Northern Stage's 2015-2016 Season in New Theater Facility to Feature OUR TOWN & More

Northern Stage has announce its 2015-2016 season, generously sponsored by White Mountains Insurance. The company will produce six main stage productions from October-May in a brand new facility, The Barrette Center for the Arts. For tickets and information, call 802-296-7000 or visit www.northernstage.org. Tickets start at $15 for any student at any time.

Northern Stage will open the season with Our Town by Thornton Wilder. Playing October 7-31, Northern Stage's Our Town will be a new take on the exquisite classic about a young couple who fall in love, marry, and live out their lives in a small New England town. Northern Stage's modern dress production, staged in the round, offers twenty-three general admission tickets located on the stage for each performance. These $25.00 tickets offer patrons a rare opportunity to experience the play while sitting among the actors and action. The beloved Disney musical Mary Poppins, in its smash Broadway incarnation and for the first time in our region, will run for the holidays November 18- January 3 and is sure to entrance all ages with its delightful story and the magic of a flying Mary Poppins. The New Year will bring Mad Love, a world premiere production, by award-winning local playwright Marisa Smith, whose recent production of Saving Kitty at Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA enjoyed a sold-out run in the summer of 2015. A romantic comedy about relationship-wary twenty-somethings, a baseball card, and a kindly prostitute, this show has its finger on the pulse of romance in a shallow age and was a delight in the Northern Stage 2014 New Works Now festival. Next in the season is the madcap adventure The Hound of the Baskervilles, February 24-March 12. Three actors play sixteen characters in this popular Sherlock Holmes tale where terror and comedy mix in a delightful concoction. The Mountaintop, winner of the Olivier Award for Best Play in 2010, runs March 23-April 9 and is directed by Artistic Director Carol Dunne. Martin Luther King, Jr., confronts his legacy, his destiny, and his humanity in this drama that earned playwright Katori Hall the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize in 2011. The season concludes April 20-May 8 with Living Together, an hysterical and poignant romp through one day in the lives of some excruciatingly unhappy and somewhat lustful thirty-somethings. Living Together is one play in the Norman Conquests, a comic trilogy by renowned British playwright Alan Ayckbourn. Each play stands completely on its own, but together they are a triumph of theatrical imagination. Northern Stage is teaming up with Weston Playhouse and Dorset Theater Festival in an historical Vermont collaboration to present all three plays between April and July 2016.

Carol Dunne, Artistic Director of Northern Stage, designed the season to welcome audiences to their new home for live theater of the highest quality. "With the Barrette Center for the Arts, we have the opportunity to create work that makes our audiences truly love the experience of attending theater, whether our offerings are the reimagining of classics or groundbreaking new work," says Dunne. "From Our Town's portrayal of the beauty of the simple to a world premiere by our local playwright Marisa Smith to the statewide collaboration with Vermont theaters, our season honors our extraordinary region and the people who made the BCA possible."

The public is invited to a Grand Opening Celebration of the new facility and a kick-off for the 2015-2016 Season on Saturday, October 10, from 11:00 A.M. - 2:00 P.M. The open house will feature a ribbon cutting ceremony, self-guided tours through the new building, kids' activities, and a drawing for prizes. The Barrette Center for the Arts features the modern 240-seat modified thrust Byrne Theater with accessible seating, state-of-the art acoustics, hearing assist devices, and high ceilings for advanced lighting and staging effects. The Couch Terrace in front of the building offers ground-floor access and convenient drop-off areas, leading into the Roesch Family Lobby with multiple amenities: box office, coatrooms, cafe? hosted by Maple Street Catering, elevator to the upper lobby, and plenty of restrooms. A free public parking lot is located behind the building. Managing Director Eric Bunge sums the project up: "Together we have built a home for the art of humans telling stories - in the moment - for other humans. Storytelling is an essential part of being human, contributing positively to the health and welfare of individuals, communities, regions, nations, and the world."

The third annual New Works Now, a showcase for the development of new plays, runs January 15-16, 2016. New Works Now is already developing plays for the American theater with Orwell in America, from the 2014 festival, slated for an off-Broadway run in the fall of 2016 at 59E59 Theater. In an ongoing effort to remain accessible to all in the region, New Works Now is free, as are the company's hosted opening night receptions, Athena Conversation Series, multiple post-show conversations throughout the season, and library partnership program, which offers scripts for check-out, workshops to provide context for each main stage production, and free tickets at area libraries.

Back by popular demand, $15 Anytime Student tickets, underwritten by Hypertherm Owners' Philanthropic Endeavor (HOPE) Foundation and the Couch Family Foundation, and $20 Tuesday tickets, along with all other single tickets, are now available. Education programs at Northern Stage in the upcoming season include a student matinee series, a season-long theater ensemble for students in grades 7-12, after school classes for students aged 8-11, February and April Vacation Week Camps for students aged 5-17, and Communications, Inc., an adult interactive class focused on using theater techniques to improve communication skills. The company will announce summer education camps and classes in early 2016.

New this season, Northern Stage is partnering with Stagecoach, Transportation, Inc. to provide free rides to and from the theater for patrons who are without a car or who are

unable to drive. Also new is a Stage-to-School Workshop series, designed to enhance the Student Matinee program in area schools.

Northern Stage is a regional non-profit professional theater that seeks to change lives, one story at a time. Based in the Upper Valley of the Connecticut River, Northern Stage brings national and area talent together on an intimate stage in diverse classic, contemporary, and new plays and musicals. Northern Stage has offered over 100 productions in its 18-year history, and annual attendance is now over 25,000.

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