Suddenly, Last Summer
By Tennessee Williams
Directed by Kevin Hagan
Featuring Ensemble Members Brian McCaskill, Eileen Niccolai
and Linda Reiter
September-October 2007

In the wildly overgrown garden of a New Orleans mansion, a family seeks the truth about the life and death of one of their own. After Sebastian Venable’s mysterious death abroad, his mother Violet calls on her niece Catharine—the family misfit and sole witness to the incident—to reveal what happened that day. Catharine, who seemed to go insane following the death of her cousin, has been institutionalized since her return for insisting on a version of events so horrific that it can’t possibly be true. Set on preserving Sebastian’s memory—and erasing her own role in the unspeakable acts that led to his demise—Mrs. Venable will go to any length to discredit Catharine’s account. But when Catharine is put under the influence of truth serum, everyone must come to terms the reality of the long-buried secrets that are finally brought to light.

Requiem for a Heavyweight
By Rod Serling
Directed by Louis Contey
January-March 2008

When a doctor warns that even one more fight could kill him, washed up prize fighter Harlan “Mountain” McClintock finds his career at a sudden end. Having spent fourteen years in the ring, he faces the prospect of a life that does not include boxing and discovers that the skills that almost made him a champion don’t count for much in the wider world. Mountain is torn between the possibility of new love and a promising future offered by social worker Grace, and loyalty to his self-serving manager Maish, who wants to exploit the fighter on the lucrative professional wrestling circuit. Widely regarded as one of the greatest sports dramas of all time, Requiem for a Heavyweight is a gut-wrenching account of the merciless prizefight game and the human wreckage it leaves in its wake.

A Taste of Honey
By Shelagh Delaney
Directed by Dado
May-July 2008

Grammar school dropout Shelagh Delaney was only seventeen years old when she started writing her first play, A Taste of Honey, a work that would propel her to literary superstardom by the time she reached her twenties. Set in 1950s Manchester, England, Delaney’s poignant and comic play tells the story of Jo, a shy adolescent chafing against the constraints of her working class life and the demands of her selfish, irresponsible mother Helen. When Helen abandons Jo to take up with a much younger man, Jo falls prey to the advances of an itinerant sailor and is left pregnant and alone. Determined not to be undone by her difficult circumstances, she creates her own sort of family with gay art student Geoffrey, who moves into Jo’s flat to help her prepare for the birth of her baby. The two settle into tentative peace and happiness—until Helen’s unexpected reappearance threatens to throw Jo’s life back into upheaval.

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