Category: Uncategorized

World Premiere Work-in-Progress
Written by Johanna Dunphy, Shoshanna Hill, Joseph Nevin, Ken Sandberg, & Owen Timoney 
Directed by Joseph Nevin
September 3-11, 2009
Plays & Players Main Stage

Starring: Victoria Frings, Davon Williams, Ken Sandberg, Johanna Dunphy, Nicholas Troy, Benjamin Goldman, Nikki Evans, Christopher Morse, Amanda Greco, Susan Roth

It’s a musical. About zombies. Inspired by classic horror films and cult musicals, our story follows a mad scientist, a surly sheriff, a pair of young lovers, and a zombie hunter as they try to survive in a world overrun by zombies . . . and sing about it.

“This show is not a piece of high art – it’s silly, outrageous and fun – everything you’d think a musical about zombie’s should be.”

-Philly Theatre Talk

Early in the Mourning

Photo credit: Drew Hood, Throwing Light Photography

World Premiere
Written by P. Seth Bauer
Directed by Daniel Student
November 5-22, 2009

Starring: Mark Cairns, Robert DaPonte, John Devennie, and Helen McCrane

Plays & Players was proud to present this world premiere by local playwright P. Seth Bauer, writer of 1812 Productions’ hit comedy, “The Karma Cookie.” During a blinding snow storm on New Year’s Eve, Leo and Betty Rosen recall a recent car crash involving their son, Daniel, and his long-time partner whom they never accepted. While debates on  little league strategy, the frugality of firewood, and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve ensue, unexpected visitors arrive at their Newtown, Massachusetts home, including Daniel himself. Early in the Mourning takes us through the emotional and unexpectedly humorous journey of familial love and loss, and the struggle for Leo and Betty to face reality before it is too late.

Photo credit: Drew Hood, Throwing Light Photography

“Cairns admirably navigates the play’s centerline role with a serious approach that never delves into histrionics. Devennie remains appreciably staid throughout, a much appreciated balance to McCrane’s wrought, though appropriate, hysterics. And DaPonte… plays each revelation with judicious sincerity.”

-Edge Philadelphia

“With a beautiful set and new risers for seating in the Skinner Studio, it was impressive from the beginning.”

–Philly Theatre Talk

Concrete Dinosaur

World Premiere
Written by Nicholas Wardigo
Directed by Carol Laratonda
January 7-24, 2010

Photo credit: Ashley Smith, Throwing Light Photography

Amidst a sprawling garden in Wynnewood, PA, a sculpture of a protoceratops looms over Angelica Busso and her friends as they prepare for a spirited evening of conversation, croquet and cocktails. Joining them for the game is Angelica’s daughter, Marta, who is home on break from graduate school while working on a cure for squirrel overpopulation, and their sexy house boy, Dennis, each with their own secrets to hide.  As the competition begins, more than just points are tallied. These “Desperate Housewives of the Main Line”sift through one another’s sordid pasts and settle old scores.

Photo credit: Ashley Smith, Throwing Light Photography

“Plays and Players definitely found a cast that understood the characters they were cast to play.  Each character was extremely real and each had their own, unique personality, even in portraying characters who are all guarded, and to an extent, fake. Peggy Smith (Angelica) had the audience wrapped around her finger from the moment she opened her mouth to speak. Sincere and a bit scary, she knew what she wanted and wasn’t at all afraid to say it.”

–Philly Theatre Talk

“Lance Moore’s scenic design makes her backyard a big “X” in Plays & Players’ intimate upstairs space, with the audience tucked in corners close to the action, and features the titular stony reptile in a dark comedy that sizzles with sexual tension and naughty secrets. “

–Philadelphia City Paper

Take Me Out

Photo credit: Ashley Smith, Throwing Light Photography

Tony Award for Best Play
Written by Richard Greenberg Directed Daniel Student March 11-27, 2010

Plays & Players 

Main Stage 

Starring: Chuck DeLong, Bill Egan, Sam Han, Gerard Joseph, Joe Matyas, David Mason, Ted Powell, Jerry Rudasill, Dan Sanchez, Ryan Walter, and Peter Zielinski

Photo credit: Ashley Smith, Throwing Light Photography

In this Tony Award Winner for Best Play, America’s National Pastime is forever altered as Darren Lemmings, star of the New York Empires, comes out of the closet to his team, his friends, and to the public at large. As his deeply racist and homophobic teammate, Shane Mungitt, grows incensed by the news, Darren’s gay financial manager, Mason Marzac, finds a new hero, and the other players see their locker room in a whole new light, the only person who seems unaffected is Darren himself. The drama of the season unfolds on and off the field, and in the end we are left with one question: “what will we do till spring?”

“Take Me Out”, presented by Plays & Players, will not only remind you of how you’ve missed watching our beloved Phillies during this long, cold winter, but also hooks hard into the proverbial left field, exploring the life of a star baseball player after he announced his homosexuality to the public.”

–Philly2Philly

Carousel

Written by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II
Directed by Lance Moore
May 27 – June 12, 2010

Photo credit: Ashley Smith, Throwing Light Photography

Starring:  Eileen Cella, John D’Alonzo, Michael Dura, Tomas Dura, Justina Ercole, Joel Evans, Abby Fallen, Teri Leahy, Susan Mattson, Helen McCrane, Hope McQuiod, Molly McQuiod, Will McQuiod, Patti Allis Mengers, Tom Osborne, Jonathan Rivera, David Stahl, Michael Stimson

Photo credit: Ashley Smith, Throwing Light Photography

In this revival of the groundbreaking Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, a mill girl in a small New England fishing village, Julie Jordan, marries a handsome carousel barker, Billy Bigelow, things soon turn sour for the couple. Desperate for money after learning that he is soon to become a father, Billy is killed during an attempted robbery. Several years later, when he is allowed to return to earth for a short time, he seeks out the daughter of his union with Julie. Enter a world of love lost and love regained, and stunning classic musical numbers such as If I Loved You, June Is Bustin’ Out All Over, and You’ll Never Walk Alone.

