Pear Theatre Announces 20th Season!

After one of the most difficult years for live theatre, Pear Theatre has announced its 20th anniversary season: 20 PearFect Years, Now 20 More. This exciting and ambitious lineup pairs new shows with shows that the Pear has done in the past, with many of the production slots performing in repertory ("Pear Pairings").

Performances will be subject to public health guidance, and most are currently planned to be live performances, held at the Pear Theatre's performance space at 1110 La Avenida St. in Mountain View or nearby outdoor locations. For subscriptions (available beginning in July) and individual tickets the public may visit www.thepear.org or call (650) 254-1148.

"This season we celebrate, not just 20 years of existence for Pear Theatre, but all of us coming back from the challenges of the past 18 months," said Sinjin Jones, Artistic Director since January 2020. "With the help of our community, we return stronger than before, celebrating a commitment to re-imagining theatre in the Bay Area, to lifting voices that are too often left behind, and to igniting the passion of theatre for 20 more years. Together with Silicon Valley's theatre community, we are returning with power!"

The season opens in August with the World Premiere of Mothers of the Bride by Megan Maugheri. This play, about a bride-to-be who must manage the affections of both her mother and her stepmother while planning the wedding, began as a 10-minute piece receiving widespread acclaim in the 2019 Pear Slices, was developed into a full-length piece with input from other members of the Pear Playwrights Guild, and fine-tuned with audience input after being presented as a staged reading in that year's Fresh Produce Festival. Now ready to see a fully staged production, Mothers of the Bride celebrates the talent of a Bay Area playwright as well as our own ability to choose our family. This show will be presented as a hybrid - part live, part filmed - and, for subscribers, will be offered as a bonus show (not counting against the total subscription price).

Following in October is the first of several "Pear Pairings." This month brings an exciting co-production with The Perspective Theatre Company (formerly the Arabian Shakespeare Festival), rescheduled from last season. Somewhere by Marisela Treviño Orta is a beautiful new piece that explores the consequences of our neglect of the environment. With almost all the insects gone, the world is beginning to fall apart as crops fail and people struggle to hold on to their ways of life. Cassandra and her brother Alexander are tracking the last monarch butterflies in the world as they head to the west coast. Their path intersects with a truffle farm where a small group of people are hunkering down for the on-coming collapse of society. Also in October will be a production of The Tempest, one of Pear Theatre's most successful previous productions from its 12th season. This production, performed in repertory, will feature a new adaptation of Shakespeare's classic: of magical happenings on a desert island and long-awaited justice delivered.

In November and December, Pear Theatre continues its tradition of less-than-typical holiday shows: with a Pear Pairing of The Thanksgiving Play by Larissa Fasthorse and Eight Nights by Jennifer Maisel. Eight Nights, winner of the 2021 Ovation Award For Best Playwriting, is a warm and moving piece set during eight nights of Chanukah over eight decades, from 1949 to 2016. Holocaust survivor Rebecca Blum arrives in America at 19 and observes the holidays in the same apartment each year with her father, husband, friends, daughter, and granddaughter, as she tries to vanquish the past that still haunts her.

In the spirit of last season's Fairfield, The Thanksgiving Play is a biting satire in which three "woke" white thespians endeavor to devise an elementary school pageant about the first Thanksgiving while avoiding any culturally appropriative missteps. A roast of the politics of entertainment and well-meaning political correctness alike, The Thanksgiving Play puts the American origin story itself in the comedy-crosshairs. These dramatically different "holiday" shows will be performed by one cast, and performed in repertory over four weeks.

The New Year joins with Black History Month for The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, playing in repertory with a powerful play, new to Pear audiences, which will be announced in the first part of the season. The Mountaintop creatively imagines the last night in the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, set in Memphis in April, 1968. King meets the attractive, spunky motel maid Camae, who arrives to provide room service - but we soon discover she is no ordinary chambermaid. Winner of the 2010 Olivier Award Winner for Best Play, The Mountaintop received audience applause and critical praise in its 2016 production at Pear Theatre.

Next up is Mary Zimmerman's adaptation of Ovid's Metamorphoses, performed by Pear Theatre in its 7th season. Based on ancient myths, Metamorphoses suggests that human beings haven't fundamentally changed nearly two thousand years later. As Zimmerman has said, "These myths have a redemptive power in that they are so ancient. There's a comfort in the familiarity of the human condition."

As always, spring means the return of Pear Slices, the popular annual short-play showcase featuring original, short plays from the members of the Pear Playwrights Guild, returns in the spring. Audiences have grown to love this annual short-play foray, with a new story taking the stage every 10-15 minutes, all performed by a single, versatile cast of local actors.

The season finale in June will be one last Pear Pairing: Three Tall Women by Edward Albee (which was part of the 6th season at Pear Theatre) and The Piano Teacher by Julia Cho. Three Tall Women won the 1994 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best Play, and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Play. The Wall Street Journal called it "Electrifying and heartrending ... Three Tall Women blazes as bright as a midsummer day." In Cho's The Piano Teacher, a lonely widow reflects wistfully on her life - but the visits of two former students will require her to face the unvarnished truth about her life.

Along with the 20th Season, this summer the Pear is announcing its 20 Pearfect Years fundraiser with a goal of raising $40,000. This campaign aims to launch the Pear into its next 20 years by supporting artists more deeply, upgrading lighting equipment, and funding new programming. New donation tiers like The Founder's Circle will allow patrons to support at whatever level they choose.

Continuing the theatre's recent initiatives, Pear Theatre will hold General Auditions for its season in June; will present Fresh Produce, staged readings of full-length plays from the Pear Playwrights Guild, November 5-7; and will offer monthly evenings with the Pear Improv Crew.

Pear Theatre began as the Pear Avenue Theatre in June 2002, under the leadership of Artistic Director Diane Tasca, by a group of theatre artists who believe that audiences are eager for plays that challenge as well as delight and move them. Producing intimate theatre by passionate artists, whether classic works or cutting-edge plays, the Pear attracts theatre artists and audiences from all over the Bay Area for its award-winning and high-quality productions.

Pear Theatre moved in 2015 from its original 40-seat warehouse space to a new, state-of-the-art black box theatre close by, with capacity of 75-99 seats depending on the configuration of the production. In 2017, the theatre welcomed its second Artistic Director, Betsy Kruse Craig, who stepped down at the end of two years of impressive growth. Sinjin Jones, who took on the title of Artistic Director this January, will continue the theater's forward momentum into new audiences, new collaborations, and an even more diverse range of stories told on stage.

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