Doane Theatre
2008-09 Mainstage Season
Coram Boy
by Helen Edmundson with music composed by Adrian Sutton, based on the 2000 children's novel of the same name by Jamila Gavin
October 2-4 The action takes place in 18th century. The benevolent Thomas Coram has recently opened a Foundling Hospital in London called the "Coram Hospital for Deserted Children". Unscrupulous men, known as "Coram men", take advantage of the situation by promising desperate mothers to take their unwanted children to the hospital for a fee. The story follows a range of characters, focusing on two orphans: Toby, saved from an African slave ship; and Aaron, the deserted son of the heir to an estate, as their lives become closely involved with this true and tragic episode of British social history.
Well
By Lisa Kron
November 20-22
In Well, Kron creates a complex exploration of our assumptions about whether or not we are responsible for our own illnesses. She draws on stories of her family's history of chronic illness, her own stay in an "environmental ecology clinic," and her subsequent transition to health. Woven into this are stories of her childhood in a racially integrated neighborhood which was "healed" from decline by her mother's community work. Kron places herself on stage with the character of her mother along with a chorus of four actors. These characters continually undermine Kron's plans for the play - a meta-theatrical conceit that has proven exceedingly delightful to audiences as it subverts the autobiographical form by removing the narrator's assumption of omniscience and forcing her to react as her intentions are derailed and her motives are questioned.
Evil Dead, the Musical
Book and lyrics by George Reinblatt, music by Frank Cipolla, Bond, Melissa Morris and Reinblatt with music supervision by Cipolla.
March 4-6
A new musical comedy based on the Sam Raimi cult film classics, which hits the stage in March. Several college students spend the weekend in an abandoned cabin in the woods, accidentally unleashing an evil terror. In this comedic take on the 80s horror franchise, characters and demons sing and dance to songs written specifically for the musical. And, as in the films, Ash is there to dish out his various one liners and fight the never ending Army of Darkness. The musical takes creative liberty with the plot line of the movies, mixing together the characters and concepts of all three, as well as changing sequences for the sake of the stage and comedic intent.
A Dream Play
By August Strindberg in a new version by Caryl Churchill
April 23 - 25
‘Everything can happen, everything is possible and probable. Time and place do not exist.’
Strindberg in his preface to A Dream Play, 1901
A dream about a girl from another world who comes to find out why people complain so much. Strindberg’s groundbreaking experiment in surrealism. Following the logic of a dream-in which characters merge, locations change in an instant, and a locked door recurs obsessively-Strindberg's 1902 "A Dream Play" is a potent mix of Freud plus "Alice in Wonderland," Caryl Churchill, perhaps the most fascinating and respected female dramatist in the English-speaking world, has taken on Strindberg's "Dream" in this spare and resonant adaptation.
2007-08 Panthera Studio Season
Proposed Season
Malcom X
By Brian Varvaro
Winter
Brian's second original comedy that has nothing to do with Malcom X.
Dance by Color
By Jen Kater
Winter
Jen's imaginative journey into the color of movement and sound.
The Book of Tink
By Erik Ehn
Spring
This dramatic and musical text is a phantasmagorical re-imagining of the Peter Pan story. When the very fabric of Everland is threatened by a manipulative and controlling Wendy, a band of fairies—led by Tinkerbell and aided by Captain Hook and a chorus of Mermaid Prostitutes—mount a defense. Nana, the Darling Children, and the Lost Boys take on new lives in this highly poetic, visceral, and visually stunning exploration of “the savagery of innocence” and the necessity of the imagination.