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2004-2005 Season Show Synopsis
From Dramatists Play Service, Inc.

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You
Oct. 16-17, 22-24, 28-31 at 7:30 p.m.
Christopher Durang
One Act - Comedy
Winner of the Obie Award. Presented Off-Off-Broadway by New York's noted Ensemble Studio Theatre, this biting irreverent and uproariously funny satire aims its barbs at organized religion and strikes home with hilarious results.

THE STORY: Sister Mary Ignatius, a teaching nun who is much concerned with sin in all of its various forms, delivers a cautionary lecture to her charges. One of them, a precocious little boy named Thomas, can quote the Ten Commandments on cue, and each time he does so Sister Mary rewards him with a cookie. But when several of her former students turn up the picture darkens, along with Sister Mary's indignation. One of them is the happy mother of an illegitimate child; another a contented homosexual; still another has had two abortions—the first after having been raped on the night of her mother's death; while another student, now an alcoholic, contemplates suicide. Their stories are disturbing—but also very funny—and it is quickly apparent that one thing they all have in common is their loathing for Sister Mary and the unyielding dogma which she forced on them in their formative years. In the end there is mayhem and bloodshed but, with this, the unsettling feeling that, amid the laughter, some devastating truths have been told.

The Actor's Nightmare
Oct. 16-17, 22-24, 28-31, 2004 at 7:30 p.m.
Christopher Durang
One Act - Comedy
Conceived as a companion piece to the author's award-winning short play Sister Mary Ignatius Explains it all for You (and providing for doubling by the same actors), this hilarious spoof details the plight of a stranger who is suddenly pushed on stage to replace an ailing actor.

THE STORY: Having casually wandered onstage, George is informed that one of the actors, Eddie, has been in an auto accident and he must replace him immediately. Apparently no one is sure of what play is being performed but George (costumed as Hamlet) seems to find himself in the middle of a scene from Private Lives, surrounded by such luminaries as Sarah Siddons, Dame Ellen Terry and Henry Irving. As he fumbles through one missed cue after another the other actors shift to HAMLET, then a play by Samuel Beckett, and then a climactic scene from what might well be A Man for All Seasons—by which time the disconcerted George has lost all sense of contact with his fellow performers. Yet, in the closing moments of the play, he rises to the occasion and finally says the right lines, whereupon make-believe suddenly gives way to reality as the executioner's axe (meant for Sir Thomas Moore) instead sends poor George to oblivion—denying him a well-earned curtain call.


The Foreigner
Feb. 10-13, 17-20, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.
Larry Shue
Full Length - Comedy
Winner of two Obie Awards and two Outer Critics Circle Awards as Best New American Play and Best Off-Broadway Production. An inspired comic romp, equal in inventive hilarity to the author's classic comedy The Nerd, the present play enjoyed a sold-out premiere in Milwaukee before moving on to a long run Off-Broadway. Based on what the NY Post describes as a "devilishly clever idea," the play demonstrates what can happen when a group of devious characters must deal with a stranger who (they think) knows no English.

THE STORY: The scene is a fishing lodge in rural Georgia often visited by "Froggy" LeSeuer, a British demolition expert who occasionally runs training sessions at a nearby army base. This time "Froggy" has brought along a friend, a pathologically shy young man named Charlie who is overcome with fear at the thought of making conversation with strangers. So "Froggy," before departing, tells all assembled that Charlie is from an exotic foreign country and speaks no English. Once alone the fun really begins, as Charlie overhears more than he should—the evil plans of a sinister, two-faced minister and his redneck associate; the fact that the minister's pretty fiancée is pregnant; and many other damaging revelations made with the thought that Charlie doesn't understand a word being said. That he does fuels the nonstop hilarity of the play and sets up the wildly funny climax in which things go uproariously awry for the "bad guys," and the "good guys" emerge triumphant.

The Laramie Project
May 11-15, 19-22, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.
Moisés Kaufman and the Members of Tectonic Theater Project
Full Length - Drama
"There emerges a mosaic as moving and important as any you will see on the walls of the churches of the world…nothing short of stunning…you will be held in rapt attention." —NY Magazine. "…enormously good-willed, very earnest and often deeply moving…" —NY Times. "…an amazing piece of theatre…leaves us sadder, wiser and tentatively more hopeful…" —NY Post.

THE STORY: In October 1998 a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten and left to die, tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. His bloody, bruised and battered body was not discovered until the next day, and he died several days later in an area hospital. His name was Matthew Shepard, and he was the victim of this assault because he was gay. Moisés Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie over the course of a year and a half in the aftermath of the beating and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing Shepard. They conducted more than 200 interviews with the people of the town. Some people interviewed were directly connected to the case, and others were citizens of Laramie, and the breadth of their reactions to the crime is fascinating. Kaufman and Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences. THE LARAMIE PROJECT is a breathtaking theatrical collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink, and the heights of compassion we are also capable of.


Living Up To Memorial Day
May 27, 2005 at 7:30 p.m.
An Original Isadoora Theatre Company Work
Dramatic Readings with music

"The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country," General John A. Logan's General Order No. 11 created the national holiday known as Memorial Day.

"Living Up to Memorial Day is about the trials and triumphs during times of war," said Ben Meyer, Isadoora's artistic director. "This production highlights the unsung war-time hero: the soldiers, the wives and girlfriends, the parents all trying to cope with the daily atrocities they faced. Whether you are for or against war, past and present, there is much to learn from those who have lived through them. That's why there'll be several veterans joining us on stage."

Composed of war-letters, poems, music, and images, Living Up to Memorial Day brings life to memories of the Civil War, WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and today's Iraq War. Sons, daughters, fathers, mothers, and friends present the many faces and effects of war: loneliness, love, joy, horror, compassion, tragedy, and even humor.

Living Up to Memorial Day is an evening of variety in honor of our nations heroes. The program is oriented for families and individuals who want to begin their Memorial Day weekend by respecting and remembering the roots of the national holiday.
©2004 Isadoora Theatre Company

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