Current Season
Special Summer Production: Rent
by Jonathan Larson
June 24 - August 1, 2010
The Firehouse Theatre Project proudly presents its 2010 summer production - Jonathan Larson’s Rent!
Directed by Jase Smith, the show runs from June 24-Aug. 1, Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and with “pay-what-you-will” matinees at 4 p.m. on Sundays. The Sunday, July 4, matinee will benefit the Fan Free Clinic.
Rent is a rock opera with music and lyrics by Jonathan Larson based on Giacomo Puccini’s opera La bohème. It tells a story of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side in the thriving days of Bohemian Alphabet City, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. On Broadway, Rent gained critical acclaim and won a Tony Award for Best Musical among other awards. The musical is largely responsible for helping to increase the popularity of musical theater amongst the younger generation. The Broadway production closed in September 2008 after a 12-year run and 5,124 performances, making it the eighth-longest-running Broadway show by that time, nine years behind The Phantom of the Opera as of December 2009. The production grossed over $280 million.
Tickets to this special summer production are sure to sell quickly. They are $27 for adults, $24 for seniors 65 and older, and $12 for students and RAPT members with ID. To make reservations, call the Firehouse box office at 804-355-2001 or visit the link below.
2010-11 Season Subscribers: Take advantage of a special offer to purchase tickets to Rent for just $20. Call 804-355-2001 to order yours or to purchase a 2010-11 season subscription.
Meet the talented cast and crew!
Check out our fantastic pre-production stills on Flickr!
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
by Edward Albee
September 9 - October 2, 2010
Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf is an American classic written by a reknowned playwright who has spoken at the theatre and was the inspiration for the Festival of New American Plays. The Firehouse has produced several of his works, including The Death of Bessie Smith, The American Dream, and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? won both the 1963 Tony Award for Best Play and the 1962-63 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play. Its stars won the 1963 Tony Awards for Best Actor and Actress as well. It was also selected for the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Drama by that award’s drama jury. However, the award’s advisory board—the trustees of Columbia University—objected to the play’s then-controversial use of profanity and sexual themes, and overruled the award’s advisory committee, awarding no Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1963.
In the play, George and Martha invite a new professor and his wife to their house after a party. Martha is the daughter of the president of the college (believed to be based on Trinity College, Connecticut) where George is an associate history professor. Nick (who is never addressed or introduced by name) is a biology professor (who Martha thinks teaches math), and Honey is his mousy, brandy-abusing wife. Once at home, Martha and George continue drinking and engage in relentless, scathing verbal and sometimes physical abuse in front of Nick and Honey. The younger couple are simultaneously fascinated and embarrassed. They stay even though the abuse turns periodically towards them as well.
A highly-acclaimed film adaptation of the play was released in 1966. It was directed by Mike Nichols and starred Elizabeth Taylor as Martha, Richard Burton as George, George Segal as Nick and Sandy Dennis as Honey.
The play is directed by Rusty Wilson and stars Jonathan Conyers, Larry Cook, Laine Satterfield, and Amy Sproul.
Full Cast and Crew Biographies and Photos
Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors 65 and older, and $10 for students and RAPT members with ID. Tickets are available by calling the Firehouse box office at 804-355-2001 or visiting www.firehousetheatre.org.
This production runs from Sept. 8-Oct. 2, Thursdays-Saturdays at 8 p.m. and with selected 4 p.m. pay-what-you-will matinees on Sundays.
Love Kills
by Kyle Jarrow
October 28 - November 20, 2010
Billed as a “new emo rock musical,” Kyle Jarrow’s Love Kills premiered to great acclaim in October 2009 at St. Louis’s New Line Theatre. Based on true events, the show takes us back to Nebraska in 1958, and we witness as the world closes in on two teenage lovers charged with committing eleven murders in the course of a week.
You stare at the newspaper pictures
They shock like a kick in the crotch
But I know you like what you’re seeing
I know you love to watch
It’s like watching a movie
And we’re the stars of the movie
And it’s a comedy movie
And it’s terribly funny
And it’s terribly funny how…
Now the roads all run with blood
From the people we killed
And the countryside could flood
With all that we spilled
Cause we did it all for love
And we’d be doing it still…
That’s the funny thing.
Love Kills is based on real life murderers Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate, whose story also has been depicted in Bruce Springsteen’s album Nebraska and the films Badlands and Natural Born Killers. With a cast of just four actors, the show takes us back to Nebraska in 1958, and we witness as the world closes in on these wo teenage lovers who are charged with committing eleven murders in the course of a week. Under pressure to confess by dawn, facts blur and loyalties shift, and they have to ask themselves: how far will you go for someone you love?
This show runs from Oct. 28-Nov. 20 with 8 p.m. shows Thursdays-Saturdays and selected 4 p.m. pay-what-you-will matinees.
Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors 65 and older, and $10 for students and RAPT members with ID.
Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead
by Bert V. Royal
February 3 - February 26, 2011
If you ever wondered what happened to Charlie Brown and the gang, Bert V. Royal’s Dog Sees God might tell you more than you wanted to know.
An unauthorized parody, the play takes the Peanuts characters from the Charles Schulz comic strip and places them 10 years into the future, smack dab in the middle of high school.
The dark comedy starts out with CB, based on Charlie Brown, writing to his never-heard-from pen pal about Snoopy being put to sleep, due to rabies. Contemplating what happens after we die, CB tries to go to his friends and family about his problems, but unfortunately everyone is too self-involved to really help him. Matt, adapted from Pigpen, is a sex-addicted neat freak; best friend Van, based on Linus, turned to pot after someone burned his security blanket; Tricia and Marci (Peppermint Patty and Marci) are alcoholic mean girls; and CB’s sister is searching for her own identity. CB ends up re-establishing contact with his old friend Beethoven (Schroeder), who may or may not be a homosexual. Don’t let the old Peanuts comics fool you.
“Bert V. Royal’s scenario is a welcome antidote to the notion that the “Peanuts” gang provides merely a slice of American cuteness, perfect for Hallmark cards or Broadway musicals.” - The New York Times
This production runs from Feb. 3-16 with 8 p.m. shows Thursdays-Saturdays and selected 4 p.m. pay-what-you-will matinees.
Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors 65 and older, and $10 for students and RAPT members with ID.
Something Intangible
by Bruce Graham
March 24 - April 16, 2011
Set in 1940s Hollywood, Bruce Graham’s Something Intangible play tells the story of two stressed-out brothers - one a creative but difficult genius, the other business-minded and troubled. The award-winning script is loosely based on the story of Walt Disney as he fought to escape Mickey Mouse’s success while creating Fantasia.
Something Intangible had a critically acclaimed world premiere, April 2009, at the Arden Theatre in Philadelphia, Penn. The production received seven Barrymore Awards (including Best New Play). In 2008, Something Intangible was also the recipient of a coveted Edgerton Foundation New American Play Award. Previously, Circle Theatre produced four other plays by Bruce Graham, including: Desperate Affection, Moon Over the Brewery, According to Goldman, and Dex and Julie Sittin’ in a Tree.
This production runs March 24-April 16 with 8 p.m. shows Thursdays-Saturdays and 4 p.m. selected pay-what-you-will Sunday matinees.
Tickets are $25 for adults, $22 for seniors 65 and older, and $10 for students and RAPT members with ID.