When Private Malcolm Jack goes AWOL from serving in Iraq, he discovers there are a lot safer places to hide than in the body of a 13-year-old girl. Her novelist mother enlists the biggest bombshell in her pulp fiction arsenal to seduce him out, but it will take more imagination than that to end the occupation in this dark and twisted farce spearing sex, gender, and invasion from Philadelphia’s own Joy Cutler.

“So here’s a real surprise: On the third floor of Plays and Players Theatre, there’s a world premiere by an under-the-radar local playwright — Joy Cutler — filled with amateur actors, directed by a relative newcomer. All outward signs indicate a hot mess; instead, it’s a blast. With Cutler’s pen, Blouin’s eye, the all-out cast of pros (amateur or not) and Lance Kniskern, whose red-walled, askew-angled set prepares us for Cutler’s off-kilter tone while hiding a few secrets of its own, this production runs like a well-oiled military machine. In a fall season loaded with heavy themes and full-frontal realism, Plays and Players’ left-field entry is a welcome respite, and a sneaky contender.”

Photo credit: Drew Hood, Throwing Light Photography

Written by August Wilson Directed by Daniel Student January 19 – February 4 2012

Plays & Players Mainstage

Starring: Mle Chester, Jamal Douglas, Kash Goins, Brett Gray, Cherie Jazmyn, Lauryn Simone-Jones, Erin Stewart, Candace Thomas, James Tolbert, Damien Wallace, and Bob Weick

Photo credit: Drew Hood, Throwing Light Photography

As emancipated slaves flood north in search of employment and a chance to start over, Seth and Bertha Holly’s boarding house in Pittsburgh, offers a new place to call home in this drama by the multiple Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars and Fences. When an angry and lost man arrives looking for his wife, forcibly removed from him years ago when he was captured and put in a chain gang by a man named Joe Turner, these once strangers are forced to confront their own demons and to come together to help him find his way. This is the first of two plays at P&P that looked back at life 100 years ago in celebration of their 100^th Anniversary Season.  August Wilson is heralded as one of the greatest writers of the 20^th century to explore black consciousness and culture.

“Joe Turner’s Come and Gone is a big, strong, juicy play, and Plays & Players’ production is just as big, strong, and juicy… while the building may be old, the company is new; it’s led by Daniel Student, who is rapidly proving himself a young director of range and vision.”

-Philadelphia Inquirer

“Plays & Players production of the second part of that cycle, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, skillfully captures the tone and tension in the playwright’s work… Director Daniel Student creates the requisite tension between all these ideas and elements skillfully, while also bringing to life the warmth and simplicity of the everyday world in which these characters exist… creatively and technically, this production is beautifully mounted.”

-Stage Magazine

Travesties

Written by Tom Stoppard Directed by Candace Cihocki June 7-23, 2012

Plays & Players Skinner Studio

Photo credit: Kyle Ober

Starring: Kaki Burns, Andrew Carroll, Jim Ludovici, Cathy Mostek, Kristen Norine, Tim Rinehart, and Eric Wunsch

The second of two plays looking back at 100 years ago, Travesties is written by one of the greatest playwrights of the 20th Century. A Tony Award winning comedic masterpiece from the writer of Coast of Utopia, Arcadia, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, Travesties takes you on a stylistic joy ride through an imagined meeting between James Joyce, Vladimir Lenin and Tristan Tzara who all lived in Zurich during World War I. When Joyce casts British consular official Henry Carr in a performance of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest in the lead role of Algernon, Carr finds himself immersed in a wacky and wonderful world of Wildean wit, Joycean limericks, Leninist ideology, and sheer Tzarist anarchy.

Photo credit: Kyle Ober

“His [Stoppard’s] 1974 Travesties is a supersmart, super-theatrical tour de force challenging both actors and audiences, and plucky little Plays and Players sometimes meets that challenge and sometimes doesn’t, but it’s well worth a look.”

-Philadelphia Inquirer

“This is a beautifully-written play that’s deliciously directed by Candace Cihocki… I really liked the way that she chose to use the entire space, making even inanimate objects have personality and spirit… please do yourself and a friend a favor and please see this show.”

-The Examiner

January 17-February 10

Andrew Jackson was a rock and roll GOD. He rode his outsider bad-boy image and his populist movement into office with promises to reform and representing the “other” America. What happened next was broken promises and a Trail of Tears. The multiple Tony nominee and Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle winning high-octane rock musical will explode on Plays & Players’ mainstage in a Philadelphia premiere production!

Performance includes adult language, stylized violence for comedic effect, and sexuality. Is is not recommended for children under 13.

Ticketing Information

• Purchase Tickets Here! or call 800-595-4849
• $25 advance, $30 at the door
• $20 for students and $15 per ticket for groups of ten or more
• Mainstage

Performance Dates & Times

February 9 at 8pm (extended performance!)

February 10 at 3pm (extended performance!)

*Tickets to January 17 & 18 previews of Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson are $5 off all price points.

**Opening Night. Reception to follow.

Cast and Creative Team

Directed by Daniel Student

Starring Joe Sabatino as Andrew Jackson. Also featuring Allison Caw, Max Cove, Jamison Foreman, Billy Kametz, Sam Nagel, Kristen Norine, Brendan Norton, Corey Regensburg, Shannon Remley,  Tim Rinehart, Meggie Siegrist, and Josh Totora.

Music Direction by Jamison Foreman, Choreography by Heather Cole, Fight Choreography by Terri McIntyre, Dramaturgy by Nelson Barre and Lena Barnard, Assistant Direction by Laurel Hostek, Set Design by Lance Kniskern, Light Design by Andrew Cowles, Costume Design by Jill Keys, Sound Design by Kyle Yackoski, and Props by Ben Storey.

