Tuesday, April 9, 2013

GIRLCOTT ALERT - THE ALLEY THEATRE, HOUSTON ANNOUNCES SEXIST SEASON!


Last season it was the Guthrie Theatre and the Actors Theatre of Louisville (as well as hundreds of others).

This season it's THE ALLEY THEATRE.  The HOUSTON PRESS just announced that THE ALLEY THEATRE's next mainstage season is 9 plays by WHITE MEN.


“…the Alley Theatre's 2013-14 season announced today will be dominated by American plays and give female actors a special chance to shine, according to Alley Artistic Director Gregory Boyd.”

SOURCE: Houston Press Blog

GUERRILLA GIRLS ON TOUR!  CALLS FOR A GIRLCOTT OF THE ALLEY THEATRE

WRITE, TWEET, FeMAIL and FAX Artistic Director, Gregory Boyd, and tell him you are Girlcotting The Alley and will not buy a ticket until he includes a play by a woman on the main stage.

FAX THE ALLEY THEATRE:  713 222-6542

CALL THE ALLEY THEATRE: 713 228-9341 TWEET: @alleytheatre @GuerrillaGsOT  #girlcott

FeMAIL:  Gregory Boyd gboyd@alleytheatre.org

CC PR Associate Lauren Pelletier laurenp@alleytheatre.org

ALLEY THEATRE'S PRESS RELEASE:

FOR RELEASE
April 6, 2013

MEDIA CONTACT:
Rodi Franco, Director of Communications, (rodif@alleytheatre.org), 713.315.3352
Lauren Pelletier, Public Relations Associate, (laurenp@alleytheatre.org) 713.315.3364

