Upcoming: Over The River and Through the Woods by Joe DiPietro, City Theatre, November 29 - December 23

The City Theatre Company
proudly presents

Over the River and Through the Woods 

Opening November 29 – December 23, 2012

Come home for the holidays and celebrate family…faith…food!

Thursday – Saturday 8:00 p.m. Sunday 5:30 p.m.
The City Theatre. 3823 Airport Blvd. 78757 – east corner of Airport Blvd. and 38 ½ Street.
General Seating $15. Guaranteed Front/2^nd Row Reserved $25.
Students $12. Thursday all seats $10. Group discounts are available.
Reservations 512-524-2870 or info@citytheatreaustin.org
www.citytheatreaustin.org

The City Theatre Company is pleased to announce a special holiday theatre celebration with Joe DiPietro's hilarious family comedy Over the River and Through the Woods at the City Theatre on November 29 – December 23. This heartwarming show illustrates the unquestionable love between family members old and young, and how traditions, faith and loyalty not only survive, but transform throughout all generations.

The play revolves around Nick, a 32-year-old single Italian-American man who dutifully has dinner with his grandparents every Sunday. At an unscheduled visit, Nick announces that he is leaving New Jersey to take a job in Seattle. To his grandparents, whom Nick calls “the loudest people I’ve ever met,” they have already lost Nick's parents to distant cities and his desire to move makes no sense. The grandparents take his announcement as a declaration of war and pull out all the stops, including match-making, outrageous schemes and wild dinner parties to keep him home. The antics that follow are hilarious and touching and all add to a wonderful night of theatre.

Loaded with laughs, every step of the way.” – Star-Ledger 

“Over The River…a sweet, charming play that makes us feel good ..." – ChicagoCritic.com

Joe DiPietro is a Manhattan-based playwright known for many productions including the hit musical comedy I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, All Shook Up and Babes in Arms, among other productions. He is the recipient of the William Inge American Theatre Award and the O'Neill National Playwright's Conference MacArthur Award for comic writing. The production is directed by Stacey Glazer who directed City Theatre’s How the Other Have Loves, The Crucible and the award-nominated Rabbit Hole. The cast features Matthew C. Burnett (Nick), Kim Rubin (Aida), Robert Deike (Nunzio), Liz Roark (Emma), Steve Wright (Frank), and Megan M. Ortiz (Caitlin).

The City Theatre Company is an Austin-based not for profit arts organization and is sponsored in part by the Austin Creative Alliance and the Austin Cultural Arts Division. Founded in 2006, the company has been recognized by the Austin Critics Table Awards, the B. Iden Payne Awards and was twice voted “Best Theatre Company” by Austin- American Statesman’s Austin 360. CTC is dedicated in providing quality theatre experience and entertainment for Austin artists and its community.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Noises Off by Michael Frayn, Way Off Broadway Community Players, Leander, September 24 - October 16

The Way Off Broadway Community Players in Leander are celebrating their spacious new locale by turning the theatre inside out with laughter. Literally.

Michael Frayn's Noises Off is a lively amusement that pokes good-hearted fun at the conventions of the stage, starting with the most basic one: the agreement that we in the audience will accept you, the actors, as the characters that you are pretending to represent. You settle into your comfortable seat in the new WOBCP's wide and spacious new auditorium and accept the silly business of housekeeper Mrs. Clackett's exposition with the telephone and the newspapers and the sardines.

At that point, if you had studied the miniscule print in the rear pages of the program, you might have been puzzled by a whole second set of credits, ads, bios and thank-yous for the production Nothing On by Robin Housemonger. It becomes clear pretty quickly that that title covers, barely, one of those sweetly naughty brainless farces stereotypical of middle class English theatre circuits -- a play with disguises, mistaken identities, a burglar, slamming doors, and a sweet little bit of crumpet who scampers around in her scanties. Is that what we're seeing?

Yes, and no. Playwright Michael Frayne takes that concept and spins it. A patient, aggrieved voice from the house cuts Mrs. Clackett's chatter short. Lloyd Dallas strides up to the edge of the stage. He sets Dotty Ottley straight about the sequence of business on stage, heaves a sigh and asks her to do it again. Ottley has stage experience but appears never to have played anything but variations on the same character, according to the program (she played "Mrs. Hackett, Britain's most famous lollipop lady ('ooh, I can't 'ardly 'old me lolly up!")). This is a late night rehearsal of a fourth-rate play by a third-rate touring company. We meet other members of the cast as the action of this bit of froth shudders along, late at night, to the more and more comic exasperation of director Dallas.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Tartuffe, City Theatre, July 23 - August 16

UPDATE: Click for ALT review, July 27



PDATE: Sean Fuentes interviews director Charles P. Stites at Austin Theatre Review.com

Received directly:

Hypocrisy. Seduction. Greed. Betrayal.

The best of Moliere’s comedy with

Tartuffe

at City Theatre this summer July 23 – August 16


If it's hypocrisy, greed, and seduction you’re looking for this summer, look no further than Molière’s most famous farce, Tartuffe.

Under the cloak of religious piety, the lecherous, menacing, arch-hypocrite title character schemes to marry his benefactor’s daughter, seduce his wife, then defraud him of all he possesses. Does the scoundrel succeed? Take your seat and find out in this new and exciting adaptation of one of the world’s greatest comedies.

The production runs July 23 – August 16 at The City Theatre. It is directed by Charles P. Stites and features City Theatre company members Wray Crawford, Fiona Rene, D. Heath Thompson, and MacArthur Moore.

Molière’s masterpiece was written over three hundred years ago, but the classic has found a fresh reinvention at City Theatre with a modern staging that is even more immediate, identifiable, and hilarious. Rather than a classic that can be translated to a modern setting, Molière's play seems more of a contemporary play that just happens to have been written a few centuries ago.

Tartuffe and Texas were made for each other.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .