-- Our 13th Season --
A Season of Joy
There is a season to everything, and our hope is that this coming year will be a time to lift ourselves up; to stretch for good and community, and reject division.
There are many of us who feel as though they are coming out of a long and dark period, with the aftershocks of the pandemic still being felt. There are still reports pointing to a decline in overall health, connection to family and friends, our physical relationships, spiritual engagement, educational lags, and it seems that the list goes on and on. Scientists and therapists are observing, comparing, and reorganizing our world with a new data set.
Some social and medical professionals say that we can use these observations of common human conditions to feel better about our situation. We can also actively pursue the things that have historically made us feel better. You can jump on a trampoline, hike through the woods, see a movie with friends, meet someone new, maybe make some art, or even put on a show. For a true return to ourselves we must find a place to put these new points of data that help explain what we experienced, and then attend to what brings joy to our lives. Ours is a fragile existence; the struggles we experience are real and need to be acknowledged. But, we also must remember to find the beautiful parts of our time together.
The shared experience of a live performance can inspire like few others. This season we want to find the enthusiasm and passion for life in the stories we tell. Let’s dance and tumble and hug and giggle and share and help one another smile. We want to live boldly, and proudly, and laugh loudly, and love deeply. Cheers to us all, and a Season of Joy!
PURCHASE SINGLE TICKETS TO EACH SHOW BELOW
Single Tickets are $20 for general admission.
Student rate is $10 (age recommendations may vary)
Groups of 10 or more are invited to purchase tickets at a discounted rate of $12/person.
Please call the box office at 334-262-1530 to reserve tickets at the group rate.
Performance times are Thursday-Saturday at 7:00pm and Sunday at 2:00pm.
The lobby doors will open one hour before curtain.
SEASON TICKET HOLDERS:
Please call the box office to reserve your seats OR email boxoffice@cloverdaleplayhous.org
PLEASE NOTE - Please make every effort to be present at least 10 minutes before the show begins.
Latecomers will be admitted into the theater at the Box Office staff's discretion
to ensure a safe and uninterrupted production.
When productions are sold out, any available seats may be given to people on the waitlist
at 2 minutes to showtime.
The Rivals
by Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Lydia Languish is a voracious consumer of sentimental novels. Her reading has inspired her determination to marry for love, rejecting her privileged status in society, and romanticizing being forced into poverty for the purity of her passion. Captain Jack Absolute is a high-born young lover who knows of Miss Languish’s predisposition, and contrives to woo her while claiming to be the penniless Ensign Beverley. Distracted and impeded by a host of other hilarious family, friends and neighbors, various assignations and protestations, as well as an infamously misleading dose of matronly miscommunication, our young idealists find that true love can overcome any obstacles or rivalries with a little bit of forgiveness.
THE RIVALS, is a hilarious comedy of manners, and is often called one of the funniest plays ever written (and only one of a handful of comedies from the 18th century that is still regularly performed). THE RIVALS is a joyous romp that skewers marriage, class and wealth.
The Explorers Club by Nell Benjamin
London, 1879. The prestigious Explorers Club is in crisis: their acting president wants to admit a woman, and their bartender is terrible. True, this female candidate is brilliant, beautiful, and has discovered a legendary Lost City, but the decision to let in a woman could shake the very foundation of the British Empire, and how do you make such a decision without a decent drink? Grab your safety goggles for some very mad science involving deadly cobras, irate Irishmen and the occasional airship.
“You don’t have to be British to lose your composure and howl with laughter at THE EXPLORERS CLUB, a witty spoof of all those bold Victorian adventurers who ravaged foreign lands and annihilated indigenous cultures in the name of science.” —Variety.
“In her hijinks-happy cocktail THE EXPLORERS CLUB, Nell Benjamin follows this recipe: To a starchy bunch of science geeks bemoaning the worst barkeep in London, add a plucky adventurer and her discovery, a trouble-making tribesman. Then shake, stir, serve in an eye-catching vessel, and brace for laughter.” —New York Daily News.
Alice in Wonderland by William Glennon
This new version is so close to the original in intention and feeling that you might suspect that Carroll himself had written it. And yet, it includes many unusual and imaginative staging devices. A group of performers seeks out Alice in order to provide "her turn" in Wonderland. And, as her adventure unfolds, they play the many characters she encounters and grows to love. A joy to see and hear.
Noises Off by Michael Frayn
Called “the funniest farce ever written,” Noises Off presents a manic menagerie of itinerant actors rehearsing a flop called Nothing’s On. Doors slamming, on and offstage intrigue, and an errant herring all figure in the plot of this hilarious and classically comic play.
"The most dexterously realized comedy ever about putting on a comedy. A spectacularly funny, peerless backstage farce. This dizzy, well-known romp is a festival of delirium." - The New York Times
"The funniest farce ever written! Never before has side-splitting taken on a meaning dangerously close to the non-metaphorically medical." - New York Post
Shadowlands by William Nicholson
This West End and Broadway hit is the love story of C.S. Lewis - Oxford don and author of The Chronicles of Narnia and The Screwtape Letters - and American poet Joy Davidman. Jack Lewis is smug in his convictions about God and His plan for the world until Joy and her young son enter his life and the bewildered theoretician of love in the abstract finally confronts its direct presence.
Winner- 1990 London Evening Standard Award, Best New Play
"Engrossing, entertaining ... literate, well crafted and discreetly brilliant."- N.Y. Post
"Poignant, powerful, intelligent theatre, witty and extraordinarily written." - WABC-TV
2015 website design made possible by a grant from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.
The 2023 Playbill was made possible by the Alabama Tourism Department.
