Company of Fools Theatre Announces its 22nd Season for 2017–2018

Company of Fools proudly announces its 22nd season, featuring four main stage productions, two play readings and a newly commissioned mini-musical on bees and pollinators that will be a part of one of The Center’s 2017–2018 BIG IDEA projects. The four main stage productions in the Company’s 2017–2018 lineup include Life Sucks, Bright Half Life, Striking 12 and Clybourne Park. The 2017–2018 Play Reading Series includes Pal, The Diary of Anne Frank and a Bee Mini-Musical.

“We’ve had a grand time putting together the 22nd season,” said John Glenn, Company of Fools Artistic Director.  “We think it’s one that truly crisscrosses a wide spectrum of exciting storytelling. Each of the stories we chose this season spoke to us of community. They are stories that ask challenging and enriching questions—stories that help us create deeper and more lasting connections with one another. We’re in the process now of building the artistic teams that will tell these amazing stories. And we’re thrilled to be able to share them with OUR amazing community.”

LIFE SUCKS
June 27–July 19, 2017
Liberty Theatre, Hailey

 By Aaron Posner
Direction by John Glenn

Sponsored by Jeri Wolfson

Never has unhappiness been so much fun. From the mind of Aaron Posner comes this brash and revelatory reworking of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya. A group of old friends, ex-lovers, estranged in-laws, and lifelong enemies gather to grapple with life’s thorniest questions—and each other. What could possibly go wrong? Incurably lustful and lonely, hapless and hopeful, these seven souls collide and stumble their way towards a new understanding that LIFE SUCKS! Or does it?


BRIGHT HALF LIFE
September 27–October 14, 2017
Liberty Theatre, Hailey

By Tanya Barfield
Direction by Ilana Becker

Vicky and Erica navigate the peripatetic present through a lifetime of courtship and marriage, kids and parents, death and divorce, Ferris wheels and skydiving, in a moving story that spans decades in an instant. Bright Half Life is a stunningly human and humorous depiction of a life in love.


STRIKING 12
December 12–30, 2017
Liberty Theatre, Hailey

by Brendan Milburn, Rachel Sheinkin, and Valerie Vigoda
Direction by Ilana Becker
Music Direction by R.L. Rowsey

 Sponsored by Arrow R Storage

Inspired in part by Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl,” Striking 12 tells the story of an overworked New Yorker who resolves to spend New Year’s Eve alone, when an unexpected visitor brings him much-needed hope and cheer. Co-written by Tony Award-winning book writer Rachel Sheinkin (25th Annual Putnam Spelling Bee) and Valerie Vigoda and Brendon Milburn of the indie band, GrooveLily, this uniquely musical urban fairytale springs to life through an eclectic score combining rock, jazz, pop, show tunes and more to weave three stories and settings—contemporary New York City, 19th century Denmark, and the very room in which the show is presented in Hailey!—into one magical, rock-tastic, playful, family-friendly holiday event.


CLYBOURNE PARK
February 21–March 10, 2018
Liberty Theatre, Hailey

By Bruce Norris
Direction by John Glenn

Sponsored by Carol & Len Harlig and Marcia & Don Liebich

Winner of the 2011 Pulitzer Prize and the 2012 Tony Award for Best Play, Clybourne Park explodes in two outrageous acts set fifty years apart. In 1959, white community leaders anxiously try to stop the sale of a home in their neighborhood to a black family. In the same house in the present day, the now predominantly African-American neighborhood battles to hold its ground in the face of gentrification. This razor-sharp satire, spun from the fringes of Loraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, pulls no punches.

COMPANY OF FOOLS 22nd SEASON MAIN STAGE PRICING

$35 member / $40 nonmember / $35 senior (62 and over) / $15 student (with student ID) / $35 group (8 or more) / “Second Night 22” $22 Full Price all tickets on the second night of the performance run (new for 2017–2018 season) *Ticket prices do not include taxes or processing fees.


COMPANY OF FOOLS 2017–2018 PLAY READINGS/SPECIAL PROJECTS

Pal*
By Tasha Gordon-Solmon
Friday, October 27, 2017, 6:30pm
Liberty Theatre, Hailey

FREE ($10 suggested donation, advance seat reservation recommended)

Company of Fools invites you to join in the new play development process! Playwright Tasha Gordon-Solmon will visit the Wood River Valley to begin development of her new play, Pal. Two best friends share their favorite movies, their deepest wishes, their greatest fears, and grow up together—all through written letters—in a world in which reality and imagination aren’t so simply delineated.

Tasha Gordon-Solmon’s plays have been developed and produced at Actors Theater of Louisville and The Humana Festival, Clubbed Thumb, Ars Nova, Northern Stage, The Perry Mansfield New Works Festival, Dixon Place, New Georges, INTAR, and the Flea. She is a lyricist in the BMI Workshop and an alumna of the Clubbed Thumb Early Career Writers Group and the Ars Nova Playgroup. Tasha received her MFA in Dramatic Writing at NYU and is a proud 52nd Street Project volunteer.

Dramatist Guild Fellowship Recipient
Member of the Project Y Playwrights Group
A New Georges Affiliated Artist

*Part of The Center’s BIG IDEA project The Unreliable Narrator


The Diary of Anne Frank*
by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, newly adapted by Wendy Kesselman
Thursday, January 25, 2018 (Student Matinee)
Friday, January 26, 2018 (Student Matinee)
Saturday, January 27, 2018, 7pm
Sunday, January 28, 2018, 2pm 
Liberty Theatre, Hailey

FREE ($10 suggested donation, advance seat reservation recommended)

In this transcendentally powerful new adaptation by Wendy Kesselman, Anne Frank emerges from history a living, lyrical, intensely gifted young girl, who confronts her rapidly changing life and the increasing horror of her time with astonishing honesty, wit, and determination. An impassioned drama about the lives of eight people hiding from the Nazis in a concealed storage attic, THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK captures the claustrophobic realities of their daily existence—their fear, their hope, their laughter, their grief. Each day of these two dark years, Anne’s voice shines through: “When I write I shake off all my cares. But I want to achieve more than that. I want to be useful and bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death!” This is a new adaptation for a new generation.

*Part of The Center’s BIG IDEA project Refugees: This Land is Whose Land?


Bee Mini-Musical*
April 2018 (dates TBD)
Liberty Theatre, Hailey

FREE ($10 suggested donation, advance seat reservation recommended)

Company of Fools commissions an award-winning musical theatre-writing team to create a short musical for young audiences inspired by the visual artwork in The Center’s BIG IDEA project, Bees. We’re pleased to offer student matinees for K–4th grade students, as well as a limited number of public performances.

*Part of The Center’s BIG IDEA project Bees

 

 

 

COMPANY OF FOOLS 22ND SEASON ON-SALE DATES:

ALL TICKETS on sale: Friday, April 14, 10am