence of problems surrounding The Wife and Husband, until it reaches it’s hilarious and unexpected climax.
By A.R. Gurney
I remember when I worked at Subway for a summer. Boy, let me tell you, that sandwich board was my oyster. Everyday, trying something new and delicious. Everyday, a new sandwich adventure. Nothing was too decadent. It was amazing.
Then towards the end of summer, I got a little tired of all the fanciness. I remember making myself a ham and cheese sandwich and allowing myself to be blown away by the beauty of its simplicity. It didn’t need all the extra add-ons. It was perfect in a minimal way.
That’s what “The Problem” is for me. Simplest of sets, simplest of characters, simplest of problems. But it’s wrought so beautifully and engagingly, you can’t help but love it.
- Alan
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People is a play by Oscar Wilde. First performed on 14 February 1895 at the St James's Theatre in London, it is a farcical comedy in which the protagonists maintain fictitious personae to escape burdensome social obligations. Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways. Some contemporary reviews praised the play's humour and the culmination of Wilde's artistic career, while others were cautious about its lack of social messages. Its high farce and witty dialogue have helped make The Importance of Being Earnest Wilde's most enduringly popular play.
By Oscar Wilde
When I think of plays that are +100 years old, I heave a sigh. I don’t think of them as brilliant, sharp, witty, classy plays.
And yet that’s exactly what The Importance of Being Earnest is. The trope is so common today: someone assumes an other’s identity and misunderstandings ensue. Hilarity. Over the top, gauche, slapstick. It’s great. In spite of that well trod path, Earnest sidesteps all those pitfalls that we know to expect and opts to parry and thrust around the situation using language and satire alone. It’s so deft and wonderful and charming. Love it, love it, love it. I hope you will too!
- Alan
Doubt: A Parable
“What do you do when you’re not sure?” So asks Father Flynn, the progressive and beloved priest at the St. Nicholas Church School in the Bronx, in his sermon. It’s 1964, and things are changing, to the chagrin of rigid principal Sister Aloysius. However, when an unconscionable accusation is leveled against the Father, Sister Aloysius realizes that the only way to get justice is to create it herself. And as for the truth of the matter? As Father Flynn says, "Doubt can be a bond as powerful and sustaining as certainty.” In stunning prose, John Patrick Shanley delves into the murky shadows of moral certainty, his characters always balancing on the thin line between truth and consequences. Doubt: A Parable is an exquisite, potent drama that will raise questions and answer none, leaving the audience to grapple with the discomfort of their uncertainties.
By John Patrick Shanley
Two people in my artists’s network told me that they were really in love with this script, so naturally I had to look into it. What a thought-provoking piece. Loved it so much. And the talkback with the presenters was almost as long as the piece itself.
The Wild Guys
Four guys, with nothing in common except their gender, start off into the woods for a weekend "encounter session," of the kind popularized in the last decade or so by the poet Robert Bly, the bard of the "men's movement." Of course they get lost, and of course they confront their own fears and emotions and of course there's a virtually endless stream of jokes -- many of them pretty funny -- both about the men's movement and coming out of it. On the one hand, we're invited to laugh at the flood of cliches about what it means to be a man, and how men in our culture are so hard done by -- and, on the other hand, and at the same time, to laugh about things the men's movement finds appalling: emasculating women, a dehumanizing work culture, stereotyping of males.
by Andrew Wreggitt and Rebecca Shaw
I don’t know about all of you, but I’m finding these to be confusing times. I’m pushing 40, and each year I feel a different kind of lost than the year before. Not more lost. Just still lost. Maybe that’s fine. But when I came across that theme in this play, I couldn’t ignore it. Especially in this day when we’ve been doing an ok job at deconstructing, it’s hard for a guy to know what being a healthy, authentic man looks like. It’s not easy being lost on that journey, but I think being lost is the journey.
The Ladies Foursome
The day after their friend Catherine’s funeral, Margot, Tate, and Connie gather for a round of golf in honour of their recently departed fourth. At the gold course they are joined by another woman, an old friend of Catherine’s they’d never met. Over the course of eighteen holes, secrets and confessions unravel as the women discuss love, sex, children, and everything in between.
By Norm Foster
We first saw this script as a part of ActFest a few years ago. There was a time limit of 45 minutes for all entries to the festival, so we only got to see the first act, but we were hooked and wanted to know how the story ended right away.
When we finally got our hands on the script, we were not disappointed.