More About The Performance

Featuring songs such as “Populism, Yea, Yea!,” “I’m So That Guy” and “Rock Star,” Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson compares Andrew Jackson’s frontier and manifest destiny fueled rise to power as the seventh president of the United States, and the first not born in Virginia or Massachusetts, to contemporary rock and roll American patriotic excess. A laugh-out-loud “South Park” style social critique mixes with a Brechtian self-awareness resulting in brazen satire that leaves no current political movement, from George W. Bush to the Tea Party to Obama’s “Yes We Can,” unscathed. In fact, the New York Times raved of the original production, “There is no show in town that more astutely reflects the state of this nation than Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.”

Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson features music and lyrics written by Michael Friedman and a book by Alex Timbers. It was nominated for the 2011 Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical, and won the 2010 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best New Off-Broadway Musical and the 2010 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical. The Philadelphia premiere will be directed by Plays & Players’ Producing Artistic Director Daniel Student, whose critically acclaimed productions in recent seasons include Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, A New Brain, and Take Me Out.

Posted by Greg Nanni on Wednesday, February 18, 2015 · Leave a Comment 

 A Festival of New Works-In-Progress Created By Women To Tell Their Stories Through Art

Mz. Fest is a premiere festival hosted by Plays & Players that brings multiple local theatre companies together for a week to explore, question, and celebrate female stories. This year Mz. Fest attempts to answer “Who are women in today’s world? In yesterday’s world? And in tomorrow’s world?”

For Mz. Fest 2015, Plays & Players is joined by TS Hawkins, ReVamp Collective, and Kaleid Theatre to bring you a one week festival the first week of April of women’s’ voices through art.

Mz. Fest Producer
Amber Emory

THE SHOWS:

The Secret Life of Wonder: a prologue in G journeys through the lives of seven girls being escorted into womanhood. Embracing multiple levels of play, the girls teach one another ways to interact with the world at large. Using poetic dialogue, these girls introduce that their similarities expand beyond their assigned genders while exploring how their differences bring them together. Positioning itself as a foreshadowing to Ntozake Shange’s work “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf”, The Secret Life of Wonder: a prologue in G highlights the embryonic spark of when all girls gather; soothing one’s aches, sorting each one’s puzzles, and sharing one’s triumphs with her chosen collective.

Featuring:
Nastassja Baset, Marisol Custodio, Jackie DiFerdinado, Kimie Muroya, Kaitlyn Pribulsky, Zoe Richards, Rebekah Sharp and special guest appearance by Steve Wright

TO READ MORE ABOUT THE CAST OF THE SECRET LIFE OF WONDER, CLICK HERE!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
TS Hawkins plays include two off-Broadway solo works titled “Seeking Silence” and “Cartons of Ultrasounds” that were created in partnership with Alphabet Arts (NYC). “The Secret Life of Wonder: a prologue in G” is her first full length play. Additionally, Hawkins is an internationally recognized author and an artist of many trades. She adores teaching and conducting workshops for audiences across the nation. In her spare time, she leads a course titled “Legacy & Lineage” which she designed specifically for youth to explore poetic language and hone proficient skills in creative writing to pursue artistic careers in literature. For fun, she runs her own radio station dedicated to promoting a community at large; it currently serves over 42,000 listeners worldwide with satellite offices in the West Coast & London. For more detailed information on TS Hawkins, CLICK HERE.

Shit Men Have Said to Me: Tales of How Men and Women Communicate
by ReVamp Collective

“Shit Men Have Said to Me: Tales of how Men and Women Communicate” is a devised piece about the ways in which men and women interrelate.  The work blends together the thoughts and interactions confronting societal realities—from catcalling to slut shaming, and everything in between, it is a piece about “what is” as well as “what has been” in the lives of women and men.  

Featuring: 
Slade Roff, Lisa Fischel, Colleen Hughes, James Kern, Adam Rzepka, and Ryan Tygh.

TO READ MORE ABOUT THE CAST OF SHIT MEN HAVE SAID TO ME, CLICK HERE!

ABOUT THE THEATRE COMPANY:
ReVamp Collective is a woman-centric theatre company that strives to create opportunities for women in all aspects of the theatrical process. We create inspiring work that investigates societal constructs and cultivates theatrical discourse–all the while producing established contemporary plays, works by new and emerging artists and collective devised theatre. Both behind the scenes and on the stage, our goal is to reset the woman default in theatre and to explore the direction of the work when women collaborate.

For more information about ReVamp Collective, CLICK HERE  and/or contact Producing Artistic Director Carly Bodnar. 

Take/Sacrifice
By Kaleid Theatre

What do we cling to?
In history and in myth, we sacrifice humans to win battles, abate crop failure, or maintain peace. Iphigenia was sacrificed for wind to take her father’s army to Troy and Jephthah offered his own daughter in exchange for victory in battle. We trade human lives to shape the world and ask for cosmic favors.

Take/Sacrifice explores this space of desire, a landscape littered with those we have sacrificed to secure the things we want. Surrounded by iconic figures and archaeological mysteries, our wishes become reflections of ourselves – what we want from the world, how we want the world to behave, and the lengths we are willing to go to make it so. What do we cling to? What do we want so much that we’ll destroy each other for it?

Featuring: 
Pratima Agrawal, Jess Brownell, Jess Jacob, and Rachel O’Hanlon-Rodriguez. 

TO READ MORE ABOUT THE CAST OF TAKE / SACRIFICE, CLICK HERE!

ABOUT THE THEATRE COMPANY:
Kaleid Theatre (as in kaleidoscope, as in collide) is a physical theatre ensemble that combines an obsession with language, a compulsion to dance, and a thirst for community knowledge to create new work. We are dedicated to exploring the dynamic, contemporary questions our communities are asking today. Kaleid combines language, movement, music, and sound to create a new, multi-sensory, multi-dimensional language, which, allows us to honestly explore the conflicted emotions and urges of these human experiences.

For more information about Kaleid Theatre, CLICK HERE. 

