Seasons
Held Over for an Encore Performance! We are adding a Matinee on Sunday the February 28 at 3:00.
Teatro delle Muse presents
Evening Star Rising
Written by Lon Rogers
Directed by Jamey Jamison
Kevin Landis, age 19, sits on death row for a murder he did not commit. Or did he? Laura Enders, a graduate student in psychology is writing her doctorate dissertation on the characteristics of the young criminal mind. Her objective is to find behavioral markers for the early detection of criminality—a litmus test for sociopathy. She obtains permission from the prison warden to study Kevin. In an attempt to formulate an extensive psychological profile, she interviews Kevin in depth and over an extended period of time. She also takes statements from his girlfriend, his priest, his family, and his best friend. The story takes a ominous turn when Laura loses all professional objectivity and bonds emotionally with Kevin. Convinced of Kevin's innocence, Laura sets out to win a new trial for him, and to write a book hoping to sway public opinion against the death penalty.
Evening Star Rising avoids the hackneyed arguments pro and con of this politically sensitive issue. Instead, this story puts a human face on the condemned. The viewers are invited to draw their own conclusions about Kevin, whose proof of guilt, as Laura discovers, falls short of the legal standard for conviction: guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Performances will be February 12 – 28
Friday and Saturday Evenings at 8:00 PM
Sunday Matinee at 3:00
Performances March 6 – 14
Was it Colonel Mustard in the study with a gun? Miss Scarlet in the billiard room with the rope? Or was it Wadsworth the butler? Meet all the notorious suspects and discover all their foul play things. You'll love their dastardly doings as the bodies and the laughs pile up before your eyes. This 2 Act play culminates with the ultimate in audience participation. So come back every night, there will always be a different ending. Family friendly and featuring the Art Centre's Senior Acting Class, this play is sure to thrill.
Click here to Purchase Tickets
Melodrama Festival March 17 – 21
Peril at Pumpernickle Pass
Annie
April 9 – 24, 2009
Leapin' Lizards! The popular comic strip heroine takes centerstage in one of the world's best-loved musicals.
"Annie" is a spunky Depression-era orphan determined to find her parents, who abandoned her years ago on the doorstep of a New York City Orphanage run by the cruel, embittered Miss Hannigan. In adventure after fun-filled adventure, Annie foils Miss Hannigan's evil machinations, befriends President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and finds a new family and home in billionaire Oliver Warbucks, his personal secretary Grace Farrell and a lovable mutt named Sandy.
To purchase tickets click here
The Importance of Being Earnest
The Importance of Being Earnest is a comic play by Oscar Wilde. Set in England during the late Victorian era, the play's humour derives in part from characters maintaining fictitious identities to escape unwelcome social obligations. The play opens in the fashionable London residence of Algernon Moncrieff. His friend Jack (who goes by the name “Earnest”) Worthing arrives, revealing his intention to propose matrimony to Algernon’s cousin Gwendolen Fairfax. Jack admits that he is the ward to a young woman, Cecily Cardew. Also, he admits to leading a double life, stating that his “name is Earnest in town and Jack in the country.” In the country, he pretends to have a brother in London named Earnest whose wicked ways necessitate frequent trips to the city to rescue him. Lady Augusta Bracknell arrives with his cousin Gwendolen Fairfax. Jack — claiming his name is Earnest — confesses his love for Gwendolen and proposes marriage. Lady Bracknell forbids the marriage and chaos ensues as both pairs plot on their own and with servants, maids, manservants and anyone else that they can pull into their web of insanity. In the end Jack, turns out to be Lady Bracknell’s lost nephew and Algernon’s older brother … what do they do next? You will have to come and see.
The importance of being Earnest runs April 30 – May 8 with halfprice shows on May 5 and 6th at 8:00 Friday and Saturday shows at 8:00; Saturday and Sunday shows at 3:00.
Click here to purchase tickets
.jpg)
May 14 – 28, 2010
The scene is a small Southern town where Colonel and Christine Penmark live with their daughter, Rhoda. Little Rhoda Penmark is the evil queen of the story. On the surface she is sweet, charming, full of old-fashioned graces, loved by her parents, admired by all her elders. But Rhoda's mother has an uneasy feeling about her. When one of Rhoda's schoolmates is mysteriously drowned at a picnic, Mrs. Penmark is alarmed. For the boy who was drowned was the one who had won the penmanship medal that Rhoda felt she deserved.
