Live Arts has announced their final season at their current location. Running from September until June of 2003, John Gibson describes it as “an American season, with all U.S. settings and playwrights.” Best of all, the final show will be Coffeehouse 13, a throwback to the early 90s coffeehouses that made Live Arts so popular in the first place. After that show, the theater intends to move to their new location on Water Street.
Lost in Yonkers
by Neil Simon
Directed by Larry Goldstein
September 13 to October 5
1942, the world goes to war. in a Yonkers apartment above a candy store, 3 generations are thrown together: cold and sharp as steel Grandma Kurnitz; the four children who have each hardened her heart; the two teenage boys meeting this, their extended family, for the first time. America’s greatest comic playwright, his only Pulitzer Prize. A tender memory play about coming of age, laughing through tears and learning to let go.
The Wild Party
by John Michael LaChiusa and George C. Wolfe
Directed by Doug Schneider
November 15 to December 14
From epic poem to smash hit musical. The jazz-mad Manhattan of the 1920s, where anything and everything goes! Bathtub gin and bedroom eyes, bums and bon vivants, the most wild and wicked, eye-opening and jaw-dropping party of them all. Dilettantes, debutantes, has-beens, and wannabes are all clawing for an invite to this sexy singing soiree. A vaudeville with hors d’ouevres, a sloe gin fizz to a fast jazz beat, doilies but no undies- “The Wild Party” has it all.
Ah, Wilderness!
by Eugene O’Neill
Directed by William Rough
January 17 to February 8
No morphine, no tuberculosis, and no foghorns. Instead, a comedic walk down memory lane. A turn-of-the-last-century valentine to a sweeter time. A Fourth of July weekend in a placid New England town. A scrapbook of loving family portraits. A clear-eyed and unsentimental look at the inner life of 17-year old Richard Miller: the future artist as a sensitive, pompous, all-but-insufferable, young man.
Summer Evening in Des Moines
by Charles Mee
Directed by Chris Courtenay
March 14-29
One of the most exciting and wildly theatrical playwrights working today. A free-wheeling cruise through heart and head. A ship of fools looks for a way back to Civilization. (Where one can “sit at a dinner table and watch TV.”) With a stop in Teatimeland or Tuscanyworld. (“Where the fountains brim with chianti.”) The destination keeps changing – grand canyon, Dairy Queen, airport, Devonshire, New Jersey, or the Hamptons. Just don’t forget to pack your catapult for the fruitcake toss!
Buried Child
by Sam Shepard
Directed by Boomie Pedersen
April 18- May 3
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” or the double-wide set. A young man returning home to the family farm. His family: Gothic in the disheveled darkness of their lives; Baroque in the extravagance of their dysfunction; Medieval in their cruelty toward each other. Shepard: may be our greatest living playwright; this may be his masterpiece. Albee’s sense of craft, Beckett’s ear for language, and Tennessee William’s gift for venom all on display in this Pulitzer Prize-winning play.
Coffeehouse 13
by the Charlottesville All-Star Writers
Directed by Fran Smith
May 30 to June 21
The thrilling days of yesteryear in C-ville. The Downtown Mall was a ghost town. Fellini’s offered all kinds of after hours treats. Live Arts meant Coffeehouse. For our final full production in our cozy home at 609 East Market Streeet, we’re going back to our roots (before we transplant them to Water Street) resurrecting the legendary performance series that put our address on the map. Big laughs, great tunes and wicked gossip: all with a local slant.
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