September 4th - October 12, 2008

Annie Sullivan, who was born in the neighboring Feeding Hills section of Agawam, was sent to Alabama in 1887 and charged with being a teacher to a wild and almost feral seven year old girl who had been blind and deaf since she was a year and a half old. That girl was Helen Keller. At an outdoor water pump in the side yard of an estate known as Ivy Green a “miracle” took place. All afternoon Annie kept tapping into Helen’s palm a five-letter alphabet code while at the same time steadily pumping water into Helen’s other hand. Suddenly these signals crossed Helen’s consciousness and her darkness lifted. The signals spelled out words. And words meant something. THE MIRACLE WORKER is one of the great plays of the American theater with a significant local connection.

October 23rd - November 30th, 2008

Last summer we presented two performances of this comedy, and afterwards – as soon as everyone could catch their breath after having laughed so hard – we were asked to bring this show back as part of our season. JERRY & ED reminds all of us – the young and the old – that life is just a lot more fun when lived with the courage of compassion and the wit of wisdom – especially when we share it with a friend! So now everyone will have a chance to meet Jerry Atric and Ed Hascomb, two inseparable life long friends who find themselves, after the loss of their wives, sharing what remains of their lives at the Garden Acres Retirement Community. While struggling with memory loss, old bones, in-laws, and fixed incomes, these two “senior citizens” take a touching and hilarious journey through time with stop-overs at World War Two (“the Big One”), romance, toga parties, Coney Island, and a few other funny destinations.

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January 8th - February 15th, 2009

LUMBERJACKS IN LOVE is another hit musical by the same guys who created our last season’s hit GUYS ON ICE. Set in 1912, five lumberjacks – Minnesota Slim, Muskrat, Dirty Bob, Moonlight, and the Kid – live in a state of manly bliss at the Haywire Lumber Camp, some two hundred miles from the nearest woman. The madness begins with the arrival of a plucky mail order bride, really a writer of romance novels doing research for a new book, and the revelation that one of the lumberjacks is really a cross dressing “lumberjill.” LUMBERJACKS IN LOVE will be an unabashedly sparkling romp in the woods!

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February 26th - April 5th, 2009

This play has been called a wonderfully touching series of “jewel-like character studies that never strays from the truth.” The play is set in March during a howling snowstorm that has closed the roads west of Kansas City. Elma and Grace, the two women who work in the dingy neon diner that also serves as a bus stop, are waiting for the last bus of the evening to arrive. The passengers, if there are any, will have to hole up until the morning. As the bus arrives, Cherie, a would-be nightclub chanteuse, rushes in. She’d been hoping to go to Los Angeles, but she’s been “kidnapped” by Bo Decker, a young cowboy with all the romantic notions of a headstrong bull, who is determined to carry her off to Montana and marry her. In the award-winning film, based upon this well crafted piece of theater, Marilyn Monroe played Cherie.

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April 16th - May 24th, 2009

JOHN & PAUL takes us on a rich musical journey that gives us an inner look at Lennon & McCartney, beginning with their births and early lives in England, through their years of fame as two of the Beatles and the eventual misfortune of one. You will experience and learn anew about these enormously talented friends by way of Steven Schecter’s original music and lyrics, Danny Eaton’s narration and dramatization, and a multi-media visual show. JOHN & PAUL was performed this past winter in a workshop at our Baldwin Street Studios where the audiences resoundingly said that this musical biography of a friendship that changed the world should be part of our subscription season.

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