Colonial Players 64th Season

What happens when you subscribe to Colonial Players? You ensure that you have the seats you prefer for every wonderful offering the theater is cooking up this season. You may plan to come with friends and enjoy dinner at one of our restaurant partners who give you discounts on your meal when you show them your tickets. (Discounts on top of the discounts subscribers enjoy over our single ticket prices!) When you subscribe, you provide the support for the friends and neighbors who make the theater what it is, creating the shows that enrich and enliven Annapolis’ cultural feast. You become part of all that by pledging your presence and enthusiasm as the audiences who complete the circle of producer and partaker. The most wonderful recipes made by the best chefs are nothing if no one eats the resulting meal and pronounces it delicious! We need you to enjoy our menu of delights!

We start off with the beguiling period piece, Bell, Book and Candle by John van Druten, a story about witches and love in New York in the 50’s. In October, in Sunlight by Sharr White, we watch as an idealistic, aging college president is dealing with the consequences of his outrageous attack on the dean of the law school because of his assistance in writing the government’s guidelines on enhanced interrogation. After December’s A Christmas Carol (not a part of the season, but definitely part of Annapolis holiday tradition!) we launch on an amazing tale of thirty years of death-defying adventure and swashbuckling performance in Shipwrecked by Donald Margulies. In February comes Trying, the amusing and memorable clash of two strong personalities in a play written by one of them, Joanna McClellan Glass, about herself and Former US Attorney General Francis Biddle in the last year of his distinguished life. In March, 1776 roars into the theater, with our founding fathers at odds over independence but in harmony musically with uplifting and exhilarating song. In May comes Sarah Ruhl’s In the Next Room, or the Vibrator Play, a tender Victorian love story between a wife and her husband and the amazing new powers of electricity. And in June, we show you how Alan Ayckbourn took on the challenge of staging a farce with slamming doors, two stair cases, a ghost and six hilariously addled people on three floors, all on one level in the round in Taking Steps, a comic dessert for the season. So tuck in! Support CP and plan to enjoy a full menu of entertaining, enlightening, delicious theater! Bon appetite!

Download a copy of our 64th Season brochure from our Downloads page to share with your friends and family!

Bell, Book and Candle

Written by John van Druten
Directed by Debbie Barber-Eaton
Performance dates: September 14 - October 6, 2012
Run time: TBD 

This light hearted 50’s comedy is about what happens when a witch in New York makes a lover of a very conventional man and then has to face the consequences when she really falls in love with him. Gillian Holroyd becomes interested in her upstairs neighbor and tenant and hexes him into falling in love with her. Shep Henderson, her quarry, is mystified, delighted and completely unaware that other worldly forces are at work. Despite the oddness of Gillian’s aunt and brother, themselves an endearingly addled old witch and a fun-loving warlock, Shep is oblivious. He only knows that his life changed when he crossed over Gillian’s threshold. When she realizes that she is falling in love herself, Gillian faces a dilemma: she will lose her considerable powers if she acts on her feelings. Will love prevail?

Sunlight

Written by Sharr White
Directed by TBD
Performance dates: October 26 - November 17, 2012
Run time: TBD

Matthew Gibbon, liberal lion and university president, may have finally gone too far in his battle against the politically conservative Dean of the law school - his son-in-law and former protégé Vincent. In a frustrated culmination of a steady program of undermining Vincent’s position at the school, Matthew has vandalized his office and records. Caught between them, Matthew’s daughter Charlotte is desperately trying to protect her father and negotiate a solution against a Board of Regents and faculty up in arms because of his actions. As the play progresses, the differences between the two men become as apparent as America before 9/11 and after. This family drama explores change and the abuse of power within a tight circle of people who despite loving each other are rocked by the convictions of their hearts.

