The 2011-2012 Season at The Stagecrafters: Comedies and Classics

It’s that time of year again. As the weather begins to cool down, and the summer activities are wrapping up, theater, 8130 Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill, is just beginning their 2011-2012 Season.

“In general, we like to have a balanced season. We don’t want to go for one kind of thing. It’s not, ‘We do classics, period,’ or ‘We do only edgy contemporary stuff.’ We want to have a little bit of everything,” said Yaga Brady, director of public relations for The Stagecrafters.

Kimberly Akimbo

Opening the season is Kimberly Akimbo, by by David Lindsay-Abaire and directed by Jane Toczek. Brady calls the play a satirical take on American family sitcoms.

“It has the sort of format of that but when you go into it, the character situations are off; it’s a dark comedy,” Brady said.

The play follows a 16-year-old girl dealing with a physical disorder and a dysfunctional family. Kimberly Akimbo is running at The Stagecrafters now through Sept. 25.

Moonlight and Magnolias

Following this darker comedy is Moonlight and Magnolias, the semi-true story of the rewriting of Gone With the Wind. The play introduces the producer, David O. Selznick, as he takes on a screenwriter who has never read the famous book. Selznick and his director have to reenact scenes from the story as the screenplay is being frantically rewritten.

The play is a comic tale with a lot of truth about the creative process versus the demands of 1940s-era Hollywood. Moonlight and Magnolias runs Nov. 25 through Dec. 11.

All My Sons

While Akimbo and Magnolias are modern plays, the third production in the season is a classic, written by none other than American legend Arthur Miller. Miller’s play All My Sons is the story about Joe Keller, his son who went missing during World War II, his implication in a wartime scandal, and a backyard barbeque where secrets come to life.

“Arthur Miller—he had no sense of humor but was very serious about social issues and moral responsibility of individuals in society,. That is very clear in this play,” Brady said.

All My Sons runs at The Stagecrafters Feb. 3-19, 2012.

The Deadly Game

Yaga Brady herself has an integral role in the fourth play of the season, The Deadly Game, adapted by James Yaffe from a radio play and novella by Friedrich Duerrenmatt. Brady is directing the psychological thriller about a businessman who crashes his car in a blizzard in a remote region. As he is welcomed by an older man in a remote home, events unfold that deal with the subjects of crime and punishment that Duerrenmatt is known for exploring.

“When we did The Visit [by Duerrenmatt], which is considered one of the most important plays of the 20th Century, we had our Q and A after one of the performances, and it was the most involved and long Q and A,” Brady said. “We had to tell people it was time to go; it was midnight and people were still talking about it.”

The Deadly Game runs April 13-29, 2012.

Tartuffe

Finally, the current season will wrap with one of the most performed plays of all time, Tartuffe by Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere. Brady describes the play as an “immortal tale of a crafty hypocrite who feigns honesty, human compassion and piety, but in reality takes advantage of his naïve and gullible host in a calculating and ruthless manner.”

Written by Moliere in 1664, Tartuffe was translated into English by Richard Wilbur and is a perfect ending to a well-crafted season, running June 15 through July 1, 2012.

Performances of each play are Thursday-Sunday during its run. For more information on The Stagecrafters, their latest season, or play times and ticket information, visit the theater’s website. Return to Patch for reviews of each Stagecrafters production.