Spotlighters announces Season 56!    
​                                A Place Where We Belong
 
Spotlighters is thrilled to announce a challenging and inspiring selection of exceptional theatre for our 56th Season.
This season, we take our audiences on a journey of discovery and introspection, of searching and longing, . . .
   . . . to find a place where we belong!
 
We hope that you will join us and find your place for Exceptional, Diverse, Creative & Bold theatre at Spotlighters.
 
Season subscriptions will be available by late May 2017.

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Season 56 - 2017/2018
 
Two Trains Running
August Wilson
Fuzz Roark, with Anya Randall Nebel
Sept 8-Oct 8, 2017
​
This is the 1960s chapter of the Pulitzer Prize winning playwright's decade by decade saga of ordinary African Americans in this turbulent century. It takes place in Memphis Lee's coffee shop in a Pittsburgh neighborhood that is on the brink of economic development. Focus is on the characters who hang out there: a local sage, an elderly man who imparts the secrets of life as learned from a 322 year old sage, an ex con, a numbers runner, a laconic waitress who slashed her legs to keep men away, and a retarded man who was once cheated out of a ham. With Chekhovian obliqueness, the author reveals simple truths, hopes and dreams, creating a microcosm of an era and a community on the brink of change.

TEN SPOT THURSDAY:  Sept 14 - 8:00pm  (All Tickets just $10)
TALK BACK with Director & Cast:  Sun, Sept 24 - immediately following performance
 
 
The Hairy Ape
Eugene O’Neil
Sherrionne Brown, with Phil Gallagher
Oct 27-Nov 19, 2017

The Hairy Ape is a 1922 expressionist play by American playwright Eugene O'Neill. It is about a brutish, unthinking laborer known as Yank, the antagonist of the play, as he searches for a sense of belonging in a world controlled by the rich. At first, Yank feels secure as he stokes the engines of an ocean liner, and is highly confident in his physical power over the ship's engines and his men.
However, when the rich daughter of an industrialist in the steel business refers to him as a "filthy beast", Yank undergoes a crisis of identity and so starts his mental and physical deterioration. He leaves the ship and wanders into Manhattan, only to find he does not belong anywhere—neither with the socialites on Fifth Avenue, nor with the labor organizers on the waterfront. In a fight for social belonging, Yank's mental state disintegrates to animalistic, and in the end he finds  himself at the Zoo, staring at the Great Ape.....

The Hairy Ape is a portrayal of the impact industrialization and social class has on the dynamic character Yank.

TEN SPOT THURSDAY:  Nov 2 - 8:00pm (All Tickets just $10)
TALK BACK with Director & Cast:  Sun, Nov 12 - immediately following performance
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FIRST DATE (Musical)
book - Austin Winsberg;  
music & lyrics - Alan Zachary and Michael Weine
Fuzz Roark
Michael Tan, musical direction
Dec 15, 2017 - Jan 21, 2018

When blind date newbie Aaron is set up with serial-dater Casey, a casual drink at a busy New York restaurant turns into a hilarious high-stakes dinner.

As the date unfolds in real time, the couple quickly finds that they are not alone on this unpredictable evening. In a delightful and unexpected twist, Casey and Aaron’s inner critics take on a life of their own when other restaurant patrons transform into supportive best friends, manipulative exes and protective parents, who sing and dance them through ice-breakers, appetizers and potential conversational land mines.

Can this couple turn what could be a dating disaster into something special before the check arrives?

Running time: 90 minutes, no intermission.

TEN SPOT THURSDAY:  Dec 21 - 8:00pm  (All Tickets just $10)
TALK BACK with Director & Cast:  Sun, Jan 7, 2018 - immediately following performance
​Holiday Show Schedule to be announced once show is cast.
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I Hate Hamlet
Paul Rudnick
Hillary Glass / Ilene Chalmers
Feb 9 - Mar 4, 2018

A young and successful television actor relocates to New York, where he rents a marvelous, gothic apartment. With his television career in limbo, the actor is offered the opportunity to play Hamlet onstage, but there's one problem: He hates Hamlet. His dilemma deepens with the entrance of John Barrymore's ghost, who arrives intoxicated and in full costume to the apartment that once was his. The contrast between the two actors, the towering, dissipated Barrymore whose Hamlet was the greatest of his time, and Andrew Rally, hot young television star, leads to a wildly funny duel over women, art, success, duty, television, and yes, the apartment. "…fast-mouthed and funny…It has the old-fashioned Broadway virtues of brightness without pretensions and sentimentality without morals." —Village Voice.

