STAGES REPERTORY THEATRE
www.stagestheatre.com
STAGES REPERTORY THEATRE
CELEBRATES 25 YEARS OF INNOVATIVE ART
Stages Marks 25th Anniversary
With an Audacious Season of Provocative Plays and Musicals
HOUSTON, TX - Honoring its mission to inspire a vital engagement with Houston audiences, Stages Repertory Theatre
presents a dynamic 25th anniversary season that embodies the organization's founding principles: to compel, provoke, and
engage audiences in the rigorous pursuit of their deepest feelings. The season is a collection of plays that are bold, outrageous,
joyful, and ultimately invigorating.
"Ted Swindley's maverick spirit has inspired me to choose works that you're not likely to find in mainstage venues across the
U.S." commented Stages Artistic Director Rob Bundy, referring to the theatre's founding artistic director. "Over the years it
has been Stages' job to produce plays that invite the audience to lean forward and get engaged with what is happening on
stage. Our audiences will go to exciting and entertaining places, and they'll think and feel along the way."
"Milestones are times of great possibility and reflection, and we recognize and celebrate that Stages was founded to provide
compelling new voices and provocative works to the Houston community," said Managing Director Kenn McLaughlin. "These
plays are vivid, complex, and keenly reflect the times in which we live. This milestone season is an authentic representation of
our time - its adventurous, surprising, and often wickedly funny."
In an effort to make Stages' work accessible to a larger audience and welcome new theatregoers in this anniversary season,
the theatre has adjusted subscription and single ticket prices. Season subscriptions range from $114 to $208, and are now
available through the Stages box office, 3201 Allen Parkway at Waugh Drive, or by calling 713-527-0123. Single tickets
range from $25 - $35, and are available beginning August 15. Single tickets for preview performances are $20 - $25. Student
and senior discounts are available. Groups of 10 or more are also eligible for a discount. Post-show discussions are on the
Sunday following the opening of each production. All plays, dates, and prices are subject to change.
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THE 2003-2004 25th
ANNIVERSARY SEASON
by Craig Wright
Directed by Rob Bundy
October 1 - 26, 2003, Stages' Yeager Theater
Regional Premiere
"Maybe tonight you could start a whole new world where things like that don't have to happen."
On September 12, 2001, the doorbell rings and Andrew begins his blind date in the shadow of tragedy. In an ingenious twist,
even the actors aren't entirely sure what will happen after that. Craig Wright, author of The Pavilion and now a writer for
HBO's Six Feet Under, delivers the goods again with rock-and-roll philosophy, a sarcastic sock puppet, and a tiny but pivotal
role for one lucky audience member every night. Recommended for lovers, physicists and Americans everywhere.
Winner of the 2003 American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Commemorative Citation, the 2003 Humana Festival of
New American Plays, and nominated for the Helen Hayes/Charles MacArthur Award for Outstanding New Play, Recent
Tragic Events had a workshop reading at Stages in October 2001 during the run of Wright's Pulitzer-nominated work The
Pavilion. Variety deemed Recent Tragic Events "poignant, thought-provoking," and Cultureflux calls the play "everything good
theatre is about… the quintessential example of a captivating piece of art that inspires, provokes, and lingers."
Wright's accolades include fellowships from the McKnight Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. His plays
include Orange Flower Water, John Dory, and Molly's Delicious.
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GOOD BOYS
by Jane Martin
Directed by Mark Ramont
October 29 - November 23, 2003
Regional Premiere
Stages' Arena Theater
Performance rights pending on a stunning new drama from pseudonymous playwright Jane Martin.
Martin first came to national attention for Talking With…, a series of monologues that premiered at the 1981 Humana Festival
of New American Plays at the Actors' Theatre of Louisville. Martin's Keely and Du was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in
drama and won the American Theatre Critics Association Award for Best New Play in 1996. Of Martin's work, Stages has
produced Anton in Show Business (winner of the 2000 American Theatre Critics/Steinberg New Play Award), Jack and Jill,
Coup/Clucks, and. Talking With.
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BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL
Story and Book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming
Music and Lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe
Director to be announced
December 3, 2003 - January 11, 2004, Stages' Yeager Theater
Houston Premiere
"People would pay good money to see a Bat Boy. We could be the next Branson."
Lock up your cows and your daughters! The residents of a tiny West Virginia town are about to come face-to-face with a
fearsome freak--half-bat, half-boy. But perhaps there's more to this menace than razor-sharp fangs and a hypnotic singing
voice. It may be dark…it may be dangerous…but we're determined to find the truth about…THE BAT BOY!
Called "Outrageously silly and totally charming" by the New York Daily News and "…a jaggedly imaginative mix of
skewering humor and energetic glee" by The New York Times, Bat Boy was inspired by a tabloid story that appeared in the
early 1990s. It is the brainchild of actor/director Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, a playwright, screenwriter and film
director whose Nothing So Strange, a feature-length faux documentary about the assassination of Microsoft chairman Bill
Gates, won the New York Times Claiborne Pell Award for Original Vision at the 2002 Newport Film Festival. Laurence
O'Keefe received the LA Weekly Award/Musical Of The Year and BackStage West Award for Music for Bat Boy.
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BRIGHT IDEAS
by Eric Coble
Director to be announced
January 14 - February 8, 2004
Stages' Arena Theater
Regional Premiere
"It's just ideas, Genevra. Ideas never hurt anyone."
