RED BANK, NJ- Two River Theater announces the lineup of productions for its 2013-14 20th Anniversary Season.
“This season, Two River Theater is celebrating our 20th Anniversary with a season of plays that reflect our history and honor our founding mission: ‘to present plays that most richly direct our gaze to the life of the human spirit,'” says Artistic Director John Dias.
“We produce new works and classics that challenge us to see ourselves in the human condition. Theater doesn’t pretend to provide answers; instead it invites us to ask the necessary questions. The artists who are coming to Red Bank are among the greatest writers, directors, and actors working in the American theater today. They are driven by their passions, and we chose our 20th anniversary lineup to support their explorations and insights.”
20th Anniversary Season Shows
ON BORROWED TIME
By Paul Osborn
Directed Joel Grey
September 14 – October 6, 2013
Rechnitz Theater
Theater and film legend Joel Grey (winner of both Tony and Academy Awards for his role as the M.C. in Cabaret) directs Paul Osborn’s On Borrowed Time-the play in which he made his theatrical debut as “Pud” in the 1941 Cleveland Play House production, at the age of nine. Even death can’t stand in the way of the love between Pud and his Gramps. When Death himself pays them a visit in the form of a man named Mr. Brink, Gramps outwits him-trapping Brink in a tree and refusing to let him down.
Joel Grey is one of only eight actors to have won both the Tony and Academy award for the same role; he also received the Golden Globe and the British Academy Award for the film version of Cabaret. His other Broadway credits include Chicago (1996), Wicked (2003), and Anything Goes (2011). He was Tony nominated for co-directing the 2011 Broadway revival of The Normal Heart. Paul Osborn’s other works include Mornings at Seven and film adaptations of East of Eden and South Pacific. On Borrowed Time premiered on Broadway in 1938.
A MAP OF THE SOUL:
THE TRICKY PART and ALL THE RAGE
Written and Performed by Martin Moran
Directed by Seth Barrish
October 26 – November 17, 2013
Rechnitz Theater
The maps of our lives are uncharted territory. For one boy, forced to grow up too quickly, the journey takes him to the heart of a paradox: what we think of as damage may be the very thing that gives rise to transformation, even grace. Martin Moran’s powerful and surprisingly funny memoir The Tricky Part, for which he won the Obie Award, takes audiences to the heart of confession and redemption. In his 2013 play All the Rage, Moran further explores themes of anger and compassion. Surely he should have more rage about the crime he experienced as a boy-shouldn’t he? Everyone thinks so. The question haunts him, and sends him on a quest that takes him from Manhattan to West of the Rockies and South of Johannesburg.
Under the title A Map of the Soul, Two River Theater will produce The Tricky Part and select performances of All the Rage, winner of the Lucille Lortel Award, in repertory as a special event in the season. Both productions are directed by Seth Barrish (My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend, Sleepwalk with Me). Martin Moran is currently performing at the Atlantic Theater in John Guare’s play Three Kinds of Exile; his other credits include Monty Python’s Spamalot and Floyd Collins.
A WIND IN THE WILLOWS CHRISTMAS
Music by Mike Reid, Lyrics by Sarah Schlesinger, and Book by Mindi Dickstein
Based on the Novel by Kenneth Grahame
Directed by Daniella Topol
December 7 – 29, 2013
Rechnitz Theater
Two River’s annual holiday show for family audiences, A Wind in the Willows Christmas returns with a new take on the adventures of Mole, Rat, Mr. Toad, and all their furry friends. Commissioned and premiered by Two River last season, the musical returns to the theater as a newly conceived wintry wonderland directed by Daniella Topol (Rattlestick Theatre’s current production of Jessica Dickey’s Charles Ives Take Me Home, How the World Began).
Grammy winner Mike Reid has composed more than 30 Top-Ten pop and country hits recorded by many artists including Bonnie Raitt (“I Can’t Make You Love Me”) and Kenny Chesney (“Always Gonna Be You”). His collaborations with Sarah Schlesinger include In This House, which premiered at Two River in 2012. Mindi Dickstein wrote the lyrics for the Broadway musical Little Women.
AS YOU LIKE IT
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Michael Sexton
January 25 – February 16, 2014
Rechnitz Theater
Following their critically acclaimed collaboration on Two River’s 2012 production of Henry V, director Michael Sexton and actor Jacob Fishel return to the theater with Shakespeare’s comedy of cross-dressing heroines and triumphant heroes, As You Like It.
In connection with this production, Two River will produce a 75-minute version of As You Like It performed and designed by high school students, supported by professional artist-mentors. Six performances will be presented in the Marion Huber Theater in February 2014, including both student matinees for grades 4-6 and performances open to the general public. Throughout the fall, Two River will work with educators and students in Monmouth County schools to support their exploration of the play and Shakespeare’s language.
PINKOLANDIA
By Andrea Thome
Directed by José Zayas
February 22 – March 23, 2014
Marion Huber Theater
Exiled from Chile to the strange new land of Reagan-era Wisconsin, two young sisters create imaginary worlds to make sense of their family’s past, as their parents try to find their own place in the American Dream. Pinkolandia is a fantastical play about growing up-because sometimes, when you lose your country, you have to make your own. Andrea Thome was born to Chilean/Costa Rican parents in Wisconsin. Her English translation of Neva by Chilean playwright Guillermo Calderón premiered at The Public Theater in 2013. José Zayas (Love in the Time of Cholera and The House of the Spirits at Repertorio Español) directs.
Two River Theater is producing Pinkolandia as part of a rolling world premiere through the Lark Play Development Center’s Launching New Plays into the Repertoire Initiative, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Other theaters in the producing consortium are INTAR Theatre in New York, Austin’s Salvage Vanguard Theater, and Chicago’s 16th Street Theater. Pinkolandia was included in Two River’s 2012 Crossing Borders festival of new plays by Latino writers and free community events.
TROUBLE IN MIND
By Alice Childress
Directed by Jade King Carroll
April 5 – 27, 2014
Rechnitz Theater
Photo Source : Amazon
The year is 1957. On the stage of a Broadway theater, an acting company has gathered for their first day of rehearsal. When the black actress in the starring role confronts her white playwright and director about their interpretation of the play, everything explodes. Trouble in Mind is a provocative look at the way people talk about race and an often hilarious backstage comedy about the foibles of artists at work.
Alice Childress was the first African-American woman to have a play professionally produced in New York City (Gold through the Trees, in 1952). Her other works include the play Wedding Band (1966) and the 1973 novel A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich, which was filmed in 1978. Jade King Carroll’s credits include August Wilson’s Seven Guitars for People’s Light & Theatre Company and several productions for Trenton’s Passage Theatre, including Samuel J. and K.
THIRD
By Wendy Wasserstein
Directed by Michael Cumpsty
May 31 – June 22, 2014
Rechnitz Theater
For its final 20th Anniversary production, Two River returns to the work of Wendy Wasserstein, whose Pulitzer and Tony Award-winning The Heidi Chronicles was produced by the theater in April 1985, the second production of Two River’s very first season. In plays like The Heidi Chronicles, The Sisters Rosensweig, and Third (produced in New York just months before her death in 2006), Wasserstein captured the voices of smart, witty, complicated women-such as Professor Laurie Jameson, who upends her own life when she accuses a student of plagiarism. Tony-nominated actor Michael Cumpsty (The End of the Rainbow, Two River’s Present Laughter) makes his Two River debut as a director.
Tickets
Low-priced ticket packages are on sale now from 732.345.1400 or TRTC.org.
Plays, artists, and dates are subject to change.