FESTIVAL SCHEDULE

Tuesday, 3/31, 8PM
Mz. Fest- All Three Works
Single Performance Pass:$10
Festival Pass (All 3 Shows): $20

Wednesday, 4/1, 8PM
Shit Men Have Said to Me: Tales of How Men and Women Communicate
by ReVamp Collective
General Admission: $10

Thursday 4/2, 8PM
Take/Sacrifice
by Kaleid Theatre
General Admission: $10

Friday 4/3, 8PM
The Secret Life of Wonder: a prologue in G
by TS Hawkins
General Admission: $10

Saturday 4/4, 9pm
Mz. Fest- All Three Works
Single Performance Pass:$10
Festival Pass (All 3 Shows): $20

Sunday 4/5, 2PM  & 9PM
Mz. Fest- All Three Works
Single Performance Pass:$10
Festival Pass (All 3 Shows): $20

Posted by Greg Nanni on Thursday, December 4, 2014 · Leave a Comment 

Check out these SPECIAL EVENTS planned in January and February, including film screenings, historical archives uncovered, internment survivor first person recountings, and more!

Hold These Truths tells a story, buried by history, of one American’s attempt to reconcile his love for a country that labeled him a second class citizen. Gordon Hirabayashi’s real-life 50-year journey brings us the astonishing facts of Japanese Internment, the US government’s orders to forcibly remove and mass incarcerate all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast, through the eyes of a Quaker college student who was simply looking for love and the American Dream. When confronted with the ultimate challenge to his freedom, Gordon embarks on a truly profound and brave defense of our Constitution, taking him on a wild adventure of discovering his Quaker faith, hitchhiking to prison, and ultimately, challenging the law in the highest court in the land… twice. Philadelphia actor Makoto Hirano gives voice to over thirty characters in this one-man tour-de-force regional premiere, which celebrates the triumph of the power one person has to change a nation.

Hold These Truths, written by Los Angeles based playwright Jeanne Sakata and directed by former Plays & Players Producing Artistic Director Daniel Student (The Disappearing Quarterback, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone), celebrates the triumph of the power one person has to change a nation. The production will be set designed by Colin McIlvaine (MFA, Set Design, Temple University), light designed by 2014 Barrymore nominee Andrew Cowles, costume designed by Rachel Coon (MFA, Set Design, Temple University), and sound designed by Lucas Fendlay (BFA, Art Institute of Philadelphia.) In 2007, Hold These Truths had its critically acclaimed world premiere in 2007 at East West Players, co-presented by the Japanese American National Museum, UCLA Department of Asian American Studies, and the UCLA Asian American Studies Center.  In its New York premiere with the Epic Theatre Ensemble in October 2012, featuring Joel de la Fuente and directed by Lisa Rothe, Hold These Truths opened to unanimous rave reviews from The New Yorker, The Washington Post/API, and many other critics, garnering a 2013 Drama Desk Award Nomination for Outstanding Solo Performance.

The Philadelphia premiere of Hold These Truths is Barrymore eligible and runs 90 minutes long.

GET YOUR TICKETS TODAY! 

CLICK HERE to read more about Hold These Truths!

Plays & Players, a Philadelphia institution for over 100 years, offers you theater that reflects our city. This season, we take a look at what a single voice can… and can’t… do. Those who speak up, those who speak out, and those who remain silent. Five one person shows. A chorus of voices. Join us in these amazing stories told with passion, humor, and uniquely personal aplomb.

The Disappearing Quarterback
September 20-27, 2014

Written and Performed by Mike Boryla
Directed by Daniel Student

“[A] highly enjoyable, attention-commanding world premiere at Plays and Players… a compelling, deeply human story that blends a dash of Spalding Gray, the existential quest of Beckett’s hobos, and the beauty of a tightly thrown spiral.”

-Jim Rutter, Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mike Boryla was the starting quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1974-1976. He had everything he wanted. But he didn’t want what he had. Two years later, he quit professional football and… disappeared. In a World Premiere encore performance of his hit one-man show that debuted in January at Plays & Players, he returns to Philadelphia for the first time in over 35 years to tell the story of walking away from the sport and the teammates, he loved. With the average life expectancy of a professional football player reported at 55, the effects of concussions becoming ever more clear, and even our president speaking out against its future, should “America’s Game”… disappear? A play for football fanatics and amateurs alike, The Disappearing Quarterback puts you inside the helmet of a unique athlete, a self-described “long-haired hippie,” with a passionate purpose and a story to share as he comes home to the city that made him famous.

Photo credit: Trevor Reynolds

Click the above to read the full Philadelphia Inquirer review!

Buy tickets!

P.L.A.Y. (Philadelphia Local Artists for Youth)
November 6-23, 2014

A world premiere commission written by Jeremy Gable
Performed by Jennifer MacMillan

A “one person show to be named later” is the second installment of a new yearly series, P.L.A.Y. (Philadelphia Local Artists for Youth), that entertains and inspires theater goers of all ages!  Written by a local playwright with a focus on original and local stories, this imaginative new program offers a theatrically immersive, interactive experience for young audiences, engaging their creativity to help build and spark each performance, sharing living stories that capture the magic all around us.

Click the above to learn more about Jennifer MacMillan!

Buy tickets!

Voices of a People’s History of the United States
January 29-31, 2015

Based on the book edited by Howard Zinn
Directed by John Doyle
Performed by Bob Weick as Howard Zinn and a cast of other Philadelphia favorites

Voices brings to life speeches, letters, poems, and songs from the extraordinary history of ordinary people who built the movements that made the United States what it is today: ending slavery and Jim Crow, protesting war and genocide, advancing gay and women’s rights, and struggling to right wrongs of the day.

Buy tickets!

