UNITY THEATRE ANNOUNCES 2016-17 SCHEDULE

  

Unity Theatre has announced the schedule for its upcoming season.

According to Lisa Thomas, Unity General Manager, the 2016-17 season will bring hysterical comedies, powerful dramas, and stories of the human spirit, with something for everyone to enjoy.

The season kicks off with the smash comedy hit, Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward, playing September 22 - October 9. This classic from the playwright of Private Lives offers up fussy, cantankerous novelist Charles Condomine, re-married but haunted (literally!) by the ghost of his late first wife, the clever and insistent Elvira. A visiting "happy medium", Madame Arcati, calls up Elvira and the (worldly and un-) personalities clash as the "blithe spirit" haunts the hapless Charles!

The holiday season brings “The Classics for Christmas” with the Broadway musical, Little Women, playing December 1 – December 18.  Based on Louisa May Alcott's life, Little Women, follows the adventures of sisters Jo, Meg, Beth and Amy March. Jo is trying to sell her stories for publication and weaves the story of herself and her sisters and their experience growing up in Civil War America. This timeless, captivating story is filled with personal discovery, heartache, hope, everlasting love, and a lifting of the spirit.

The Diary of Anne Frank, a drama by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, newly adapted by Wendy Kesselman, starts off the new year and plays February 9 – February 26. In this powerful adaptation, Anne Frank confronts her rapidly changing life and the increasing horror of her time with honesty, wit, and determination. An impassioned drama about the lives of eight people hiding from the Nazis in a concealed storage attic, The Diary of Anne Frank captures the claustrophobic realities of their daily existence—their fear, their hope, their laughter, their grief. Each day of these two dark years, Anne's voice shines through: "When I write I shake off all my cares. But I want to achieve more than that. I want to be useful and bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!".

Closing out the Main Stage is Leading Ladies, a comedy by Ken Ludwig, playing June 1 – June 18, 2017. In this hilarious comedy by the author of Lend Me A Tenor and Moon Over Buffalo, two English Shakespearean actors, Jack and Leo, find themselves so down on their luck that they are performing "Scenes from Shakespeare" on the Moose Lodge circuit in the Amish country of Pennsylvania. When they hear that an old lady in York, PA, is about to die and leave her fortune to her two long lost English nephews, they resolve to pass themselves off as her beloved relatives and get the cash. But when they get to York, they find out that the relatives aren't nephews, but nieces!
Romantic entanglements abound, especially when Leo falls head-over-petticoat in love with the old lady's vivacious niece, Meg, who's engaged to the local minister. Meg knows that there's a wide world out there, but it's not until she meets "Maxine and Stephanie" that she finally gets a taste of it.

First up in Unity’s Studio Series is Freud’s Last Session, a drama by Mark St. Germain and suggested by The Question of God by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr., playing October 27 – November 6. Legendary psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud invites the young, rising Oxford Don C.S. Lewis to his home in London. On the day England enters World War Two, Freud and Lewis clash about love, sex, the existence of God, and the meaning of life, just weeks before Freud took his own life. Freud’s Last Session is a deeply touching play filled with humor and explores the minds, hearts and souls of two brilliant men addressing some of the greatest questions of all time.

The Spring Studio Series production is Doubt, A Parable, the winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award, playing March 30 – April 9. In this powerful drama, by John Patrick Shanley, Sister Aloysius, a Bronx school principal, takes matters into her own hands when she has suspicions about the young Father Flynn. "All the elements come invigoratingly together like clockwork in John Patrick Shanley's provocative new play, DOUBT, a gripping story of suspicion cast on a priest's behavior that is less about scandal than about fascinatingly nuanced questions of moral certainty.”—Variety.

Unity’s Summer Family Musical is fun for the whole family! The Prince Street Players version of Sleeping Beauty, by Jim Eiler and Jeanne Bargy, will delight audiences of all ages. A sleeping princess, a spellbound Prince, and more fairies than you can shake a stick at, are all part of this quirky adaptation of the popular tale, playing July 27 – July 30. The evil Trollarina exacts her revenge on the royal family by sending the beautiful Princess Melisande into an everlasting sleep: but little does she realize more than one spell is about to be broken by the kiss of an enchanted Faun.

Tomas says patrons can save over 15 percent on Main Stage tickets by signing up to be a subscriber.

Subscribers also enjoy additional discounted tickets, priority seat selection, flexible ticket dates, and special event notices. For more information or to subscribe contact the Unity Theatre Box Office at 300 Church Street, open Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., by phone at 830-8358, email tickets@UnityBrenham.org or download a subscription form at www.UnityBrenham.org.