Atlantic Stage announces 2012-2013 season, audition schedule

Photo provided by Atlantic Stage

Atlantic Stage, the only non-profit, professional theatre in the Myrtle Beach area announces its fifth season of cultural offerings for the Myrtle Beach area.  Following its last blockbuster season, Atlantic Stage is back with a new slate of comedies and dramas including a world premiere play. The season lineup is as follows.

 


GOD OF CARNAGE by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton
September 6-23, 2012
Winner of a 2009 Tony Award, the play is about two pairs of parents, one of whose child has hurt the other at a public park, who meet to discuss the matter in a civilized manner. However, as the evening goes on, the parents become increasingly childish, resulting in the evening devolving into chaos. Recommended for mature audiences only.


DURANG/DURANG: Two Plays by Christopher Durang
November 8-25, 2012

Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You
The play revolves around a nun, Sister Mary Ignatius, explaining to the audience the basic tenets of Catholicism. She is assisted by her favorite student, seven-year-old Thomas. From time to time, she asks him catechism questions and gives him a cookie for every right answer. Half-way into her speech, some of her former students, now grown up, enter to perform a mock Christmas pageant from their childhood days and reveal to Sister Mary the deep psychological trauma her teachings left on them. Sister Mary's unwavering dogma combined with the absurdist nature of the play adds elements of biting comedy.

The Actor's Nightmare
This short comic play involves an accountant named George Spelvin who is mistaken for an actor's understudy and forced to perform in a play for which he doesn't know any of the lines.

 


HOLIDAY MEMORIES short stories by Truman Capote, adapted for the stage by Russell Vandenbroucke
December 6-23, 2012
This largely autobiographical story, which takes place in the 1930s, describes a period in the lives of the seven-year-old narrator and an elderly woman who is his distant cousin and best friend. The evocative narrative focuses on country life, friendship, and the joy of giving during the Christmas season, and it also gently yet poignantly touches on loneliness and loss.


RABBIT HOLE by David Lindsay-Abaire
January 17- February 3, 2013
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. Recommended for mature audiences. 
Becca and Howie Corbett have everything a family could want, until a life-shattering accident turns their world upside down and leaves the couple drifting perilously apart.  Rabbit Hole charts their bittersweet search for comfort in the darkest of places and for a path that will lead them back into the light of day. 


LEND ME A TENOR by Ken Ludwig
March 21- April 7, 2013
In 1934, the renowned tenor Tito Merelli is scheduled to sing the lead in Otello. Unfortunately, even before the star leaves his hotel room, everything begins to unravel. Chaos ensues when Merelli's wife, who has mistaken an autograph-seeker hidden in his closet for a secret lover, leaves him a "Dear John" letter. The distraught Merelli accidentally is given a double dose of tranquilizers to calm him and passes out. Saunders, the company's General Manager, is determined that the show will go on, so he asks his assistant Max to impersonate the opera star. Max puts on the blackface makeup required for the role of Otello, and his disguise succeeds admirably – until Merelli, also in blackface, wakes up and heads for the stage. What follows is a chain-reaction of mistaken identity, farcical plot twists, double entendres, innuendoes, and constant entrances and exits through many doors.

 


CHILD'S PLAY (WORLD PREMIERE) by Kevin D. Ferguson
April 25 – May 12, 2013
The favorite play from last year’s New Voices PlayFest will take the state for a World Premiere. Child's Play tells the story of Vera, a child therapist who wonders if she is really doing the children she treats any good anymore. When confronted by Cindy, a ten-year old who has quit speaking to anyone, Vera struggles to peel away the layers of the girl's mistrust and enter Cindy's world to uncover the secrets behind her silence. Recommended for mature audiences.

 The season will also include a Second Annual New Voices Play Fest in the spring of 2013 (Special Event: April 18-21, 2013)which will include local and new works by emerging playwrights.

“We couldn’t be more thrilled with our lineup,” said Thom Penn, Artistic Director of Atlantic Stage. “As we head into our fifth season in this community, we look forward to the opportunity to bring a play festival and six diverse plays as cultural offerings to the area”.

Atlantic Stage, working under an SPT Agreement with Actors’ Equity Association will be holding Equity and non-Equity actor auditions for all productions of its 2012-2013 season including Designer and Tech Interviews on Friday, August 3 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday, August 4 from 12 p.m. to 8 p.m. by appointment only. Location is the 79th Avenue Theatre in the Coastal Carolina University Myrtle Beach Education Center, 900 79th Ave N, Myrtle Beach, S.C. 29572 (adjacent to Bypass 17 and just south of Grand Strand Hospital).  Those interested are asked to forward their resume, head shot and contact information to thom_penn@atlanticstage.com and provide preferred audition time slot(s). 

 Atlantic Stage is also putting on a summer play leading up to the presidential election of The Complete History of America (abridged): Special Election Year Edition which is currently running through August 3 for adults and families with children over the age of twelve. Billed as "600 Years of History in 6000 seconds” the Reduced Shakespeare Company has recently updated their skit-based script with new material on the 2012 U.S. presidential political contenders.