Hold These Truths
February 12-March 1, 2015

Directed by Daniel Student
Written by Jeanne Sakata
Performed by Makoto Hirano

“The powerful and moving story of one man, who, in his own words, ‘could not give up on the Constitution.’” – StageScene LA

Hold These Truths tells a story, buried by history, of one American’s attempt to reconcile his love for a country that labeled him a second class citizen. Gordon Hirabayashi’s real life 50-year journey brings us the astonishing facts of Japanese Internment, the US government’s orders to forcibly remove and mass incarcerate all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast, through the eyes of a Quaker college student who was simply looking for love and the American Dream. When confronted with the ultimate challenge to his freedom, Gordon embarks on a truly profound and brave defense of our constitution, taking him on a wild adventure of discovering his Quaker faith, hitchhiking to prison, and ultimately, challenging the law in the highest court in the land… twice.  Join Philadelphia actor Makoto Hirano as he gives voice to over thirty characters in this one-man tour-de-force regional premiere, and celebrate the triumph of the power one person has to change a nation.

Learn more about the show

Learn more about the special events surrounding the show

Click the above to learn more about Makoto Hirano

Buy tickets!

Homebody/My Name is Rachel Corrie
May 21-June 7, 2015

Homebody – Written by Tony Kushner
Performed by Corinna Burns
My Name is Rachel Corrie – taken from the writings of Rachel Corrie, edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner
Performed by Isa St. Clair

“[My Name is Rachel Corrie’s] inevitable sentimental power is in its presentation of a blazing young life that you realize is on the verge of being snuffed out.”

-Ben Brantley, New York Times

“Our minds rush to keep up with the Homebody, and our hearts race with more emotions than we can sort through, as she alternately reads from the book and tells her own story.”

-Nancy Franklin, The New Yorker

Plays & Players pairs two contemporary one-woman shows about the complex relationship between the Middle East and the Western world. Homebody, straight from the brilliant mind of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, hilariously tackles the topic through the eyes of a British housewife sitting in her kitchen, contemplating the Western interpretation of Kabul, Afghanistan, her dysfunctional family and hats. In a world of global isolation, she struggles with questions that thousands of years of civilization have failed to answer. My Name is Rachel Corrie is based on the diaries and emails of the titular American college student who met her death on the Gaza Strip in 2003, revealing the voice of a joyful and brilliant woman who celebrated life to its fullest and was lost to the world too soon. Corrie’s journey from the whimsical poetry of childhood to the essays of idealistic youth inspires us to see the best in others while giving us an unflinching look at the bleak socio-political situation that is Israel. Together, these beautifully contrasting and complementary shows take us past the images we see on television, straight into the hearts of our so-called “enemies,” and show us both the limits and vastness of our ability to understand each other.

Click the above photos to learn more about Isa St. Clair and Corinna Burns

Buy tickets for My Name is Rachel Corrie!

Buy tickets for Homebody!

“A story of theatrical enchantment, in which the ordinary is suddenly transformed into the miraculous.” – Chicago Tribune

Celestina de la Sol is a young woman who claims to be 54 years old and to have been pregnant for two years. From Obie Award winning acclaimed Puerto Rican playwright José Rivera, Cloud Tectonics brings new meaning to a “timeless” love story. When Anibal de la Luna picks up Celestina in a torrential storm, her arrival to his house literally makes the clocks stop, and that’s only where this enchanting and unconventional romance takes off. With the world outside his house awashed in pain and war, Cloud Tectonics reminds us that simple miracles exist all around us if we care to find them.

About the Playwright

Born in Puerto Rico, José Rivera’s family moved to Long Island, New York, when he was four years old “as part of a mass exodus because essentially the Great Depression never ended on the island.” He wrote his first play at age 12. He is the recipient of two OBIE Awards for Playwriting, a Fulbright Arts Fellowship, a Whiting Foundation Award, a McKnight Fellowship, a Rockefeller Foundation Grant and a Kennedy Center Grant. He studied with Gabriel García Márquez at the Sundance Institute and was writer-in-residence at the Royal Court Theatre, London. Mr. Rivera’s U.S. premieres include The House of Ramon Iglesia, Slaughter in the Lake, Flowers and The Promise ( Ensemble Studio Theatre); Each Day Dies With Sleep  (Circle Repertory Company and Berkeley Repertory Theatre); Marisol, Tape and Cloud Tectonics ( Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Humana Festival of New American Plays); References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot ( South Coast Repertory); Sonnets for an Old Century (Greenway Arts Alliance); Sueño (Hartford Stage); Giants Have Us in Their Books ( Magic Theatre); Maricela de la Luz Lights the World and Adoration of the Old Woman ( La Jolla Playhouse, Mark Taper Forum; School of the Americas at The Public Theater and LAByrinth Theater Company); Massacre (Sing to Your Children) (Goodman Theatre and Teatro Vista); Brainpeople (American Conservatory Theater); Gliese 581D ( Chicago Humanities Festival); Boleros for the Disenchante ( Yale Repertory Theatre); Yellow ( Collaboraction); Human Emotional Process (a commission by McCarter Theatre), and Pablo and Andrew at the Altar of Words. Mr. Rivera was nominated for a 2005 Academy Award, a BAFTA Award and a Writers Guild of America Award for his screenplay The Motorcycle Diaries.

Ticketing Information

Third Floor Skinner Studio

• Wednesday and Thursdays at 7pm
• Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm
• Saturdays at 2pm
• Sundays at 3pm

Special Events

The Players: An Actor Talkback Sunday, June 8th

Join the cast of Cloud Tectonics for an informal talkback after the show, moderated by director Allison Heishman.

Post-Show Classroom: Go Back To School with Local Professors Sunday, June 15th

Wish you could go back to college and really analyze a play, its themes, and its ideas? Stay after the show for a panel of guest professors who will shed light on the play. And pay attention, there might just be a pop quiz at the end. Guest professors to be announced soon.

Behind The Scenes, On The Stage: Explore the Production Process Sunday, June 22nd

Get a glimpse into what it takes to put a production on its feet and meet production designers in a post-show talkback.  Learn about what different designers do, how a director approaches a script and what the heck a dramaturg is.