Highlighting Alley Theatre’s Upcoming Season: The Good Woman of Setzuan by Bertolt Brecht, Never the Sinner by John Logan,Other Desert Cities by Jon Robin Baitz, Venus in Fur by David Ives, Freud’s Last Session by Mark St. Germain, and Good People by David Lindsay-Abaire
-Also featured are Alan Ayckbourn’s Communicating Doors, Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s You Can’t Take It With You.
-This summer, Agatha Christie’s The Hollow will be produced as the ExxonMobil Summer Chills production.
HOUSTON, Texas – Gregory Boyd, Artistic Director of the Tony Award-winning Alley Theatre, announces its thrilling new season of plays created by playwrights that include a Pulitzer-Prize winning comedy, a new play that was the Outer Critics Circle’s Outstanding, New Play winner, the first play by a Tony Award winner, a 2011 Tony Award nominee for Best Play, plus an ingenious comedy from acclaimed, award-winning playwright Alan Ayckbourn and an intriguing epic by Bertolt Brecht.
Kicking off the Alley Theatre’s 67th season is perhaps the greatest American comedy ever written, Kaufman and Hart’s You Can’t Take It With You on the Hubbard Stage and the new sexy, provocative comedy Venus in Fur by David Ives on the Neuhaus Stage.
The season continues on the Hubbard Stage with a riveting new play by Pulitzer Prize nominee Jon Robin Baitz, Other Desert Cities, and a fascinating new play on the Neuhaus Stage where professor and author C.S. Lewis visits psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud in Freud’s Last Session by Mark St. Germain. Returning to the Alley are Tony winner John Logan, with the play that launched his career, Never the Sinner on the Hubbard Stage and award-winning acclaimed playwright Alan Ayckbourn, with his ingenious comic tour de force where Back to the Future meets Hitchcock in Communicating Doors.
The final show of the season on the Hubbard Stage is the 2011 Tony Award nominated Good People by David Lindsay-Abaire and the final show on the Neuhaus Stage is Bertolt Brecht’s The Good Woman of Setzuan.
This summer’s ExxonMobil Summer Chills production is Agatha Christie’s The Hollow. This is the first time the Alley will produce this play. Season ticket buyers can purchase tickets now with their season package. Tickets to the public will go on sale in May.
Also available now to season ticket buyers are tickets to Houston’s holiday favorite, A Christmas Carol on the Alley’s Hubbard Stage. Adapted and created by Artistic Director (and Alley Artistic Associate) Michael Wilson, the production incorporates elaborate scenic, costume, and lighting design and features a cast of over 15.
The Alley’s subscription season includes five plays on the Hubbard Stage and three plays on Neuhaus Stage, all produced in the Alley’s two-theatre complex at 615 Texas Avenue in downtown Houston.
Casting for this summer’s ExxonMobil Summer Chills production and plays in the 2013-2014 season will be announced at a later date.
ALLEY THEATRE’S 2013-2014 SEASON INCLUDES:Please note: play titles and dates are subject to change.
You Can’t Take It With YouBy Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Hubbard Stage
September 20 to October 20, 2013
This Pulitzer Prize-winning classic by the team of Kaufman and Hart (The Man Who Came to Dinner, 2009) is perhaps the greatest American comedy ever written. Alice Sycamore must introduce her fiancé’s straitlaced family to her rather more eccentric family. When the wildly different families meet, the worlds of the wealthy, uptight Kirbys and the off-kilter Sycamores collide. At first the Sycamores seem mad, but it is not long before we realize that if they are mad, the rest of the world is madder. Kaufman and Hart’s hilarious You Can’t Take It With You features the Alley Resident Company of Actors. Recommended for general audiences.
Venus in FurBy David Ives
Neuhaus Stage
October 18 to November 17, 2013
Theatrical mastermind David Ives’ sexy, provocative comedy, Venus in Fur, is an electrifying game of cat and mouse between a young actress and a demanding playwright-director that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality, seduction and power, love and sex. "Role-playing takes on a whole new meaning" (New York Post) in this "don’t miss" play The Wall Street Journal says is "deadly serious, madly funny … you won't see a funnier play this season, or a smarter one."Recommended for mature audiences.
Other Desert CitiesBy Jon Robin Baitz
Hubbard Stage
January 10 to February 2, 2014
A riveting new play by Pulitzer Prize nominee and creator of TV's hit drama Brothers & Sisters, Jon Robin Baitz’s Other Desert Cities was named the Outstanding Play by the Outer Critics Circle and called "the best new play on Broadway" by The New York Times. After a six-year absence, Brooke Wyeth returns home to Palm Springs to celebrate Christmas with her parents, brother and aunt. The warm desert air turns chilly when news of her upcoming memoir threatens to revive the most painful chapter of the family’s history. The New York Daily News calls this dysfunctional family drama "a winner … funny and fierce, invigorating and intelligent." Recommended for mature audiences.
Freud’s Last SessionBy Mark St. Germain
Neuhaus Stage
January 24 to February 23, 2014
Freud’s Last Session centers on legendary psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud, who invites a little-known professor C.S. Lewis, (who later wrote the children’s classic The Chronicles of Narnia), to his home in London. Lewis, expecting to be called on the carpet for satirizing Freud in a recent book, soon realizes Freud has a much more significant agenda. On the day England enters World War II, Freud and Lewis clash on the existence of God, love, sex, and the meaning of life. "The humor is plentiful" (The New York Times) in this "thrilling" (Variety) tête-à-tête. Recommended for general audiences.
Never the Sinner: The Murder Trial of the CenturyBy John Logan
Hubbard Stage
February 21 to March 16, 2014
Playwright John Logan – who received three Academy Award nominations and wrote the recent James Bond film Skyfall, and won the Tony, Drama Desk, Outer Critic Circle and Drama League awards for his play Red (Alley production, 2012) – returns to the Alley with the play that launched his career. Never the Sinner is about two boys who commit a murder – not for gain, or out of passion – just to do it, just to experience the thrill. Based on the infamous 1924 trial of Leopold and Loeb, Never the Sinner is their story, and the story of one of the most famous American lawyers and civil libertarians, Clarence Darrow. In the case of a lifetime, Darrow is called in to defend the monstrous and try to win freedom for the depraved. Recommended for mature audiences.
Communicating Doors
By Alan Ayckbourn
Hubbard Stage
April 4 to April 27, 2014
Award-winning playwright Alan Ayckbourn (House & Garden, 2002) returns to the Alley in this ingenious comic tour de force where Back to the Future meets Hitchcock. In 2024 Phoebe, a "private personal services consultant," finds herself with an elderly client in a posh hotel room – she opens the wrong door and finds herself running for her life. Soon she is confronting her own past by way of a woman named Ruella, and the two join forces to prevent a murder, while Phoebe's gradual friendship with that remarkable woman changes the future for both of them. Eleven plays penned by Alan Ayckbourn have been produced by the Alley, including the American premiere of Henceforward in 1987. Alan Ayckbourn has been inducted into the American Theatre’s Hall of Fame, received the 2010 Critics’ Circle Award for Services to the Arts, became the first British playwright to receive both Olivier and Tony Special Lifetime Achievement Awards and was knighted in 1997 for services to the theatre. Recommended for adults due to language.
Good People
By David Lindsay-Abaire
Hubbard Stage
May 16 to June 8, 2014
Nominated for a 2011 Tony Award for Best Play, Good People is a funny, tough and tender story about the insurmountable class divide. When Margie Walsh loses her job at a South Boston dollar store, she reaches out to old flame Mike, a neighborhood boy who escaped and became a successful doctor. Margie's attempt to hit Mike up for a job takes on a surprising twist when she realizes the power a secret from Mike's past holds. From Pulitzer Prize winner David Lindsay-Abaire, Good People looks at the extraordinary consequences of choosing to hold on to the past or leaving it behind. "Thoroughly absorbing ... Good People is good stuff" (Variety) and one of the finest new American plays. Recommended for mature audiences.
The Good Woman of SetzuanBy Bertolt Brecht
Neuhaus Stage
May 30 to June 29, 2014
Can we practice goodness and create a world to sustain it? In Brecht’s comic, intriguing epic play, this question is raised by one of his most entertaining characters, Shen Teh, the good-hearted, penniless, prostitute who is forced to disguise herself as a savvy businessman named Shui Ta to master the ruthlessness needed to be a "good person" in a brutal world. Recommended for mature audiences.
SUMMER PRODUCTION
ExxonMobil Summer ChillsAgatha Christie’s The HollowBy Agatha Christie
Hubbard Stage
July 5 to August 4, 2013
A weekend gathering at The Hollow family estate of Lady Lucy and Sir Henry Angkatell explodes in the murder of one of their guests, physician John Cristow. When the good doctor is found shot, almost everyone is suspect with opportunity and motive including his dim but loyal wife, his current mistress, and his ex-mistress, who lives on a neighboring estate. Don’t miss this classic Christie whodunit filled with brilliantly eccentric characters. Recommended for general audiences.
HOLIDAY PRODUCTIONS:
Houston's Holiday FavoriteA Christmas Carol - A Ghost Story of ChristmasBy Charles Dickens
Adapted and Originally Directed by Michael Wilson
Directed by James Black
Hubbard Stage
November 15 – December 29, 2013