Macbeth meets McParenting in a wicked new comedy that asks just how far some parents will go to raise the "perfect" child.
Meet Josh and Genevra Bradley: ambitious, successful, and well on their way to becoming All-Star Parents at their son's posh
preschool. Ask how they got him in and they'll invite you to dinner. A word to the wise: Don't eat the pesto.
Eric Coble is an award-winning playwright and member of the Cleveland PlayHouse Playwright's Unit. He is the recipient of
the National Theatre Conference 2002 Playwriting Award, an Ohio Arts Council Grant, a TCG Extended Collaboration
Grant, and two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts. His Pinocchio 3.5 won Stages' 2002 Southwest Festival
of New Plays/Children's Division, and was produced as part of Stages' EarlyStages 2002-2003 season. Coble's scripts have
been produced Off- and Off-off Broadway and throughout the U.S. and Canada, including productions at The Kennedy
Center, Actors Studio, Playwrights Horizons, Alliance Theatre, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, and Oregon Children's
Theatre. The Cleveland PlayHouse received an AT&T: On Stage award for its world premiere production of Bright Ideas.
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DIRTY STORY
by John Patrick Shanley
Directed by Rob Bundy
March 17 - April 11, 2004, Stages' Yeager Theater
Regional Premiere
"Call me Israel."
A graduate student meets her idol: a savage, sexy, permanently-blocked novelist named Brutus. Global conflict ensues. A
surreal, allegorical gut-punch of a play from Oscar-winning screenwriter John Patrick Shanley, Dirty Story has been hailed by
critics as "deliciously rich with ideas and action…one of the most fertile plays to come around in a while," and "…sharper and
faster than the perennial speeding bullet."
Shanley's works for the stage have been produced at Seattle Repertory Theatre, Mark Taper Forum, the Humana Festival at
Actors Theatre of Louisville, Manhattan Theatre Club, Lucille Lortel Theatre, Geffen Playhouse, and the New York
Shakespeare Festival. He was selected for four consecutive seasons as a participant at the National Playwrights Conference
at the O'Neill Theatre Center. His screenplays include the Oscar-winning Moonstruck, which also won the Writers Guild
Award, and Five Corners, which won a Special Jury Prize at the Barcelona Film Festival.
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CONVENIENCE
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Gregg Coffin
Directed by Rob Bundy
May 12 - June 20, 2004
Stages' Yeager Theater
Regional Premiere
"My mother and I…don't get along."
Vince was six years old when his father walked out, leaving Vince and his young mother to grow up, grow angry, and grow
apart. Now Vince is in love for the first time-with a man-and needs to break the news to Mom. Twenty years of silence are
broken, the Traitor King is defeated, and true love prevails in this pop operetta for the (post)modern family.
Coffin is an Associate Artist at Geva Theatre, where he is an actor, composer, and sound designer. He has composed for
productions at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto, Interact Theatre, Georgia Shakespeare Festival, and Sacramento Theatre
Company, and he was an Associate Artist and resident composer at Shakespeare Santa Cruz. He won the 2000 Dora
Award for Outstanding Sound Design for his work on Slavs, produced at the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto. Convenience,
called "witty and sincere" by Talkin' Broadway, premiered at Geva Theatre.
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SPECIAL 25TH ANNIVERSARY SUMMER CELEBRATION
by Ted Swindley
Directed by Jimmy Phillips
July 11 - October 26, 2003
Stages' Yeager Theatre
To celebrate the 25th Anniversary season, Stages is thrilled to bring back the international hit musical that had its world
premiere at Stages in 1988. Penned by Stages' Founding Artistic Director Ted Swindley, Always... Patsy Cline is a tribute to
the legendary country music singer and her friendship with Louise Seger, a fan from Houston who met Cline by chance in a
honky-tonk and remained close to her until the star's tragic death in 1963. Recognized by American Theatre Magazine as one
of the most-often produced musicals in the United Stages, the two-woman production is rich with down-home country humor
and includes 27 of Cline's unforgettable hit songs.
All tickets for Always… Patsy Cline are $25, and seating is general admission.
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THE THEATRE
Now celebrating its 25th anniversary season, Stages is one of only a few Equity theatres in Houston. Formed in 1978 in the
basement of a brewery, Stages was created to introduce innovative contemporary plays to a region often considered
old-fashioned in its theatrical tastes. Rob Bundy was named artistic director in 1996, and under his guidance Stages has
moved to the forefront of American theatre and attained a new level of artistic quality. Kenn McLaughlin became Stages'
managing director in the summer of 2001. McLaughlin's leadership has galvanized the administration of the theatre, and
resulted in a new strategic plan designed to ensure another quarter-century of success.
In addition to the MainStage season, Stages offers productions for students and families through its EarlyStages program,
which features plays and musicals dedicated to providing children and their families with intelligent, high-quality theatre that
educates, entertains, and inspires. Stages maintains collaborative relationships with several theatre companies in Houston,
including Grupo de Teatro "Somos Todos" and Unhinged Productions, and has partnered with Young Audiences of Houston
to increase EarlyStages' impact in Houston and surrounding areas. In October 2002, Houston's City Council recognized
Stages for its outstanding service to the Houston community.
Stages is a constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for not-for-profit theatres.
The theater operates under an agreement with Actor's Equity Association (AEA), the union of professional actors and stage
managers in the United States.
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