Conversation with the Community: Topics at Play in the Real World Time and Date TBA

Plays & Players partners with a local organization whose mission explores the play’s themes in a practical setting.  Gain a more immediate perspective for how elements of the show play out in today’s Philadelphia.

Buy tickets!

Cast and Creative Team

Starring: Taysha Canales, Eric Scotolati, and Anthony Martinez-Briggs

Allison Heishman (Director) is an Artistic Associate at Azuka Theatre, and a freelance ‘theatrician’ throughout Philadelphia. Her work includes Directing, Performance, Script Analysis, Stage Management, and a smattering of Dramaturgy and Writing. She has done work for Azuka (Actor: Long Christmas Ride Home, Director: The Terrible girls, Hazard County,  I Love You I Hate You); National Constitution Center (Program Manager/Educator: Living News, AD/Dramaturg: Fighting for Democracy,Director/Writer: Theatre Exhibition Series); The Wilma Theatre (AD; Angels in America, parts I and II); Tiny Dynamite (Director: Spacewang – A Play, A Pie and A Pint); Flashpoint Theatre (Actor: Autobahn, Dead Guy); Madhouse Theatre (Actor: Pounding Nails into the Floor); Quince Productions (Director: Beebo Brinker, Chronicles, Well of Horniness). Up next she will direct: A Taste of History, An Evening with Chef Staib in collaboration with The Kimmel Center and City Tavern for PIFA; and Failure: A Love Story for Azuka.

Set Design by Lindsey Mayer, Costume Design by Amanda Sharp, Lighting Design by Andrew Cowles, Sound Design by Daniel Kontz, Props Design by Danielle Ferguson, Assistant Direction by Erlina Ortiz, Dramaturgy by Lena Barnard, Stage Management by Lauren Tracy, Assistant Stage Management by Lena Barnard

Plays & Players, a Philadelphia institution for over 100 years, offers you theater that reflects our city. This season, we take a look at what a single voice can… and can’t… do. Those who speak up, those who speak out, and those who remain silent. Five one person shows. A chorus of voices. Join us in these amazing stories told with passion, humor, and uniquely personal aplomb.

The Disappearing Quarterback
September 20-27, 2014

Written and Performed by Mike Boryla
Directed by Daniel Student

“[A] highly enjoyable, attention-commanding world premiere at Plays and Players… a compelling, deeply human story that blends a dash of Spalding Gray, the existential quest of Beckett’s hobos, and the beauty of a tightly thrown spiral.”

-Jim Rutter, Philadelphia Inquirer.

Mike Boryla was the starting quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles from 1974-1976. He had everything he wanted. But he didn’t want what he had. Two years later, he quit professional football and… disappeared. In a World Premiere encore performance of his hit one-man show that debuted in January at Plays & Players, he returns to Philadelphia for the first time in over 35 years to tell the story of walking away from the sport and the teammates, he loved. With the average life expectancy of a professional football player reported at 55, the effects of concussions becoming ever more clear, and even our president speaking out against its future, should “America’s Game”… disappear? A play for football fanatics and amateurs alike, The Disappearing Quarterback puts you inside the helmet of a unique athlete, a self-described “long-haired hippie,” with a passionate purpose and a story to share as he comes home to the city that made him famous.

Photo credit: Trevor Reynolds

Click the above to read the full Philadelphia Inquirer review!

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P.L.A.Y. (Philadelphia Local Artists for Youth)
November 6-23, 2014

A world premiere commission written by Jeremy Gable
Performed by Jennifer MacMillan

A “one person show to be named later” is the second installment of a new yearly series, P.L.A.Y. (Philadelphia Local Artists for Youth), that entertains and inspires theater goers of all ages!  Written by a local playwright with a focus on original and local stories, this imaginative new program offers a theatrically immersive, interactive experience for young audiences, engaging their creativity to help build and spark each performance, sharing living stories that capture the magic all around us.

Click the above to learn more about Jennifer MacMillan!

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Voices of a People’s History of the United States
January 29-31, 2015

Based on the book edited by Howard Zinn
Directed by John Doyle
Performed by Bob Weick as Howard Zinn and a cast of other Philadelphia favorites

Voices brings to life speeches, letters, poems, and songs from the extraordinary history of ordinary people who built the movements that made the United States what it is today: ending slavery and Jim Crow, protesting war and genocide, advancing gay and women’s rights, and struggling to right wrongs of the day.

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Hold These Truths
February 12-March 1, 2015

Directed by Daniel Student
Written by Jeanne Sakata
Performed by Makoto Hirano

“The powerful and moving story of one man, who, in his own words, ‘could not give up on the Constitution.’” – StageScene LA

Hold These Truths tells a story, buried by history, of one American’s attempt to reconcile his love for a country that labeled him a second class citizen. Gordon Hirabayashi’s real life 50-year journey brings us the astonishing facts of Japanese Internment, the US government’s orders to forcibly remove and mass incarcerate all people of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast, through the eyes of a Quaker college student who was simply looking for love and the American Dream. When confronted with the ultimate challenge to his freedom, Gordon embarks on a truly profound and brave defense of our constitution, taking him on a wild adventure of discovering his Quaker faith, hitchhiking to prison, and ultimately, challenging the law in the highest court in the land… twice.  Join Philadelphia actor Makoto Hirano as he gives voice to over thirty characters in this one-man tour-de-force regional premiere, and celebrate the triumph of the power one person has to change a nation.

Learn more about the show

Learn more about the special events surrounding the show

Click the above to learn more about Makoto Hirano

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Homebody/My Name is Rachel Corrie
May 21-June 7, 2015

Homebody – Written by Tony Kushner
Performed by Corinna Burns
My Name is Rachel Corrie – taken from the writings of Rachel Corrie, edited by Alan Rickman and Katharine Viner
Performed by Isa St. Clair

“[My Name is Rachel Corrie’s] inevitable sentimental power is in its presentation of a blazing young life that you realize is on the verge of being snuffed out.”

