Penobscot Theatre Company Announces Upcoming Season

The 2013-2014 Season marks the 40th Anniversary for Penobscot Theatre Company, the most Northeastern year-round, professional theatre in the country. The company, which owns and operates the historic Bangor Opera House, has announced its upcoming season lineup.

"Since 1973, Penobscot Theatre Company has brought dreams to life upon its stages," says Artistic Director, Bari Newport. "From playwrights hearing their words aloud for the first time, to actors embodying the world's great roles, to audience members transported to unlimited realms through majestic storytelling, Penobscot Theatre Company continues to celebrate the dream of its founders to have a professional regional theatre in the heart of Maine. Whether you have been dreaming with us for one season or all forty, please celebrate this extraordinary milestone by subscribing to Penobscot Theatre."

The 2013-14 Season opens with laughs. Ken Ludwig's The Fox on the Fairway knocks one straight off the tee and hits a hole in one. A tribute to the great Broadway farces of the 1930's and 1940's, Ken Ludwig (Moon Over Buffalo, Lend Me a Tenor) takes the classic farce genre and applies it to the modern world. Starring Dominick Varney and Christie Robinson, who pitch wedges, drivers and nine-irons, the game of golf has never been so much fun.

Next, something scary! Billed as "the most brilliantly effective spine chiller you will ever encounter," The Woman in Black combines the power and intensity of live theatre, with a cinematic quality inspired by the world of film noir. First mounted on the London stage in 1987, The Woman in Black, is now one of the longest running plays on the West End. So what makes The Woman in Black so frightening? The whole theatre is the set. Written to take place in a "small Victorian theatre," the Bangor Opera House could not be more perfect.

This year's special holiday offering is truly fun for the whole family. Originally created by Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Cinderella: A New Telling of an Old Tale is a buoyant, lyrical and enormously entertaining telling of the familiar fairy tale. In the usually saccharine world of holiday entertainment, this irreverent musical comedy delights in crossing barriers, especially the one between audience and actors. No child in the house will resist proffering his or her foot, as the Prince, glass slipper in hand (size 5A: this is a fairy tale, after all) searches the crowd for Cinderella. In this joyous, roaringly funny, magical, musical holiday production, goodness triumphs, evil is banished from the Kingdom, the Prince gets his girl--and the girl gets her shoes.

A new play for a New Year! In 2010, Northern Writes audiences went wild for Orono playwright, Travis Baker's one act play, One Blue Tarp. Its positive reception encouraged Mr. Baker to continue crafting his story into a full-length play about a man in a coastal Maine town who decides to defend his right to have a pile of junk under a blue tarp in his front yard in an unorthodox manner - by sitting down. Baker, who teaches creative writing and college composition at The University of Maine, received the prestigious 2013 Clauder New England Playwright Competition for One Blue Tarp and PTC is thrilled to give this comedic, thoughtful piece its world premiere production!

In March, let the warfare begin! God of Carnage, the Tony Award-winning play about the savage underbelly of playground politics, centers around two pairs of parents whose sons have been involved in a playground scuffle. Though they meet to discuss the matter politely, as the evening goes on, the parents become increasingly childish, resulting in adult behavior that degenerates to a level far below that of an adolescent brawl. AJ Mooney and Jeri Misler star in this gripping night of comic catastrophe.

For the final play of the 40th Season, Penobscot Theatre will produce the quintessential American classic, Our Town. With original music composed and performed nightly by Lincoln, Maine-based musician Jacob Augustine and with PTC alum and Bangor native Monica Willey returning to play Emily, this Our Town is both a celebration of what has been and a hopeful glimpse of what will be - in the next 40 years.

In addition to the regular season lineup, Newport hints at surprises to be announced later in the season. "Stay tuned," she says. "This could very well be our most ambitious season to date. Once you're over the hill, you know, you pick up speed."

Why subscribe? Season subscribers receive discounted tickets, their favorite seats on their favorite nights, flexibility, see-it-again for free, bring-a-new friend-to-PTC for free, advance access to special events and programs, and are able to join the community in acting as producers for the next season, thereby supporting the vision and mission of Penobscot Theatre Company and investing in its future.

Go to Florida for the winter? Check out PTC's new three-show snowbird packages.

Current subscribers have until May 1st to guarantee the same great seats enjoyed this season. New subscriptions go on sale May 2nd. For more information, please call the Box Office at 207-942-3333 or learn more by visiting PTC online at www.penobscottheatre.org.

To post a comment, you must register and login.