The Resident Ensemble Players Announces Its Return to Live Performances in February

The Resident Ensemble Players (REP), the professional theatre company in residence at the University of Delaware, is excited to announce our much-anticipated return to live performances. After nearly 23 months, the REP looks forward to being back on stage, performing live, and welcoming audiences back into the theatre this February!

"We consider it a sacred privilege to participate in live theatre," says Producing Artistic Director Sanford (Sandy) Robbins. "In the REP's Mission Statement we say: 'Coming together for the speaking and listening of the words of great plays serves the community by providing an access to that which is eternal and cannot itself be spoken.' We could not be more excited to be on the brink of reuniting with our beloved audience and once again participating together to evoke the magic of live theatre."

The REP will return to the stage with Blue Door by Tanya Barfield, running from February 24th through March 13th. Deep questions of personal and cultural identity, hidden underneath a carefully crafted façade of confidence and success, suddenly erupt in the soul of an African American mathematics professor when his white wife announces that she is leaving him over his refusal to attend the Million Man March. Suffering from a disorienting bout of insomnia brought on by the implosion of his marriage, he inadvertently conjures the specters of his ancestors who lead him on an emotionally charged and often humorous journey through the past and present. Brilliantly balanced between tragedy and comedy and woven through with original songs, Blue Door packs a powerful punch for all people as, with great theatricality, it examines important issues of identity, race, and the impact of the past on the present.

Our second and final production of the season is Yeah Baby, a delightful and thought-provoking new comedy co-written by Michael Gotch and Theresa Rebeck, the most-produced female playwright on Broadway as well as the creator of NBC's hit series Smash, and the author of the REP's world premiere productions of O Beautiful, Fever, and The Bells, and the new blockbuster movie The 355. Running from April 21st through May 8th, Yeah Baby is the story of a careening day in the life of professional theater artists who find out that what they think the world is, is not what the world is. Stealing a page from Chekov and Pirandello, the REP company presents their own love letter to the theater and the courage it takes to make something out of nothing, during perplexing times. In the struggle to confront the improbable as well as the impossible, hilarity ensues.

The REP's box office will reopen in January. Our staff is working diligently to reopen the box office for tickets sales in the new year. A two-show subscription package will go on sale in January and single tickets will go on sale in February. The most up to date information on our shows, ticket sales, and COVID safety policies can be found online at www.rep.udel.edu.

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