The Toledo Repertoire Theater may be celebrating 81 years, but it’s far from showing any signs of age. The Rep recently announced its upcoming season and the lively lineup displays an upbeat, sometimes risque joie de vivre. If there is a theme, it is comedy.
The season kicks off with a surprise: Gerard Alessandri's long-running satire Forbidden Broadway's Greatest Hits will run from September 13-22. Forbidden Broadway has been parodying Broadway musicals since 1982—Alessandri re-writes the revue every few years to keep its wit nice and venomous.
After that, the Rep will present Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace from November 8-17. Arsenic is one of America's quintessential black comedies, revolving around drama critic Mortimer Brewster, who ponders marrying the woman he loves while dealing with his homicidal aunts, the NYPD and other less-ordinary obstacles.
The rep will bring its annual holiday performance of A Christmas Carol to The Valentine once again on December 6th, 7th, and 8th. For the past three years, every Rep production of the Dickens’ classic has been superior to the one before it, so 2013's incarnation should be a treat.
The Rep’s January 2014 offering is another time-tested comedy, Michael Frayn's Noises off. The screwball meta-comedy chronicles the rehearsals and performances of a dysfunctional comedy troupe from in front of—and behind—the stage. Expect more ridiculous exits and entrances than a Scooby Doo rerun.
Valentine's day weekend 2014 will bring A.R. Gurney's Pulitzer-prize winning drama, Love Letters. The stoic, literary play involves two characters sitting in a room, reading letters aloud to one another and the audience, and in so doing tell their life stories.
For a dose of bittersweet springtime, April 11-20 2014 will bring a rendition of Tennessee Williams's seminal southern gothic, The Glass Menagerie. There is a reason the play has been taught in public schools for decades: the titular menagerie is a poetic metaphor for the delicate and sheltered children of the overbearing matriarch of a well-to-do southern family.
Over Mother's Day weekend, the rep will put on Ken Carney's comic-drama Moonglow. By turns touching and elegiac, Moonglow loosely retells the story of Carney caring for her Alzheimer’s-afflicted mother.
The 2014 season will close with a presentation of Young Frankenstein, the Musical from June 6-22. Based on Mel Brooks's classic horror-comedy, Young Frankenstein smartly lampoons the Boris Karloff iteration of Frankenstein.—JS
For more information about the Rep's next season, contact the Toledo Rep at 419-243-9277, or visit www.toledorep.org.
