With September just around the corner, Boston Theatre Works is chomping at the bit, ready to open its sixth season. Armed with a $15,000 grant from the Boston Foundation and several major individual gifts, Artistic Director Jason Southerland and recently-appointed Managing Director of the Company, Nancy Curran Willis, have expanded the mainstage season. Normally producing three plays, the Company will now add a fourth to the roster, as well as introduce two world premieres in one season—a first for the organization.
The BTW season will kick-off with Antony & Cleopatra, running from September 19 – October 12 at the Tremont Theatre. Local legends Bob Pemberton and Anne Gottlieb star as Antony and Cleopatra, revitalizing the Shakespearean play, which hasn’t been produced professionally in Boston in over twenty years. In December, the Company will premiere a new holiday comedy by award-winning actor/playwright John Kuntz, lauded most loudly for his solo show Starfuckers. Described as Fatal Attraction meets Santa’s Workshop, the slighted twisted holiday comedy by Boston’s own will undoubtedly be a break from shopping and holiday junkets.
Conspiracy of Memory, premiering in February, explores the complex issues surrounding aging, forgiveness, and redemption through the character of an elderly Holocaust survivor. Introduced as part of the BTW Unbound Festival 2003, the new work by Steven Bogart met with great acclaim. In store for May is David Lindsay Abaire’s Kimberly Akimbo. Coming off a sold-out run in New York City, the play’s main character struggles with a rare disease that causes her body to age four and a half times faster than normal. The teenager confronts her not-so-ideal family, their infinite problems, mortality, and first love in a comic (somehow) play directed by Jason Southerland. Finally, from May 17 – May 23, 2004, BTW will showcase the year’s hot new works by emerging playwrights in BTW Unbound 2004: A Festival of New Plays.
Boston Theatre Works was founded in response to Boston’s need for a mid-size professional theatre willing to produce challenging new work. The company continues to develop a cast of playwrights, directors, actors, and technicians dedicated to establishing a lasting cultural presence in New England.