GREY GARDENS, CONSTELLATIONS, GROUNDED & More Set for Company of Fools' 2016-17 Season

Company of Fools announces its 21st season featuring five main stage productions, two play readings and a newly commissioned performance piece on contemplation that will be a part of one of The Center's BIG IDEA projects. The five main stage productions in the Company's 2016-2017 lineup include Grey Gardens, Art, Grounded, A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine and Constellations.

"Our 21st season truly reminds us that everything has a story in it and each story is constantly sliding from the past to the present to the future," says Core Company Artist Denise Simone. "This season we will transport our audiences from the Grey Gardens mansion to a windowless trailer outside Las Vegas to Grauman's Chinese Theatre to parallel universes. Simply put, it is a season you have to see."

Company of Fools 21st season is:

MAIN STAGE

Grey Gardens - June 28-July 20, 2016
Book by Doug Wright
Music by Scott Frankel
Lyrics by Michael Korie
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
Direction by John Glenn
Musical Direction by R.L. Rowsey

Grey Gardens is based on the 1975 Albert and David Maysles film about Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis's eccentric aunt and cousin. The touching and sometimes heart-wrenching musical adaptation explores the dysfunctional relationship between former socialite Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, Little Edie, as they languish in a derelict East Hampton manor, Grey Gardens. Propelled by a fascinating story, a gorgeous score and intricate lyrics, this musical has garnered much critical praise. "An experience no passionate theatergoer should miss." Ben Brantley, The New York Times

Art Aug. 9-13, 2016
By Yasmina Reza
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
Direction by Denise Simone

How much would you pay for a white painting? Would it matter who the painter was? Would it be art? One of Marc's best friends, Serge, has just bought a very expensive painting. It's about five feet by four, all white with white diagonal lines. To Marc, the painting is a joke, but Serge insists Marc doesn't have the proper standard to judge the work. Another friend, Ivan, though burdened by his own problems, allows himself to be pulled into this disagreement. Lines are drawn and these old friends square off over the canvas, using it as an excuse to relentlessly batter one another over various failures. As their arguments become less theoretical and more personal, they border on destroying their friendships. At the breaking point, Serge hands Marc a felt tip pen and dares him: "Go on." This is where the friendship is finally tested, and the aftermath of action, and its reaction, affirms the power of those bonds.

Grounded Sept. 28-Oct. 15, 2016
By George Brant
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
Direction by John Glenn

From the award-winning playwright of Elephant's Graveyard, George Brant, comes the story of an ace fighter pilot whose career in the sky is ended early due to an unexpected pregnancy. Reassigned to operate military drones from a windowless trailer outside Las Vegas, she hunts terrorists by day and returns to her family each night. As the pressure to track a high-profile target mounts, the boundaries begin to blur between the desert in which she lives and the one she patrols half a world away. Starring Hanna Cheek named one of Time Out New York's "Future Legends of NYC Theatre"

A Day in Hollywood/A Night in the Ukraine Dec. 14-31, 2016
By Dick Vosburgh & Frank Lazarus
Direction by John Glenn
Musical direction by R.L. Rowsey

Two one-act plays provide a double feature more hilarious than any presented in Hollywood's heyday: the first, a salute to the Golden Age of film musicals; the second, a rambunctious Marx Bros. farce. Winner of two Tony Awards in the hit Broadway production.

Constellations Feb. 15-Mar. 4, 2017
By Nick Payne
Liberty Theatre, Hailey
Direction by Denise Simone

One relationship. Infinite possibilities. In the beginning, Marianne and Roland meet at a party. They go for a drink, or perhaps they don't. They fall madly in love and start dating, but eventually they break up. After a chance encounter in a supermarket they get back together, or maybe they run into each other and Marianne reveals that she's now engaged to someone else and that's that. Or perhaps Roland is engaged. Maybe they get married, or maybe their time together will be tragically short. Nick Payne's Constellations is a play about free will and friendship; it's also about quantum multiverse theory, love, and honey.

PLAY READINGS/ SPECIAL PROJECTS

White Rabbit/Red Rabbit (reading) Oct. 27-29, 2016
By Nassim Soleimanpour
Liberty Theatre, Hailey/ The Center, Ketchum

Imagine being 29 and unable to leave your country. Iranian Nassim Soleimanpour dissects the experience of a whole generation in a wild, utterly original play. He turns his isolation to his advantage with a play that requires no director, no set, and a different actor for each performance. The New York off-Broadway run just opened featuring Nathan Lane, Whoopi Goldberg, Alan Cumming, Brian Dennehy and many other well-known actors.

Bright New Boise (reading) Nov. 15, 2016
By Samuel D. Hunter
Liberty Theatre, Hailey

In the bleak corporate break room of a craft store in Idaho, someone is summoning The Rapture. Will, who has fled his rural hometown after a scandal at his Evangelical church, comes to the Hobby Lobby not only for employment but also to rekindle a relationship with Alex, his brooding teenage son, whom he gave up for adoption several years ago. Alex works there along with Leroy, his adopted brother and protector, and Anna, a hapless young woman who reads bland fiction but hopes for dramatic endings. As their manager, foul-mouthed Pauline, tries ceaselessly to find order (and profit) in the chaos of small business, these lost souls of the Hobby Lobby confront an unyielding world through the beige-tinted impossibility of modern faith.

Performance Piece (part of The Center's BIG IDEA on contemplation) April/May 2017
New Commissioned work on contemplation and creativity.

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