The 2007/08 Season
Announcing our 2008/09 Season
The upcoming season is one of our best line-ups in recent years. It is rich, varied, interesting and challenging for both performers and audiences, and contains a balanced blend of classic and modern productions. We are proud to announce our 49th season.
To open, we revisit Agatha Christie’s classic mystery Witness for the Prosecution. This is one of Christie’s most powerful stage plays – memorable for the wonderful characters and intriguing plot twists. Mark LaRiviere (director of Foxfire) will ably guide us from the lawyer’s office to the stunning courtroom conclusion.
For the holiday season, we present Greater Tuna, an uproarious comedy that is a study in the virtuosity and versatility of the cast. Two actors, at manic pace, portray all the characters in the Texas town of Greater Tuna. Of course, no town contains a more unlikely, or more amusing, populace.
The study of a film director who has lost direction in life, Nine is set at an Italian spa. The protagonist struggles to find what his heart truly desires, while surrounded with competing feminine influences – his wife, lover, leading lady, muse and agent. Amy Nielson, who directed a wonderful production of Footloose in 2007, and produced the engaging and entertaining choreography for The Cocoanuts, will direct and choreograph. The music of Nine is spectacular, and we are delighted to welcome back Joe Simiele as Music Director.
The fourth show of the season is one that I am quite thrilled about, because I have the privilege of directing it. The Lion in Winter is an historical drama - amply peppered with wit and spite. In 1183, a family squabble is played out on the nation’s stage with the inheritance of the English throne at stake. The participants are masters of deception and double-dealing, none more so than Henry’s estranged wife - Eleanor of Aquitaine.
Closing the season is the hit Broadway musical Thoroughly Modern Millie. To direct, we welcome Daren A.C. Carollo back to CCCT. Daren has directed many shows on our stage, including Noises Off, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Sweeney Todd. This musical tells the story of a country girl determined to make it in New York City. Millie sings and tap-dances her way in and out of danger (and romance), as the supporting cast shows us exactly what the Roaring Twenties were all about!
I look forward to next season immensely, and trust you will also enjoy our selections.
Kate Culbertson
Artistic Director, Contra Costa Civic Theatre
Our 2007/08 Season
Sept 14 - Oct 14 / 2007
Rumors
By Neil Simon
Directed by Tim Beagley
A Hilarious Farce by America's Premier Comic Playwright
Four couples arrive at the townhouse of a New York City mayor and his wife celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. He’s shot himself in the head (only a flesh wound), she’s missing, and his attorney tries a cover-up that reaches the point at which nobody can remember who has told what about whom. Doors slam and hilarity abounds as the couples become more crazed.
“Has nothing on its mind except making the audience laugh.” —N.Y. Times
Nov 9 - Dec 9 / 2007
A Midsummer Night's Dream
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Mark Manske
A Magical Tale of Battling Lovers and Warring Fairies
Lysander loves Hermia, and Hermia loves Lysander. Helena loves Demetrius; Demetrius used to love Helena but now loves Hermia. The Duke, Theseus, is preparing for his wedding to Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of Fairies, are locked in a dispute over a magical changeling boy. A group of rustics stumbles onto the scene to rehearse a play, but their plans are thwarted when the impish fairy Puck transforms their friend Bottom into an ass. Chaos erupts, lovers are mismatched, and all is reconciled through midsummer night revelries and faith in the power of nature.
“If you have any interest in the theatre, in life or in your fellow men, I think you will be transfixed by this dream”— N.Y. Times
Jan 25 - March 2 / 2008
The Cocoanuts
Book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind
Music by Irving Berlin
Directed by Kate Culbertson
The Boys Are Back In Town!
The Marx Brothers are back in another Broadway musical hit. Groucho runs a resort hotel during the Florida land boom. Chico and Harpo arrive, planning to con a stuffy dowager whose daughter is in love with a clerk at the hotel. Her mother wants her to marry a man of higher social standing, who is actually a con man out to steal the dowager’s diamond necklace. From start to finish, the Brothers run rampant in their trademark style.
“The result, as intended, is comic pandemonium.”— N.Y. Times
April 11 - May 11 / 2008
Foxfire
By Susan Cooper and Hume Cronyn
Directed by Mark LaRiviere
A Funny and Touching Play With Music
Annie Nations, a widow of 79, lives on her Appalachian mountain farm with the recalcitrant ghost of her husband Hector. A brash real-estate developer threatens to destroy her tranquility by turning her land into a vacation resort. To add to her troubles, her son Dillard, a country singer, returns home with two stranded children because his wife has run away. Annie battles to decide her future in magical flashbacks to her life with Hector.
“Quivers with laughter and stabs the heart.” — Time
June 27 - Aug 3 / 2008 (No performance July 4)
Kiss Me, Kate
Book by Samuel and Bella Spewack
Music and Lyrics by Cole Porter
Directed by Mary-Ann Rodgers
Winner of the First Tony Award for "Best Musical" in 1949
Inspired by “The Taming of the Shrew,” this show revolves around two once-married theatre actors performing opposite each other as Petruchio and Katherine in a Broadway-bound musical version of Shakespeare’s play. Already on poor terms, they begin an all-out emotional war that promises to hinder the production’s success. The only things keeping it together are threats from two gangsters trying to collect a gambling debt from the show’s Lucentio. Slapstick madness ensues before a happy resolution.
“A musical for real musical lovers.”— The BBC