Manalapan's Carbonell Award-winning Pope Theatre Company announced its 11th season, featuring a world premiere by William Mastrosimone, one by Florida playwright Michael McKeever, and three other new dramas by playwrights Michael Hollinger, Steven Dietz and Nilo Cruz.
The theatre is just wrapping up its run of the world premiere Three Forks by Staci Swedeen, and will soon wrap up its tenth season with Peter Sagal's Denial, April 18-May 18. Denial premiered at the Illusion Theatre in Sagal's hometown of Minneapolis. The plot features a brilliant, female, Jewish lawyer who is asked to defend a professor that believes the Holocaust was a hoax.
The 1997-98 season begins October 24, with William Mastrosimone's Benedict Arnold, which examines the complexities and humanness of the man who gained the reputation for being one of the biggest American traitors of all time. Benedict Arnold runs through Nov. 30. Mastrosimone is most remembered for his Broadway play Extremities, which was made into a movie starring Farrah Fawcett.
Incorruptible by Michael Hollinger, is a dark comedy in a dark age-- a medieval monastery experiences the age-old struggle to keep Pilgrims coming--to keep the faith and the finances in tact.
Steven Dietz's Private Eyes recently premiered last season at the Arizona Theatre company. At the Pope, the romantic play-within-play within-play puzzle runs from Jan. 30-March 8, 1998 Last season, San Francisco's Magic Theatre premiered Nilo Cruz's A Park in Our House. A family story becomes a microcosm of a society warped by Stalinism when it is set in Castro's Cuba, 1970. Under tyranny, dreams grow as green as a park in a home, running March 20-Apr 26.
The season ends with a world premiere of The Garden of Hannah List, by Michael McKeever, running May 8 -June 14. The garden of the List family is the setting for the comfortable residents of Nuremberg, who watch the Nazis take over Germany. The play asks how much responsibility they really took, and how their human spirit held up in the decision between right and wrong.
For tickets, subscriptions, or more information, please call (561) 585 3433, 1-800-514-3837, or refer to the Pope Theatre Company regional lisitng on Playbill On-Line.
--By Blair Glaser
