Recent Productions
 

CHEWING YOUR FINGERS TO THE BONE
Written by Beth Watkins
Devised by Brian Thummler, Beth Watkins, and the Company
November 2009

A boy arrives in the emergency room with a debilitating illness. A young girl is both blessed and cursed with a curious mind. A lame god creates the first woman out of earth and water. Drawn from stories, myths, and an obsession with DNA, this tale of curiosity and self-mutilation takes us into a world of puppets, songs, and physical feats of derring-do. There WILL be a quiz. See production images.

DOUBT
John Patrick Shanley
Meadville Community Theatre, Oddfellows Building
January 2009

VENUS
Suzan-Lori Parks
April 2008

Venus is a fierce exploration of race, oppression, and exploitation. The play tells the historically true story of the Hottentot Venus, a black woman brought from Capetown to England in 1810 to be displayed as a freak. Parks brilliantly juxtaposes history against the landscape of contemporary American culture, exposing tensions between humanity and commerce, science and ethics, in a daring and dangerous evening of theatrical voyeurism. Tony Kushner calls Suzan-Lori Parks "one of the most important dramatists American has produced." See production images.

THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE DE VERACRUZ!
Gilbert and Sullivan
March 2007

Sentimental pirates… Bumbling police… Honor and duty… And the Very Model of a Modern Major-General! Gilbert and Sullivan's whimsically comic opera is a theatrical delight. Follow the adventures of the mightily dimwitted Pirate King, his apprentice Frederick, and Mabel, the winsome daughter of an eccentric Major-General (who knows nothing about military strategy!) as they romp across the musical stage. Set in revolutionary Mexico, our production promises to amuse audiences of all ages.

CHICK JOINT
A New Play
Devised by Beth Watkins
Adapted from the Prison Correspondence of Jesse Carr
September 16-17, 2005

Jesse is a twenty-year-old college student about to enter federal prison. In a conscious act of civil disobedience, Jesse trespassed onto the property of the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia and was arrested along with 80 other human rights activists. Now Jesse faces incarceration in Alderson Prison, the oldest women’s prison in the United States, whose inmates have included Billie Holiday, Tokyo Rose and "Squeaky" Fromme. Chick Joint chronicles this story in an evening of theatrical exploration with movement, music, and testimony. See production images.

THE LARAMIE PROJECT
Written by Moises Kaufman and
the Members of the Tectonic Theater Project
Directed by Beth Watkins
February 24-27, 2005

On October 7, 1998, a young gay man - a college student - was discovered bound to a fence in the hills outside Laramie, Wyoming, savagely beaten and left to die. It was a hate crime that shocked the nation. Matthew Shepard's death became a national symbol of intolerance, but for the people of Laramie the event was deeply personal, and it is their voices we hear in this stunningly effective theater piece.

The Laramie Project chronicles the life of the town of Laramie in the year after the murder, introducing over sixty different people speaking in their own words-from rural ranchers to university professors. Their struggle to come to terms with the truths about their own community - its brutality and its compassion - makes this play a poignant document about the process of healing. See production images.

WIT
Written by Margaret Edson
Meadville Community Theater
October, 2004

Vivian Bearing, a distinguished scholar and professor who has spent her career studying and teaching the metaphysical sonnets of John Donne, has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer. She approaches her illness as she has approached the study of Donne: with uncompromising fortitude and intensely rational observation. Yet in the course of her illness, she reexamines her life, her work, and her sense of compassion to transformative effect, both for her and for the audience. "A dazzling and humane play."

THE LOVE OF THE NIGHTINGALE
Written by Timberlake Wertenbaker
April, 2004/p>

Athens has been vanquished by Thrace, and the spoils of war include an Athenian wife for the Thracian King. Exile and enforced silence result in horrible acts of violence and retribution in this vivid retelling of the classical Philomele story. Wertenbaker's potently theatrical tale—an examination of the aftermath of war and its effects on the "liberated"—has been hailed as "a raw piece of mythmaking." See production images.

BLOOD WEDDING
Written by Federico Garcia Lorca
Directed by Beth Watkins
February 28 — March 3, 2002

This Blood Weddingfiercely passionate play tells the tale of two young people drawn irresistibly together in the face of an arranged marriage. Lorca infused popular Spanish traditions with innovative lyricism and surrealistic imagery; this experimental production will use masks, dance, and music to tell the haunting story of ritual, fate, and human nature. See production images.

ARCADIA
Written by Tom Stoppard
Directed by Beth Watkins
November 21-24, 2002

In 1809, the Coverly country estate in Derbyshire is a household in transition. The Arcadian landscape is being transformed into picturesque Gothic gardens and romantic liaisons are running amok. Arcadia In the present day, two scholars compete to uncover a possible scandal involving Lord Byron that fateful summer in 1809. Award-winning author Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love) has crafted a riveting comedy that sparkles with wit, invention, and ideas as it moves back and forth between centuries. See production images.

MARGINALIA IN SONNET FORM
Conceived and Directed by Beth Watkins
September 13-14, 2002

Memories of food, family and favorite books-what can they teach us? This question is explored in the fourth in our annual series of new works in September, which plays on the rituals of domestic life. Join our company of actors as they investigate life's simple pleasures through movement, puppetry, and poetry. See production images.