A Christmas Carol

Play and lyrics by Richard Wade
Music by Dick Gessner
Performance dates: December 6 – 16, 2012
Run time: 90 minutes

Show times:
Thursdays at 8 pm
Fridays at 7 pm and 9 pm
Saturdays at 2 pm, 4 pm, and 8 pm< br/> Sundays at 2 pm and 4 pm

Public Ticket Sale on November 17, 2012

Colonial Players is pleased to present our ultimate traditional holiday show, A Christmas Carol. Warm your heart to the music, characters and story of Scrooge’s redemption through the visits of the Ghosts of his Christmases Past, Present and Future. Travel with him through time and the streets of the London of 170 years ago to discover the true meaning of Christmas and rekindle your holiday spirit. While A Christmas Carol is not a part of the subscription season, subscribers who give at or above the level of Designer will be given the opportunity to purchase tickets to A Christmas Carol before the Public Sale on November 17.

Shipwrecked!

The amazing adventures of Louis de Rougemont (as told by himself)

Written by Donald Margulies
Directed by Ron Giddings
Performance dates: January 11 - 26, 2012
Run time: TBD

The adventurous Louis de Rougemont invites you to hear his amazing story of bravery, survival and celebrity that left 19c Victorian England spellbound. With the help of two “volunteers,” who make all the costume changes and sound effects and play nearly 100 roles right before your eyes, the audacious autobiographer tells his incredible tale of life on the high seas, in the land of the aborigines and later when he returns home, what happens when he is attacked by scientists and skeptics who don’t believe his story can be true. Explore the elusive lines that waver between truth and good story telling in the setting of a Victorian vaudeville house and the mind of a quintessential spellbinder.

Trying

Written by Joanna McClelland Glass
Directed by Darice Clewell
Performance dates: February 8 - March 2, 2012
Run time: TBD

This memorable play is about a strong young Canadian girl hired to be secretary to an irascible old Philadelphia aristocrat who served as Attorney General of the United States under FDR and was Chef Judge at the Nuremberg Trials. Judge Francis Biddle is trying to complete his memoirs within the year he believes he will die. Sarah follows the fourth woman who has quit or been fired from her position. The author was the secretary in the true story. According to the original production notes: “Trying is set in 1967 when Biddle is 81 years old and trying to put his life in order. Elegant, but sharply cantankerous, he struggles with the inevitability of his age and failing health. His wife has forced upon him a new secretary named Sarah, who is all of 25 years old, and the two struggle to find a way to communicate. This richly scripted story illustrates how two strangers, at two dramatically different places in their lives, can unexpectedly and forever influence each other.”

1776

Music and Lyrics by Peter Stone
Book by Sherman Edwards
Directed by Beth Terranova
Performance dates: March 22 - April 20, 2012
Run time: TBD

The seminal event in American history blazes to life in this wonderful musical. It is the summer of 1776 and congress is ready to declare independence, if only our founding fathers can agree to it. John Adams, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson alternately woo and rage at their fellow delegates as they wrestle with the details of the Declaration and what it will mean to their individual states – their “countries”. Much of the book of this musical is based on actual letters and notes from the convention, more historically accurate than you might think, and the humor, passion and glorious music will make it an indelible history lesson that will fill your heart with pride and joy.

In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play

Written by Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Carol Youmans
Performance dates: May 3 - 18, 2012
Run time: TBD

It is 1880, a time of wonder and scientific advancements. Edison is bringing the electric light to households and in the home and operating theater of Dr. Givings, his invention, an electric vibrator, is bringing relief from the symptoms of hysteria in both his female and some male patients. While he is a little cool and aloof, the scientist loves his young wife Catherine, now recovering from the birth of their first child and the disappointment of needing a wet nurse to supplement her own ability to feed her. Catherine is fascinated by the therapies in the next room and her curiosity and longing lead to discoveries that change and electrify their lives forever.

Taking Steps

Written by Alan Ayckbourn
Directed by Barbara Marder
Performance dates: June 7 - 29, 2012
Run time: TBD

Alan Ayckbourn responded to a request for a door slamming farce for a theater in the round with this play which has the three floors of an old Victorian home placed on one level, stairways, closets and all. In the course of one hectic night and morning, with continual running up and downstairs and in and out of rooms, two couples, a solicitor and realtor, each immersed in a personal problem, try to sort themselves out. All this happens in a highly ingenious and original setting in which all the rooms, passages and stairs are on a single level. Did we mention the ghost?!