Phoebe Harris, a teenage girl coming face-to face with modern pressures to be perfectly beautiful, is the subject of Suzanne Bradbeer's new play, Full Bloom, a world premiere for Massachusetts' Barrington Stage Company. The drama, the second in the theatre's 2000 season, runs on the mainstage July 19-Aug. 6 with an opening July 22.
Former BSC artistic director James Houghton chose the play for development at the 1999 New Harmony Project. Two of Bradbeer's previous works, Will O' The Wisp and Lone Star Grace, have been produced in New York.
Two musical revivals, Company and No Way To Treat a Lady, sandwich the world premiere on the mainstage. First up is the Stephen Sondheim-George Furth musical, Company, the story of single Bobby's search for commitment in a world populated by his married friends. Running June 21-July 16, the Tony Award winner features the songs "Being Alive," "The Ladies Who Lunch," "Another 100 People" and "Company." Barrington Stage Company artistic director Julianne Boyd (Eubie!) directs. The Douglas J. Cohen jazz musical comedy thriller, No Way To Treat a Lady, closes out the mainstage season Aug. 9-27. Rob Ruggiero directs with choreography by Tanya Gibson-Clark.
The company's smaller stage, Stage II, will see the return of Eric Bogosian's subUrbia [sic], which ran to sold out houses in early March, July 6-16. A co-production between BSC and the Railroad Street Youth Project, subUrbia stars local talent, ages 17 to 24 in the leads, youths bored and apathetic in suburban America.
Also set for the stage are the evening of one acts, "Small Obsessions and Big Neuroses" (Aug. 3-20). The small obsessions and big neuroses are the challenges and pressures of the modern artist as comically examined by Christopher Durang in The Actor's Nightmare and Luke J. Taylor's Writer's Block. Both will be directed by Andrew Volkoff. At the Consolati Performing Arts Center, Barrington Stage Company will host the New Works Festival Aug. 17-20. This is the fifth year for the fest, which yielded this year's Writer's Block.
The BSC also continues its Monday Night Live program with two special events: Marni Nixon, "The Voice of Hollywood" (July 24) and the Bacon Brothers (July 10). Nixon is known not for her face, but for her voice which ended up on screen coming out of the mouths of the likes of Audrey Hepburn, Natalie Wood and Deborah Kerr. Currently in Broadway's James Joyce's The Dead and a BSC vet from 1997's Cabaret, Nixon will recount the ups and downs of singing in Hollywood.
Singing in Hollywood of a different stripe comes to Barrington with the Bacon Brothers. Film star Kevin ("JFK," "Footloose") and his brother Michael bring their band to the theatre as they kick off their first national tour to promote the group's second CD, "Getting There."
Single tickets are $34-$18. For more information, call (413) 528-8888. The Barrington Stage Company is on the web at http://www.barringtonstageco.org.
-- By Christine Ehren
