RIOT ACT, INC. announces its 14th Season
Riot Act, Inc. is thrilled to announce its 2016/2017 production schedule which brings drama, comedy and our annual series of shorts back to Jackson stages for the theater company’s 14th season.
The season kicks off Fall, 2016 with Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl. An incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet café. A stranger at the next table who has had enough. And a dead man—with a lot of loose ends. So begins Dead Man’s Cell Phone, a wildly imaginative new comedy by MacArthur “Genius” Grant recipient and Pulitzer Prize finalist, Sarah Ruhl, author of The Clean House and Eurydice. A work about how we memorialize the dead—and how that remembering changes us—it is the odyssey of a woman forced to confront her own assumptions about morality, redemption, and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world. ~ Samuel French
Next up, Riot Act presents Hamlet by William Shakespeare. Veteran director Macey Mott tackles Shakespeare’s famous tragedy, Hamlet. The Prince of Denmark struggles to uncover the truth and find vengeance after the ghost of his late father and king tells Hamlet his uncle Claudius murdered him. Six Performances are planned in Winter, 2017.
Our third full length production of the season is Rumors by Neil Simon. At a large, tastefully appointed Sneden’s Landing townhouse, the Deputy Mayor of New York has just shot himself. Though only a flesh wound, four couples are about to experience a severe attack of Farce. Gathering to celebrate the Deputy Mayor’s tenth wedding anniversary, the host lies bleeding in the other room and his wife is nowhere in sight. His lawyer, Ken, and wife, Chris must get “the story” straight before the other guests arrive. As the confusions and mis-communications mount, the evening spins off into classic farcical hilarity. ~ Samuel French. We are planning 6 performances for Spring, 2017.
Finally, Riot Act will close the season with its longstanding and popular series of Short Plays and our fourth annual New Play Festival. Always a community favorite, Shorts offers a sort of theatrical hors d’oeuvres for artists and audiences with multiple one-act plays sharing the bill. In the past, Riot Act has produced not only well known plays, but several original works by local playwrights, all while providing new actors and directors a chance to stretch their creative legs. In the 2013/14 season the New Play Festival was introduced as a way for playwrights to submit work and get it produced. Shorts is scheduled for June 2017. Entries for the New Play Festival will open January 2017 and close March 1, 2017.
Riot Act was founded in 2002 to provide opportunities for local actors, directors, designers and playwrights to bring innovative, thought-provoking, challenging theater to the Jackson stage. Riot Act will continue to collaborate with dancers, musicians, videographers, visual artists, and other local non-profits to create great stories for our adventurous audience.
Please join us at the performances!
For more information, contact us at riotactin@earthlink.net or www.riotactinc.org