Theatre Lab to Produce a Three-play Season for 2016-17
Theatre Lab is in the process of completing a renovation of its intimate 99-seat Heckscher Stage theater space in Parliament Hall to accommodate the design elements for full production.
Florida Atlantic University recently announced that Theatre Lab, the professional resident company of FAU, will fully produce three new works as part of its 2016-17 season. Housed on the Boca Raton campus, Theatre Lab is in the process of completing a renovation of its intimate 99-seat Heckscher Stage theater space in Parliament Hall to accommodate the design elements for full production.
“In its first season, Theatre Lab established FAU as a force in the national professional theater movement,” said Lou Tyrrell, Theatre Lab’s artistic director. “With our second season, Theatre Lab will produce three plays we helped to develop this past year.”
Theatre Lab’s mission is the development and production of new work in American theater, also providing a training ground for FAU students interested in careers in professional theater and the world of not-for-profit arts.
“These three plays represent our commitment to producing a range of new work that best supports American playwrights,” said Des Gallant, producing director. “One is a world premiere, another an important second production of a play, the third a ‘developing production,’ to prepare the play for its eventual official premiere.”
With its laboratory approach to new play development, Theatre Lab allows FAU faculty and students, along with the entire South Florida community, to be an actual part of the artistic process, actively engaged by world-class professional theater performances, workshops, conversations with leading playwrights and theater artists.
“These three plays will also serve as the foundation of Future PAGES, our education outreach program,” added Matt Stabile, associate artistic director. “Through the support of the Heckscher Foundation for Children, thousands of middle- and high-school students find their own voice and personal expression through creative writing projects based on the themes at the center of these plays, leading to student productions of their original material.”
THE 2016-17 THEATRE LAB SEASON
“The Three Sisters of Weehawken”by Deborah Zoe Laufer World Premiere
Friday, Oct. 21 to Sunday, Nov. 6
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. ($35)
Preview Performance: Thursday, Oct. 20, 7:30 p.m. ($25)
Special closing weekend matinee: Saturday, Nov. 5, 3 p.m. ($35)
Olga, Masha and Irina have dreamt of returning to their childhood home of Manhattan all their lives. There it lies, gleaming, a mere ferry ride away from their provincial home in Weehawken, N.J. Though their sister-in-law, Natasha, tries valiantly to help them realize their dream with offers of work, tickets, maps, guidebooks, even anti-depressants, old patterns are hard to break. And that 15-minute ferry ride may as well be a mission to Mars. As they remain, decade after decade stretching into old age, the walls of their world move in tighter and tighter, until it becomes nearly impossible to move at all. Borrowing as much from Beckett as Checkov, “The Three Sisters of Weehawken”wonders at the forces that keep us from following our dreams, and begs the question -- how little can one live, and still have lived “a life?”
“This Random World”by Steven DietzSoutheastPremiere
Friday, Dec. 2 to Sunday, Dec. 18
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. ($35)
Preview Performance: Thursday, Dec. 1, 7:30 p.m. ($25)
Special closing weekend matinee: Saturday, Dec. 17, 3 p.m. ($35)
“This Random World” turns the myth of serendipity on its head, using a comic premise of missed opportunities to explore the most serious of things. From an ailing woman who plans one final trip, to her daughter planning one great escape and her son falling prey to a prank gone wrong –this funny, intimate and heartwarming play presents the life that may be happening just out of reach of our own.
“Motherland” by Allison Gregory
Friday, Jan. 27 to Sunday, Feb. 12, 2017
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. ($35)
Preview Performance: Thursday, Jan.26, 7:30 p.m. ($25)
Special closing weekend matinee: Saturday, Feb. 11, 3 p.m. ($35)
A self-made woman does her crafty best to protect her wayward children, keep her food truck business thriving, and impart some kind of moral code in a city battling collapse. In “Motherland,” grit, guile, and guns are everyday parenting tools, and hope comes at a cost. A funny, raw, timely new play inspired by Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children, considered one of the most important plays of the 20th century.
For ticket purchase and subscription information, call 561-297-6124 or visit www.fauevents.com. For more information about Theatre Lab, call 561-297-4784 or visit www.fau.edu/theatrelab.
-FAU-
Tags: arts and letters | community