Click here to purchase tickets
Disco Inferno
June 4 – June 13
DISCO INFERNO is a spellbinding story that captivates audiences, making them laugh and cry. It's packed with over 30 classic seventies floor fillers and is a musical celebration of the perpetual spirit of the decade that brought us flared trousers, platform shoes and more glitter than can be found in Liberace's wardrobe. A hilarious script, fantastic characters and an electrifying score, combine to create a high energy musical guaranteed to warm hearts, get feet tapping and audiences leaving the auditorium with a daft grin of pleasure and the fondest memories of a sensational era. A show for all the family and whether it's your first experience of the life and music of the 1970's or whether you were there when it all began, this musical is a guaranteed hit…a night to remember and one not to be missed.
Click here to purchase tickets.
Performances July 18-July 3
Special benefit production on June 24 at 8:00
Proceeds to benefit the victims of the November Fort Hood Masacre
Adult Production
In the days leading up to July 4, 1776, Continental Congressmen John Adams and Benjamin Franklin coerce Thomas Jefferson into writing the declaration of Independence as a delaying tactic as they try to persuade the American colonies to support a resolution on independence. As George Washington sends depressing messages describing one military disaster after another, the businessmen, landowners and slave holders in Congress all stand in the way of the Declaration, and a single "nay" vote will forever end the question of independence. Large portions of spoken and sung dialog are taken directly from the letters and memoirs of the actual participants.
Performances July 9 – 25
Six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn't everything and that losing doesn't necessarily make you a loser.
The 25th Annual Putnam county Spelling Bee is a hilarious take of overachievers' angst chronicling the exprience of six adolescent outsiders vying for teh spelling championship of a lifetime.
Ticket Information coming soon
July 28 – August 8, 2010
Roald Dahl's timeless story of the world famous candy man and his quest to find an heir comes to life in this stage adaptation of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, which features the songs from the classic family film "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory." The memorable score features “The Candy Man”, “Pure Imagination”, “Oompa Loompa” and ”I Want it Now” by Academy® and Grammy® award winners Leslie Bricusse and Anthony Newley
August 12-21. 2010
A matchmaker named Dolly Levi takes a trip to Yonkers, New York to see the "well-known unmarried half-a-millionaire," Horace Vandergelder. While there, she convinces him, his two stock clerks and his niece and her beau to go to New York City. In New York, she fixes Vandergelder's clerks up with the woman Vandergelder had been courting, and her shop assistant. Meanwhile, Dolly has designs of her own on Mr. Vandergelder.
Friday & Saturday 8:00
Saturday & Sunday 3:00
Special Performance on:
Thursday Aug. 12
Benefit the Make a Wish Foundation
Alice in Wonderland
August 27 – September 11, 2010
Alice follows the rabbit down the hole and finds herself in a place that gets curiouser and curiouser. The Caterpillar sitting on a mushroom. The Pigeonconvinced that Alice is a serpent, the Duchess; the Duchess and the Cook, the Cheshire cat, March Hare's, the mad Hatter, the Dormouse. and let's not forget the Queen of Hearts. They are all here and waiting for you. Fantastic costumes, unbelievably fantastic story telling and high energy singing and dancing jump off the stage and thrill adults and children alike.
Sept. 1 and 2 7:00 show
(We will be dark the week of Sept. 3-5 for Labor Day)
Friday and Saturday nights 7:00
Saturday and Sundays at 3:00
Thursday Sept. 9 8:00 special Performance to benefit the Collin County Child Advocacy Center
September 17- October 3, 2010
Twain's timeless classic sweeps us down the mighty Mississippi as the irrepressible Huck Finn helps his friend Jim, a slave, escape to freedom at the mouth of the Ohio River. Their adventures along the way are hilarious, suspenseful and heartwarming, bringing to life your favorite characters from the novel: the Widow Douglas and her stern sister, Miss Watson; the uproarious King and Duke, who may or may not be as harmless as they seem; Huck's partner in crime, Tom Sawyer, and their rowdy gang of pals; Huck's drunken father, the sinister Pap Finn; the lovely Mary Jane Wilkes and her trusting family. Propelled by an award winning score from Roger Miller, the king of country music, this jaunty journey provides a brilliantly theatrical celebration of pure Americana.
Friday and Saturday 8:00
Saturday and Sunday 3:00
Special performance Thursday Sept. 23
proceeds to establish scholarship program for children of special populations and needs
Tartuff
Performances October 9-17
Produced by Sibling Revelry Productions
First, a disclaimer: The comedyTartuffe by Moliere was scandalous back in the day, and there's a reason why. It deals the idea of religious hypocrisy. This issue was hard to tackle back then and, well, it remains hard to tackle now.
Tartuffe the Imposter, pretending to be a pious cleric, deceives a well-to-do arrogant gentleman named Orgon and his pompous mother. Tartuffe proceeds to convince Orgon to promise him his wealth, position, and his young daughter.