TEN SPOT THURSDAY:  Feb 15 - 8:00pm (All Tickets just $10)
TALK BACK with Director & Cast:  Sun, Feb 25, 2018 - immediately following performance
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​
I Love You, You're Perfect,
   Now Change  (Musical)
by Joe DiPietro, with music by Jimmy Roberts
Fuzz Roark, stage direction
Mandee Ferrier Roberts, musical direction
Mar 23 - Apr 22, 2018

This celebration of the mating game takes on the truths and myths behind that contemporary conundrum know as 'the relationship.'

Act I explores the journey from dating and waiting to love and marriage, while Act II reveals the agonies and triumphs of in-laws and newborns, trips in the family car and pick-up techniques of the geriatric set.

This hilarious revue pays tribute to those who have loved and lost, to those who have fallen on their face at the portal of romance, to those who have dared to ask, 'Say, what are you doing Saturday night?'

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change is presented in the form of a series of vignettes connected by the central theme of love and relationships. The play's tagline is "Everything you have ever secretly thought about dating, romance, marriage, lovers, husbands, wives and in-laws, but were afraid to admit."

It is the second-longest running Off Broadway musical.

TEN SPOT THURSDAY:  Mar 29 - 8:00pm (All Tickets just $10)
TALK BACK with Director & Cast:  Sun, Apr 8 - immediately following performance
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Love, Loss, and What I Wore  
  - a collection of intimate stories
by Nora Ephron & Delia Ephron
 - based on the book by Ilene Beckerman
Erin Riley, stage direction
May 18 - June 10, 2018

Love, Loss, and What I Wore is a collection of intimate stories complied by Nora and Delia Ephron based on the 1995 book (Love, Loss, ...) by Ilene Beckerman. A series of monologues and ensemble pieces about women, clothes and memory covering all the important subjects—mothers, prom dresses, mothers, buying bras, mothers, hating purses and why we only wear black. The subject matter of the monologues includes women's relationships and wardrobes and at times the interaction of the two, using the female wardrobe as a time capsule of a woman's life.

"Funny and compelling…but, not a comedy: A story about black cowboy boots becomes a sad tale of being underappreciated in a relationship; a tale of two women shopping for their wedding outfits ends bittersweetly; and the recollection of a new bra is a quiet testament to a women's search for dignity while undergoing treatment for breast cancer." —NY Times. 

"So funny and so powerful; so dear and sweet; so remindful of our female wiles, our worries, our insecurities, our remembrances of mother, father, sisters, brothers, lovers—I think it can't miss." —WowOwow.com.

TEN SPOT THURSDAY:  May 24 - 8:00pm  (ALL Tickets just $10)
TALK BACK with Director & Cast:  Sun, May 27 - immediately following performance
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Judy & the General  (Musical)
A WORLD PREMIERE of a NEW MUSICAL WORK
Rosemary Frisino Toohey
Sherrionne Brown, stage direction
Michael Tan, musical direction
June 29 - July 29, 2018
 
Judy and the General is Rosemary Toohey's hilarious new musical about the biblical Judith and the powerful general Holofernes. Her image is in museums and churches all over the world.  Hundreds of artists through the years have depicted a young woman in the act of beheading a bearded general.  It’s not often that women are seen as heroes in the Bible, but among the handful of strong female characters, Judith is a standout.  Intelligent, devout and resolute, she ingeniously uses her feminine wiles to outwit the mighty Holofernes, thereby saving her people from destruction.  It’s a classic match between the forces of good and evil.
The story of a woman who takes it upon herself to save her town from impending destruction, and the indecision of the male dominated leadership! 

TEN SPOT THURSDAY:  July 5 - 8:00pm  (ALL Tickets just $10)
TALK BACK with Director & Cast:  July 15 - immediately following performance
BUY TICKETS
 
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Individual Ticket Prices for the 2017/2018 Season
   Adults   $22
   Seniors (60+)   $20
   Students/Military (ID required)   $18
  
Information will be available online by early May, and subscription sales will be available in late May 2017.
 
More information, email [email protected]