-Ben Brantley, New York Times

“Our minds rush to keep up with the Homebody, and our hearts race with more emotions than we can sort through, as she alternately reads from the book and tells her own story.”

-Nancy Franklin, The New Yorker

Plays & Players pairs two contemporary one-woman shows about the complex relationship between the Middle East and the Western world. Homebody, straight from the brilliant mind of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, hilariously tackles the topic through the eyes of a British housewife sitting in her kitchen, contemplating the Western interpretation of Kabul, Afghanistan, her dysfunctional family and hats. In a world of global isolation, she struggles with questions that thousands of years of civilization have failed to answer. My Name is Rachel Corrie is based on the diaries and emails of the titular American college student who met her death on the Gaza Strip in 2003, revealing the voice of a joyful and brilliant woman who celebrated life to its fullest and was lost to the world too soon. Corrie’s journey from the whimsical poetry of childhood to the essays of idealistic youth inspires us to see the best in others while giving us an unflinching look at the bleak socio-political situation that is Israel. Together, these beautifully contrasting and complementary shows take us past the images we see on television, straight into the hearts of our so-called “enemies,” and show us both the limits and vastness of our ability to understand each other.

Click the above photos to learn more about Isa St. Clair and Corinna Burns

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“There is one line after another you will quote to your friends.” – New York Times

Like a hard rock track turned all the way up, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll is a hilarious, clever, and often riveting roast of the American Male. An intimate one-man show explodes on to Plays & Players’ stage, bringing to life 10 off-beat characters in a smartly profane non-stop tour de force about masculinity, capitalism, and the great American way. After a lengthy run Off-Broadway in the 1990s, Obie Award winning playwright Eric Bogosian’s “brilliant” collection of monologues are remounted June 5-21 with Philadelphia’s own Eric Scotolati, bringing characters from top to bottom of the eat-or-be-eaten food chain from the era of cable, wall street, and “just say no” perfectly back to life and reminding us how little things change about the larger issues that define our time.

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About the Playwright

Eric Bogosian is best known as a playwright, novelist and actor. He wrote and starred in the play, Talk Radio (NYSF – 1987; on Broadway starring Liev Schreiber- 2007), for which he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and the Tony award. For his film adaptation of the play, Bogosian received the Berlin Film Festival “Silver Bear.” His six solo performances Off-Broadway between 1980 and 2000, (including Drinking in America, Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll and Wake Up and Smell the Coffee) received three Obie awards. In addition to Talk Radio, Bogosian has written a number of full-length plays including subUrbia (LCT, Second Stage, also adapted to film), Griller (Goodman), Red Angel (Williamstown Theater Festival), Humpty Dumpty (The McCarter), 1+1 (New York Stage and Film). He is also the author of three novels, “Mall”, “Wasted Beauty” and “Perforated Heart” and a novella, “Notes from Underground.” He is a Guggenheim fellow.

Ticketing Information

Third Floor Skinner Studio

• Wednesdays and Thursdays at 7pm
• Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm
• Saturdays at 2pm
• Sundays at 3pm

Special Events

The Players: An Actor Talkback

Sunday, June 8th – following 3pm matinee

Join performer Eric Scotolati of Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll for an informal talkback after the show, moderated by director Allison Heishman.

Industry Night

Sunday, June 8th – 9pm show

Join us for a special Industry Night performance of Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll to be held in the Skinner Studio at 9:00 PM. Industry priced tickets will be $10 and regular priced tickets will be $25.

Conversation with the Community: Topics at Play in the Real World

Friday, June 13th – following 8pm performance

Plays & Players partners with a local organization, The Mankind Project of Philadelphia, a committed, diverse and vital community empowering men to live in integrity, authenticity and service. They create a world of love, healing and growing consciousness, and stand for Mature Masculinity, Men Helping Men, and Connection to Feelings. The post-show conversation explores the play’s themes in a practical setting of the work they do, allowing the audience to gain a more immediate perspective for how elements of the show play out in today’s Philadelphia.

Post-Show Classroom: Go Back To School with Local Professors

Sunday, June 15th – following 3pm matinee

Wish you could go back to college and really analyze a play, its themes, and its ideas? Stay after the show for a panel of guest professors who will shed light on the play. And pay attention, there might just be a pop quiz at the end. Current guests include: Kathryn Watterson, English Professor at the University of Pennsylvania; Casey J. Miller, Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bryn Mawr College; Zolani Ngwane, Associate Professor of Anthropology at Haverford College.

Cast and Creative Team

Eric Scotolati (Actor) is happy to be working with such a talented and wonderful crew on this beast of a show! Eric graduated from West Chester University with his B.A.  in performance and has been living and working in the greater Philadelphia area ever since. Eric has worked with such companies as: Azuka Theatre, Lantern Theatre Company, Curio, The PAC, Plays and Players, Tiny Dynamite, Inis Nua, Commonwealth Classic Theatre, and The Renegade Company, of which he is also a founding member.

Allison Heishman (Director) is an Artistic Associate at Azuka Theatre, and a freelance ‘theatrician’ throughout Philadelphia. Her work includes Directing, Performance, Script Analysis, Stage Management, and a smattering of Dramaturgy and Writing. She has done work for Azuka (Actor: Long Christmas Ride Home, Director: The Terrible girls, Hazard County,  I Love You I Hate You); National Constitution Center (Program Manager/Educator: Living News, AD/Dramaturg: Fighting for Democracy,Director/Writer: Theatre Exhibition Series); The Wilma Theatre (AD; Angels in America, parts I and II); Tiny Dynamite (Director: Spacewang – A Play, A Pie and A Pint); Flashpoint Theatre (Actor: Autobahn, Dead Guy); Madhouse Theatre (Actor: Pounding Nails into the Floor); Quince Productions (Director: Beebo Brinker, Chronicles, Well of Horniness). Up next she will direct: A Taste of History, An Evening with Chef Staib in collaboration with The Kimmel Center and City Tavern for PIFA; and Failure: A Love Story for Azuka.

