TheatreWorks Announces 2001 Season

NEW MILFORD — Following a tremendous 2000 season, TheatreWorks New Milford has selected five shows for its 2001 season. Marking 34 years of live theater in New Milford, the new TheatreWorks season will once again build on the theatre’s commitment to present quality dramas, musicals and comedies to area audiences.

“2000 marked a coming of age for TheatreWorks,” said TheatreWorks president Richard Pettibone. “Over the past year we have consistently offered theatergoers professional quality productions that have earned the praise of critics and audiences alike. As we look ahead we intend to maintain these standards and push the bar even higher.”

“For the upcoming season, we will present five shows that have a little something for everyone. The pieces selected are fresh, different, and a bit provocative,” Mr Pettibone said.

Opening the season will be John Patrick Shanely’s comedy Italian-American Reconciliation, which will run February 23 to March 17. Set in New York’s Little Italy, Italian-American Reconciliation is a comedy in which everyone learns a little bit about men, a little bit about women, and a whole lot about amoré.

In April, TheatreWorks will present Martin Sherman’s shattering and controversial drama Bent, which chronicles a love story against the background of 1934 Germany’s awakening fascist terror and the little known extermination of homosexuals, who where considered beneath Jews in Hitler’s Third Reich.

As the lazy days of summer arrive, the theatre will turn up the heat with Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Stephen Sondheim’s Tony Award-winning musical thriller of revenge powerfully blends moments of drama and black comedy with gorgeous song and horror. Sweeney Todd is a frighteningly fun and suspenseful tribute to Victorian melodrama and Grand Guignol.

The fall production will be the avant-garde Never Swim Alone, an absurd and hilarious yet haunting play about male relationships and rivalry. A 13-round sequence of scenarios is played out between two lifelong male friends and refereed by a young woman who holds the key to a dark secret of their past.

Wrapping up the season in will be a delightful holiday gift, The Man Who Came To Dinner, by Moss Hart & George S. Kaufman. In this wild comedy, the title character trips on the front step of his hosts’ home and winds up trapped there for six weeks until the broken bones heal. Hilarity ensues as the pompous guest, a famous writer and critic, thoroughly disrupts his hosts’ well-ordered lives.

TheatreWorks is a 100 seat, non-profit, award-winning theatre located at 5 Brookside Avenue. For additional details on its year-round presentations, call the box office at 860/350-6863.