• 2019season

    All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Being in a Bad Play


    By Werner Trieschmann.

    Synopsis from dramaticpublishing.com

    Based on several disastrous theatrical experiences, Bad Play peels back a tattered curtain to examine the process of putting on a show that is less than good. A stuffy narrator (what bad play is complete without a stuffy narrator?) guides the audience through the whole sorry process. We go from the audition—where the director is more worried about roast beef than paying attention to the warm-up exercise, and the neurotic cast pretends to be bacon—to rehearsals—where a passive-aggressive stage manager gives everyone grief. There’s also a special meeting of the Small Part Support Group and a production of Romeo and Juliet set in a Starbucks with costumes of potato sacks and bowler hats. This bad play within a play won’t win any awards, but All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Being in a Bad Play will keep audiences in stitches.

    Comments Off on All I Really Need to Know I Learned by Being in a Bad Play
  • shows

    Marriage is Murder, by Nick Hall

    Gaslight Theater, Hallowell, Maine
    2018 Season, August 24, 25, 26  & 31, Sept 1 and 2

    Full Length Play, Comedy
    cast: one woman, one man

    Ex-spouses Paul and Polly Butler write murder mysteries together. They act out the crimes in Paul’s apartment: poisoned chocolates and lethal martinis, alibis and fingerprints, bodies in a trunk and bodies all tied up, daggers, guns and even an axe all contribute to the hilarity. Nobody gets hurt, but their egos take some hits as they find that their marriage was mixed up with their work. There are many fast paced comic twists as they attempt to outdo and surprise each other and they learn that marriage, like murder, is in the details. The final witty complication is a real murder which they and the audience should have seen coming. This murderously funny two character comedy is by the author of Accommodations.

    Comments Off on Marriage is Murder, by Nick Hall
  • shows

    Not about Nightingales by Tennessee Williams

    Gaslight Theater, Hallowell, Maine
    2018 Season, October 19, 20, 21,  26, 27, 28

    An early work by the revered playwright that caused a sensation in Houston, New York, and London. This is a raw, sprawling dramatization of real events at a Philadelphia prison in 1937. Convicts who led a hunger strike to protest conditions were locked in a scalding cell where four of them died. The sympathetic treatment of blacks and homosexuals was revolutionary for the time of the premiere and may explain why the play remained unproduced for sixty years.

    NOMINEE! 1999 Tony Award for Best Play

    PAST REVIEWS

    “Enthralling…A feverish, full strength compassion for people in cages makes Nightingales fly toward a realm of pain and beauty that is the province of greatness…The emotions, both savage and painfully delicate, that saturate this work are arguably more rich and varied in tone than those of any American dramatist…The voices of Williams’s entrapped nightingales…refuse to fade when the play is plunged into its concluding darkness.” – The New York Times

    “The best American play so far this season…It adds to the reputation of one of America’s greatest playwrights.” – The New York Daily News

    “Fascinating.” – The New York Post

    “Changes our perception of a major writer and still packs a hefty political punch.” – London Independent

    DETAILS

    Time Period: 1930s
    Setting: A large American prison during the summer of 1938.
    Features / Contains: Period Costumes

    CASTING

    9m, 3f
    THE VOICE OF THE LORELEI
    MRS. BRISTOL
    EVA CRANE
    JIM ALLISON (Canary Jim)
    BOSS WHALEN – the warden
    JACK BRISTOL (Sailor Jack)
    SCHULTZ – a guard
    BUTCH O’FALLON
    THE QUEEN
    JOE
    MCBURNEY – a guard
    OLIVER ARMSTEAD (Ollie)
    SHAPIRO
    JEREMY TROUT (Swifty)
    MEX
    KRAUSE
    ALBERTS
    TOM
    CHAPLAIN
    REVEREND HOOKER
    GOLDIE
    CHICK
    GUARDS, CONVICTS, TROOPERS

    Tennessee Williams

    Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) explores passion with daring honesty, and forged a poetic theatre of raw psychological insight that shattered conventional proprieties and transformed the American stage. The autobiographical The Glass Menagerie brought what Mr. Williams called “the catastrophe of success,” a success capped by A Streetcar Named Desire, one of the most influential works of modern American literature. An extraordinary series of masterpieces followed, including Vieux Carre, Sweet Bird of Youth, The Rose Tattoo, Orpheus Descending, and the classic Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

    Comments Off on Not about Nightingales by Tennessee Williams
  • auditions

    Auditions

    Auditions for Marriage is Murder, our next show is June 17 and 18 Hallowell City Hall at 6 Two actors — one man one woman as husband and wife

    “Marriage is Murder” by Nick Hall

    Show dates: August 24, 25, 26 & 31, Sept 1 and 2

    Showtimes are 7:30 pm Fridays & Saturdays, with Sunday matinees at 2pm

    Comments Off on Auditions
  • Uncategorized

    2018 Season

    March

    Two one acts- “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, and “Sonata for Armadillos” by Jon Tuttle

    Show dates March 2, 3, 4 & March 9, 10, 11
    Showtimes are 7:30 pm Fridays & Saturdays, with Sunday matinees at 2pm.

    June

    Witness for the Prosecution” by Agatha Christie

    show dates June 15, 16, 17 & June 22, 23, 24
    Showtimes are 7:30 pm Fridays & Saturdays, with Sunday matinees at 2pm.

    August

    Marriage is Murder” by Nick Hall

    Show dates  August 24, 25, 26  & 31, Sept 1 and 2
    Showtimes are 7:30 pm Fridays & Saturdays, with Sunday matinees at 2pm.
    Read more about this show.>>

    November

    Not About Nightingales” by Tennessee Williams

    Show dates  October 19, 20, 21,  26, 27, 28
    Showtimes are 7:30 pm Fridays & Saturdays, with Sunday matinees at 2pm.
    Read more about this show. >>

    Comments Off on 2018 Season