Set & Props Design by Danielle Ferguson, Lighting Design by Andrew Cowles, Sound Design by Daniel Kontz,  Assistant Direction by Erlina Ortiz, Dramaturgy by Lena Barnard, and Stage Management by Lauren Tracy

Adopt-an-Artist “Parents”:

Allison Heishman – Eileen O’Brien and Sam Hopkins
Eric Scotolati – Patrick Tracy

Do you want to adopt-an-artist? A donation of $250 will get you a chance to follow the artist from behind-the-scenes through the final bow. DONATE NOW!

Production Sponsored by

in association with the Knight Arts Challenge funded Henry Box Brown Festival

October 17 – November 3, 2013

“An extraordinary event…MARCUS is an engaging, gently provocative, universal tale. And, yes, it’s sweet.” —San Francisco Chronicle.

From the theater that brought you 2012’s hit production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, comes the Philadelphia premiere from the African-American playwright touted as the “next August Wilson,” Tarell Alvin McCraney. A provocative, poignant, fiercely humorous, and ultimately universal story of a “sweet” young man’s journey to discover the “secret” of who he really is and where he really came from. Days before Hurricane Katrina strikes the projects of Louisiana, the currents of his life converge, overflowing into his close-knit community and bringing three generations of characters, all named after African gods, together in the stirring conclusion of McCraney’s The Brother/Sister Plays trilogy.

About the Playwright

Tarell Alvin McCraney‘s plays include Wig Out! (Sundance Theatre Lab, Vineyard Theatre, and the Royal Court Theatre) and The Brother/Sister Plays: In the Red and Brown Water (Kendeda Graduate Playwriting Competition; premiered at the Alliance Theatre), The Brothers Size (premiered at The Public Theater in association with the Foundry Theatre and in London at the Young Vic), and Marcus; or The Secret of Sweet (premiered in a co-production by McCarter Theatre Center and The Public Theater). Other productions of The Brother/Sister Plays include those by Steppenwolf Theatre Company, American Conservatory Theater, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, Magic Theatre, and The Studio Theatre, among others. McCraney’s plays also include Without/Sin; Run, Mourner, Run; and The Breach, written with Catherine Filloux and Joe Sutton (commissioned and premiered by Southern Repertory Theater in New Orleans.) He was nominated for London’s Olivier Award for The Brothers Size and has received the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, a 2009 GLAAD Award for Outstanding Play, the Paula Vogel Playwriting Award, the Whiting Award, the first Steinberg Distinguished Playwright Award, the inaugural New York Times Outstanding Playwright Award, and a Hodder Fellowship at Princeton University.

Ticketing Information

On the Main Stage

• Wednesday and Thursdays at 7pm
• Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm
• Saturdays at 2pm
• Sundays at 3pm

Special Events

The Players: An Actor Talkback Sunday, October 20th

Join the cast of Marcus for an informal talkback after the show, moderated by director Daniel Student.

Post-Show Classroom: Go Back To School with Local Professors Sunday, October 27th

Wish you could go back to college and really analyze a play, its themes, and its ideas? Stay after the show for a panel of guest professors who will shed light on the play. And pay attention, there might just be a pop quiz at the end. Featuring Swarthmore history professor Allison Dorsey, St. Joseph’s University English professor Laura Pattillo and Plays & Players-featured playwright Quinn D. Eli.

Behind The Scenes, On The Stage: Explore the Production Process Sunday, November 3rd

Get a glimpse into what it takes to put a production on its feet and meet production designers in a post-show talkback.  Learn about what different designers do, how a director approaches a script and what the heck a dramaturg is.

Conversation with the Community: Topics at Play in the Real World Time and Date TBA

Plays & Players partners with a local organization whose mission explores the play’s themes in a practical setting.  Gain a more immediate perspective for how elements of the show play out in today’s Philadelphia.

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Cast and Creative Team

Starring: Janan Ashton, Andre G. Brown, Taysha Canales, Jaylene Clark, Erin Fleming, James Tolbert III and Zuhairah

Daniel Student (Director) serves as Producing Artistic Director at Plays & Players, for whom he has directed Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, A New Brain, Take Me Out, Early in the Mourning, and Oleanna, and starred as Shakespeare in William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead. Other programs he has created at Plays & Players include the Philly Fringe Preview Series, the Philly Bake-Off and PIFA New Play Festival, and the Emerging Artists in Residence (EAR) program. His show he co-created and co-performed with Jennifer MacMillan and R. Eric Thomas, Overexposed: A Slightly Awkward Peep Show enjoyed five sold out performances with Quince Productions before going to the 2012 Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also starring Jamison Foreman.) He re-mounted Overexposed in 2013, as well as performing a new show with Ms. MacMillan and Mr. Thomas, (in)voluntary commitment. “Superheroes Who Are Super!,” a classic comic book staged reading series which he created, produced, and frequently directed, won Best In Philly from Philadelphia Magazine in 2010. Other recent directing credits include Beautiful Zion: A Book of the Dead (Philly Fringe), The Pillowman (Bootless Artworks), and Bug (All College Theatre at The College of New Jersey). He is a graduate of Vassar College and attended the 2007 Lincoln Center Director’s Lab.

Set Design by Colin McIlvaine, Costume Design by Amanda Sharp, Lighting Design by Chris Hallenbeck, Sound Design by Dan Kontz, Props Design by Danielle Ferguson, Assistant Direction by Sophie Peyton, Dramaturgy by Nell Bang-Jensen, Assistant Dramaturgy by Eric Thomas, Dialect Coaching by Melanie Julian, Stage Management by Lauren Tracy, and Assistant Stage Management by Lena Barnard