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"The Land of Opportunity"
2006 - 2007 Season
We like to deny that there's a class system in this country. Yet, with the influx of immigrants trying to make a life for themselves, the wealthy clinging to their legacies, and everyone else trying to get ahead or make ends meet, our struggle to survive is a profound piece of our American story. Depression era Jews, the upper crust of Philadelphia, working class Italians, Albee's WASPish sting and a fading southern family collapsing on itself will make up this season of readings for Our American Theater Company.
The Readings
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Awake and Sing!
by Clifford Odets October 23, 2006
AWAKE AND SING! is the portrait of a New York Jewish family imploding under the weight of poverty in the darkest days of the Great Depression.
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The Philadelphia Story
by Philip Barry December 11, 2006
The 1939 vehicle that was created for Katherine Hepburn is even wittier and bolder in the stage version than the film we all adore. Tracy Lord is about marry Husband Number Two, but as a member of the upper echelons of Philadelphia Society, inquiring minds want the inside scoop. Enter a pair of nosey journalists, a meddling younger sister, and Husband Number One, to turn her hopes for a new lease on life into a potential fiasco.
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A View From the Bridge
by Arthur Miller February 19, 2007
Eddie and Beatrice take in two of her relatives, “submarines” – illegal immigrants – escaping desperate poverty in Italy. Marco wants to send money back to his wife and children; young Adolpho has big dreams for his future in the Land of Opportunity. But home life is shattered when Eddie comes up against his misguided feelings for Beatrice's niece, Catherine, as she and Adolpho spark a romance. Arthur Miller constructs a tragedy of epic proportions in the marginalized community of dockworkers and first generation Americans.
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A Delicate Balance
by Edward Albee April 16, 2007
Tobias is content to enjoy the quiet of his home, kept in order by his brilliant, attentive wife, Agnes, and their servants. But outside factors threaten to rattle his idyll: Agnes’s boozy, cynical sister, Claire is now a fixture in the household, and a constant source of consternation. Their daughter Julia is coming home to nurse the wounds of yet another failed marriage. And when best friends, Harry and Edna arrive unexpectedly, with a demand that will test the boundaries of friendship, Tobias is forced to confront his place in this world and the true mettle of his humanity.
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Toys in the Attic
by Lillian Hellman June 11, 2007
Spinster sisters Anna and Carrie dream of an easier life and trips to Europe, but work only to support their prodigal younger brother Julian. Unexpectedly, Julian returns from his latest business venture with a childlike wife and a mysterious fortune in his pocket. No one can accept Julian’s unexplained success, and his new found wealth threatens Julian’s dependency on Anna and Carrie—a relationship the sisters have sacrificed their own independence to maintain. As Julian tries to break away from a cycle of failure and disappointment, deadly secrets are revealed that could destroy the family’s fragile structure irrevocably.
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