The play revolves around the attempts by the family, friends, and household of Orgon (his wife Elmire, his brother-in-law Cléante, his son Damis, his daughter Mariane, Mariane's fiancé Valère, and the maidservant Dorine) to expose Tartuffe for the fraud he is.
Originally performed in 1664 France, shunned, performed, shunned then finally performed and received with huge success, the Art Center Theater brings you Tartuffe…set in modern day Santa Fe, New Mexico. Religious hypocrisy, timeless.
Rocky Horror Show
Performances October 22-November 6, 2010
Zombie Prom is a 1950s horror comic book brought to life as a musical comedy film. It is a campy, rollicking, romp through America's "Atomic Age" and the "Golden Age" of horror comic books. Here's the story…
Set in the fabulous '50s, this is the tale of a sweet teenage girl named, TOFFEE (a Gidget-type) and her "rebel without a cause" boyfriend, JONNY. The two meet at Enrico Fermi High School and fall in love, but the principal, MISS DELILAH STRICT (Stalin in pumps and a dress!) intervenes, persuading the indecisive young Toffee to break up with Jonny. Tortured by the betrayal, Jonny drives his motorcycle to the nearby Francis Gary Powers Nuclear Power Plant and flings himself into a nuclear cooling tower!
Guilt ridden and alone, Toffee mourns the loss of her love, until one day when Jonny returns, risen from the dead – AS A TEENAGE NUCLEAR ZOMBIE! The mass of decomposing flesh professes his love and tells Toffee that he wants her back. He plans to clean up his act, finish school and take her to the senior prom – if she'll have him. Toffee is racked with indecision, but worst of all Miss Strict refuses to allow "zombie scum" in her fine institution. She clearly states that "The satanic walking dead are strictly prohibited at Enrico Fermi High." She even threatens to cancel the senior prom if anyone is caught supporting the "cadaver's cause."
At the same time, word of this conflict reaches EDDIE FLAGRANTE, a slick sensationalist TV show host, who loves a lost cause. Eddie arrives at the school with his film crew to cover the story and make a "cause celebre" out of Jonny – "This sounds like a clear-cut case of Zombie Civil Rights!" But once he arrives, we see that he and Miss Strict share a past, shrouded in an elusive mystery.
As crisis takes hold of the school, the following questions are raised – Will Toffee take Jonny back? Will Miss Strict let Jonny come back and finish school, or will she cancel Senior Prom, ruining the most important night in the lives of the students of Enrico Fermi High!?
.jpg)
November 12 – November 21, 2010
13 is a musical with lyrics and music by Jason Robert Brown and a book by Dan Elish, with Robert Horn newly joining as co-librettist. In New York’s Upper West Side. Two things are torturing twelve-year-old Evan Goldman: his parents’ upcoming divorce, and his looming, all important Bar Mitzvah, “the event that defines you, the Jewish super bowl!” The stress, however, is just beginning: Evan’s mother tells him that he has to move away from New York City with her—to Appleton, Indiana: a flat, brown, desolate Midwestern town. . Evan meets his new neighbor, Patrice, a quirky girl who seems to be as much of an outcast in this Midwestern suburbia as he is. There is only one way for Evan to survive and be popular in this world, get the coolest kids in town to come to his party, especially the coolest of all, the football hero of Dan Quayle Junior High, Brett Sampson and his two sidekicks, the pint sized Malcolm and Eddie, they try to figure out the perfect place that Brett can take beautiful head cheerleader Kendra on a date. Observing all of this is the manipulative, charming, take-no-prisoners outcast Archie, a ‘special needs’ boy on crutches,who only has eyes for Kendra, the girl of his handicapped dreams. His plans are thwarted by Lucy who secretly loves him. Pandemonium ensues, and as Archie explains that Evan set up this “date” with Kendra for him, Brett goes after both of them. Kendra runs out on Brett, to Lucy’s delight. Furious and frustrated, Brett tells Evan that he is a dead man. The stage explodes with a high-energy singing, dancing and high school drama.
Nov. 12 -21 Friday and Saturday nights at 7:00 Saturday and Sunday at 3:00
Special showing on Thursday November 18, 2010
proceeds to benefit
Boles Children's Home
Best Christmas Pagent Ever
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever tells the story of six delinquent children surnamed Herdman. They go to church for the first time after being told that the church offers snacks. Despite protests from other church members, the Herdmans are given roles in the Sunday school's Christmas play, in which they tell the Christmas story in a nonconventional fashion. Come see their final revelation of the TRUE meaning of Christmas with us here at the Art Center and stay around on Sat. nights for Locked Out comedies own interpretation of why it tis the season.
