OUR 21st ODYSSEY

The Contemporary American Theater Festival has grown beyond my wildest dreams. More importantly, it’s remained true to it’s mission and core values: a theater that celebrates truth and beauty without ignoring the destructive forces of a dangerous world; a theater company that poses provocative questions about contemporary issues. The work is often personal…sometimes political…sometimes controversial…often profound…and entertaining.

In every Festival Season you will find love and loss, paradox and mystery. But you won’t ever see mindless, escapist entertainment–because CATF doesn’t distract audiences with status-quo work. In an age of commercialism, we’re something of a miracle: serious artists producing challenging new works for the American stage.

I can’t promise you that every play, lecture, talk-back or performance will enlighten you, or cure even one tiny neurosis. I can promise you that each Repertory will contain some of the most radically intimate and socially conscious writing being performed today. The Contemporary American Theater Festival is a annual reminder that everyone has a story to tell and a voice to tell it. Those who attend the Festival and the playwrights and theater artists who create it are joined in an uncommonly close way. We are an artistic community. Every summer we come together to celebrate the glory and the heartache of being human.

I personally invite you and your friends to join me on our 21st ODYSSEY beginning on July 8th 2011. We will announce the 2011 Repertory later today.

Ed Herendeen, Producing Director