THE TEMPERMENTALS, MARY ROSE, HOME and More Headline Rep Stage's 20th Anniversary Season

Producing Artistic Director Michael Stebbins has announced the 2012-13 season lineup for Rep Stage, the professional Equity theatre in residence at Howard Community College (HCC).

Rep Stage’s 20th anniversary season intends to pull the curtain back on the concept of diversity, beginning with Jon Marans’ “The Temperamentals,” the story of two men who fall in love while building the nation’s first gay rights organization. In J.M. Barrie’s “Mary Rose,” a girl and her family confront the supernatural after she goes missing for weeks, only to mysteriously return with no memory of time passed. Samm-Art Williams’ “Home” follows the trials and tribulations of a black everyman, as his travels take him away from his home in North Carolina and back again. Marc Camoletti’s farcical “Boeing-Boeing” closes the season, as audiences watch a womanizing American architect in Paris attempt to juggle relationships with three flight attendants who have no idea about the others’ existence.

“I think that one is always looking at diversity when watching a piece of theatre, looking at a piece of art, or listening to music, be it classical or modern,” says Michael Stebbins. “Diversity can be connected to ethnicity, as with the coming-of-age story of a young black man in ‘Home,’ or sexuality, as seen through the pre-Stonewall gay rights movement in ‘The Temperamentals.’ ‘Mary Rose’ puts the Earth where humans dwell on par with the spirit world and asks if those who dwell in each are as different as we’d think. And, then, of course, there is diversity through the decades, as in the bedroom farce ‘Boeing-Boeing,’ where a 1960’s architect in Paris with a voracious libido attempts to woo ‘air hostesses’ from America, Italy and Germany, with the help of his French maid. Now, if that’s not diverse, I don’t know what is!”

In addition to main stage productions, Rep Stage’s 2012-13 season will continue to provide theatre lovers with free events such as the Rep Stage Reading Series, pre-show lectures, post-show discussions, and Wednesday Pay-What-You-Can performances and special events.

Rep Stage's 2012-13 season includes:

“The Temperamentals”
By Jon Marans
Directed by Kasi Campbell
August 29 to September 16, 2012

“Temperamental” was code for “homosexual” in the early 1950’s, part of a created language of secret words that gay men used to communicate. Winner of a Drama Desk Award in 2010, “The Temperamentals” tells the story of two men – the communist Harry Hay and the Viennese refugee and designer Rudi Gernreich – as they fall in love while building the first gay rights organization in the pre-Stonewall United States.

“Mary Rose”
By J.M. Barrie
Directed by Michael Stebbins
October 31 to November 18, 2012

“Mary Rose” tells the lyrical, stirring story of a girl who disappears only to return mysteriously with no memory of time passed, setting off a heartbreaking and thrilling course of events. First performed in 1920, and considered by many Barrie scholars to be a sequel (of sorts) to “Peter Pan,” this haunting tale of love, loss, ghosts and the living became a major obsession and inspiration for Alfred Hitchcock. Rep Stage’s Producing Artistic Director Michael Stebbins, who directed “Two by J. M. Barrie: The New Word and The Old Lady Shows Her Medals,” reunites cast members Christine Demuth, Maureen Kerrigan and Bill Largess for this autumnal offering.

“Home”
By Samm-Art Williams
Directed by Duane Boutte
February 27 to March 17, 2013

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