Since its onset more than a decade ago, the Prospect Theater Project has been brining compelling and challenging works to the stage. They have brought audiences classics from Aristophanes to Shakespeare and Moliere; modern masterpieces of world theater including Ibsen, Brecht, Shaw; the work of American masters like Albee, O'Neill, and Miller; and classic Americana with productions of “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Grapes of Wrath.”
The theater looks to continue their tradition of bringing the area innovative and intriguing shows as they launch the 2012-13 season.
“We have a fine selection of plays, some new faces as well as Prospect's regular contributors, and the vigorous desire to bring to you some of the finest drama to be found in the region,” said Jack Souza, the theater’s artistic director.
Opening the season is Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain,” running from Friday to Oct. 21. Set in the early 1960s, sometime between the beatnik and hippie eras in an appealing shabby apartment in rain soaked Greenwich Village, the play tells the story of a newly discovered journal. Filled with enigmatic entries, the journal recalls two young architects, unaware they're on the brink of fame, as they struggle with plans for an important commission. But it's left to their children, thirty years later, to sort out the mystery behind their lives and loves.
Up next in the line-up is Nilo Cruz’s “Anna in the Tropics,” running from Nov. 16 to Dec. 9. A poignant and poetic play set in Florida in 1929 in a Cuban-American cigar factory, where cigars are still rolled by hand and "lectors" are employed to educate and entertain the workers. The arrival of a new lector is a cause for celebration, but when he begins to read aloud from Anna Karenina, he unwittingly becomes a catalyst in the lives of his avid listeners, for whom Tolstoy, the tropics and the American dream prove a volatile combination.
The new year will usher in a production of Yasmina Reza’s “God of Carnage” from Feb. 8, 2013 to March 3, 2013. A study in the tension between civilized surface and savage instinct, this wickedly funny play was the winner of the 2009 Tony award. A playground altercation between 11-year-old boys brings together two sets of Brooklyn parents for a meeting to resolve the matter. At first, diplomatic niceties are observed, but as the meeting progresses, and the rum flows, tensions emerge and the gloves come off, leaving the couples with more than just their liberal principles in tatters.
The theater will bring the classic story of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” to the stage May 17, 18, 24 and 25. The theater’s 2013 collaboration with the Gallo Center for the Arts will be Shaw's seminal comedy of class distinctions. Fussy British phonetics professor, Henry Higgins wagers that he can transform guttersnipe cockney flower girl, Eliza Doolittle into a lady of breeding, voice and manners in London's Ascot society, with surprising results.
The final production of the season will be the short play festival. The Prospect Theater Project will bring the best 10 minute short and one-act plays from local and international writers to the stage. The festival will run from July 12 to Aug. 4, 2013.
Most PTP productions run for four consecutive weekends at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. on the final Thursday, and 2 p.m. Sundays. Single tickets are $20 and a season subscription for all five shows is $80. For more ticket information call 549-9341 or visit prospecttheaterproject.org.
