Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University | CATFThe Plays
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A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World
A World Premiere by Liz Duffy Adams // Directed by Kent Nicholson
The year is 1702—ten years after the Salem witch trials made famous in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. About to leave the Colonies forever, long-lost Abigail Williams arrives at the frontier tavern of her childhood witch conspirator — Mercy Lewis—desperate to understand the madness that overtook their youth. But with war threatening New England yet again, Mercy and the local Puritans are in no mood for Abigail’s doubts. And when things are most dangerously tense—the Devil himself shows up.
Contains violence and mature themes.
Frank Center Stage • 260 University Drive
Modern Terrorism, or They Who Want to Kill Us and How We Learn to Love Them
By Jon Kern // Directed by Ed Herendeen
It takes big (and possibly sweaty) balls to write about people determined to blow up the Empire State Building. This violently funny, provocative black comedy is a satire of paranoid times and explores themes of alienation, revenge, and yearning for purpose and fame. A trio of terrorists is determined to bring retribution to America as they plot their elaborate plans from a New York City apartment. The only problem? They aren’t very good at it. And when their upstairs neighbor—a dude named Jerome—accidentally gets involved, well, a new kind of chaos ensues.
Contains mature language and graphic violence.
Marinoff Theater • Center for Contemporary Arts/II • 62 West Campus Drive
H2O
A World Premiere by Jane Martin // Directed by Jon Jory
After arriving to the City of Angels, an aimless young man catapults to movie stardom and into Hollywood’s sleazy celebrity culture. Banking on his fame (and name), he is soon selected to appear on Broadway in Hamlet. Given full casting approval, he embarks to New York City to seek out his Ophelia and encounters his muse and his match —a young evangelical Christian woman set on getting the role…and saving his life. From the reclusive, madcap world of Jane Martin comes this drama/comedy/lovestory about self-destruction, notoriety, and the dark journey to purity and salvation.
Contains explicit language, violence, and nudity.
Commissioned by the Contemporary American Theater Festival with generous support from Lawrence Dean & Mina Goodrich and Paul & Lisa Welch. Supported, in part, by a grant from the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation.
CCA 112 • Center for Contemporary Arts/I • 92 West Campus Drive
Heartless
By Sam Shepard // Directed by Ed Herendeen
The heart has always been a vital metaphor in the plays of Sam Shepard; and never more so than in this poetic, enigmatic, and humorous exploration of the failure to connect. Opening with a piercing scream—a primal cry that cracks the dirty haze of the Hollywood canyons—Heartless is set in the home Sally shares with her sister, mother, and family nurse. When her new lover arrives, life is thrown out of whack as the scars of the past rise up. This new play is Shepard’s EKG on the human condition.
Contains mature language and nudity.
Frank Center Stage • 260 University Drive
Scott and Hem in the Garden of Allah
A World Premiere Written and Directed by Mark St. Germain
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway wrestle with the sparks of art and the perils of creativity— and the personal destruction they can reap—in this combative new play set amidst Hollywood’s glittery backdrop. Fueled by friendship and rivalry, two literary heavyweights reunite in 1937 for a final night at the Los Angeles resort villa, the Garden of Allah. From an American master of historical dramatic fiction, the men explore their mysterious bond and the genius that first brought them together (but was fated to tear them apart).
Contains mature language.
Commissioned by the Contemporary American Theater Festival with generous support from Shepherd University. Supported, in part, by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Laurents/Hatcher Foundation. Produced as part of a rolling world premiere agreement with Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Marinoff Theater • Center for Contemporary Arts/II • 62 West Campus Drive
