A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, THE RANT & More Set for The Gamm's 2015-16 Season

Tony Estrella, artistic director of The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm), has announced the theater's 2015-2016 season. Season 31 includes two undisputed classics, a contemporary favorite, and two works new to Gamm audiences, as described by Estrella:

"Season 31 promises to be another unique, surprising and remarkable year at The Gamm, with provocative, bold, stylistically varied works, and the greatest writing old and new that the theater has to offer: The greatest of American dramas, one of Shakespeare's most moving and magical plays, two up-to-the-minute, thought provoking works about how we live now both publicly and privately, and another trip through the dark comic genius of Martin McDonagh."

Season 31 opens with a one-two punch of hard-hitting American dramas starting with Tennesee Williams' masterful A Streetcar Named Desire, followed by Andrew Case's The Rant, a scorching contemporary play about the killing of an unarmed teenager by police. Just in time for primary season, 2016 gets underway with George Brant's new blackly comic political satire Grizzly Mama. Then, aptly surrounding St. Patrick's Day, Irish playwright Martin McDonagh's A Skull in Connemara unravels the unsolved killing of the local gravedigger's wife with dark hilarity. The season closes with William Shakespeare, marking the 400-year anniversary of his death in April 2016 with The Winter's Tale, an uplifting story of jealousy and redemption.

Subscriptions to The Gamm's 2015-2016 Season are $140-$235. Information at 401-723-4266 or gammtheatre.org.

SEASON 31/2015-2016 PLAYS

A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE by Tennessee Williams (Sep-Oct 2015)
Fading southern belle Blanche DuBois arrives unexpectedly on the doorstep of her sister, Stella, searching for solace from a life undermined by romantic delusions and the vicissitudes of life. But the sultry New Orleans summer proves too much for the former beauty whose brutish brother-in-law, Stanley, cruelly exposes Blanche's genteel façade and brings her last gasp at meaning to a tragic end. Winner of the 1947 Pulitzer Prize and a landmark of 20th-century theater, Tennessee Williams's A Street Car Named Desire remains an undisputed masterpiece and one of the most remarkable plays of our time.

THE RANT by Andrew Case (Nov-Dec 2015)
One summer night in Brooklyn, an unarmed black teenage boy is gunned down by the police. When the department closes ranks around the accused officer, an investigator assigned to the shooting takes what she knows to a tabloid reporter. But she quickly learns that the story she fed to the press is still only part of the truth. Alone, she must wade through prejudice, deceit, and a volley of anonymous threats to find where culpability and truth really lie. Based on playwright Andrew Case's eight years' experience working on police misconduct issues for New York City, The Rant is a gripping, timely drama exploring racial bias and police codes on the perilous path to justice.

GRIZZLY MAMA by George Brant (Jan-Feb 2016)
Deb is a divorced suburban mom who reimagines herself as a righteous, liberal avenger following the death of her activist mother. Her daughter, Hannah, is a typical texting teenager - at least until she discovers the real reason Mom moved them next door to a certain Alaskan presidential candidate. From George Brant, author of the one-woman tour-de-force,Grounded (Season 2014-2015), Grizzly Mama is a pitch-black comedy about motherhood, feminism and the shallowness of sound-bite politics, eliciting shocks and laughs in equal measure.

A SKULL IN CONNEMARA by Martin Mcdonagh (Feb-Mar 2016)
The Gamm stages the last of its wildly popular productions of McDonagh's multi-award-winning "Leenane Trilogy" - including The Beauty Queen of Leenane (Season 29) and The Lonesome West (Season 21) - with another macabre mini-masterpiece! For one week each autumn, Mick Dowd is hired to disinter bones in sections of his local cemetery to make way for the new arrivals. But as the time approaches for him to dig up the bones of his own late wife, rumors about his possible involvement in her sudden death seven years ago resurface. Populated by misfits and miscreants all digging for the truth, A Skull in Connemara is a blasphemously funny whodunit complete with flying skulls and bloody hatchets.

THE WINTER'S TALE by William Shakespeare (Apr-May 2016)
Celebrating the 400th year of Shakespeare's death, The Gamm takes an epic, exhilarating journey through The Winter's Tale, one of the last and most strikingly beautiful of our favorite author's plays. A royal family is ripped apart when crazed King Leontes of Sicilia imprisons his wife on unfounded suspicions of infidelity, exiles his newborn daughter, then tries to murder his life-long friend. Sixteen years pass before he can confront the true consequences of his brutal actions. But can love and time mend the devastating effects of blinding jealousy and regret? Gorgeously poetic with twists and turns, laughter, and unexpected surprises, The Winter's Tale is magical, emotionally complex and breathtakingly theatrical.

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