Stray Cat's 2016-2017 Season.
JOHN
by Annie Baker
September 16 – October 1, 2016
at Tempe Center for the Arts
Directed by Ron May
Top 10 Best Theatre of 2015 – New York Times
Top 10 Best Theatre of 2015 – Time Magazine
Top 10 Best Theatre of 2015 – Time Out New York
Top 10 Best Theatre of 2015 – Hollywood Reporter
Top 10 Theatrical events of 2015 – Washington Post
Best Theatre of 2015 – Hollywood Reporter
10 Best Theatre Events of 2015 - Vulture
The new play from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of THE FLICK.
The week after Thanksgiving. A Bed and Breakfast in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. A cheerful innkeeper. A young couple trying to stay together. Hundreds of inanimate objects…watching. Something about this B&B is decidedly off. Dark, foreboding, and mysterious, Stray Cat is thrilled to once again be at the forefront of bringing this exceptional young playwright’s newest work to the Valley. This fantastical new play is bound to have you talking long after the curtain goes down. "Annie Baker’s John is so good on so many levels that it casts a unique and brilliant light." - The New Yorker
ANYTHING YOU HEAR AND ONLY HALF OF WHAT YOU SEE
By Ron Hunting
November 25 – December 10, 2016
at Tempe Center for the Arts
Directed by Louis Farber
World Premiere!
An exciting new pitch-black comedy.
Recently filmed as a local feature titled POSTMARKED, and written by Valley playwright Ron Hunting; Stray Cat is thrilled to mount the World Premiere production of the original play - a comically dark, taut new thriller. While making his appointed rounds, mailman George Ruth witnesses a murder. He thinks it’s a drug deal gone bad. Boy is he ever wrong. Think the unpredictability of Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs) meets the dark undercurrents of Martin McDonagh (The Pillowman) meets the edgy narrative style of David Mamet (American Buffalo) and you have some idea of what to expect from this hilarious, trenchant new work.
NATIVE SON
By Nambi E. Kelley
adapted from the novel by Richard Wright
A CO-PRODUCTION WITH BLACK THEATRE TROUPE
DATES TBD – Sometime in February and/or March 2017
at The Helen K Mason Performing Arts Center
Directed by Ron May
Some things just haven’t changed.
Stray Cat is purring like crazy to be joining forces with Black Theatre Troupe to bring this powerhouse new work to the Valley. Suffocating in rat-infested poverty on the South Side of Chicago in the 1930s, 20-year-old Bigger Thomas struggles to find a place for himself in a world whose prejudice has shut him out. After taking a job in a wealthy white man's house, Bigger unwittingly unleashes a series of events that violently and irrevocably seal his fate. Adapted with theatrical ingenuity by Chicago's Nambi E. Kelley, Richard Wright's iconic novel about oppression, freedom, and justice bursts to life on stage in this ground-breaking and shattering new adaptation The Chicago Tribune hailed as “…gutsy, powerful, relentless, profoundly disturbing.”
HIR
by Taylor Mac
April 28 – May 13, 2017
at the Tempe Center for the Arts
Directed by Matthew Wiener
Top 10 Best Theatre of 2015 – New York Times
Top 10 Best Theatre of 2015 – Time Out New York
Top 10 Best Theatre of 2015 – New York Magazine
Change can be very, very, very messy.
Somewhere in the suburbs, Isaac has returned from the war to help take care of his ailing father, only to discover a household in revolt. The insurgent: his mom. Liberated from an oppressive marriage, with Isaac’s newly out transgender sibling as her ally, she’s on a crusade to dismantle the patriarchy. But in Taylor Mac’s sly, subversive comedy, annihilating the past doesn’t always free you from it. We’re even more thrilled to announce that the one and only Matthew Wiener will be down our alley to helm this hilarious implosion of the nuclear family. “Perhaps no play this year inspired a greater sense of awe....” – The New York Times
CLICK HERE for more information and to order tickets (when available)
