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Theresa Rebeck is a widely produced playwright throughout the United States and abroad. Past New York productions of her work include Mauritius at the Biltmore Theatre in a Manhattan Theater Club Production; The Scene, The Water’s Edge, Loose Knit, The Family of Mann and Spike Heels at Second Stage; Bad Dates, The Butterfly Collection and Our House at Playwrights Horizons; and View of the Dome at New York Theatre Workshop. Omnium Gatherum (co-written, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003) was featured at the Humana Festival, and had a commercial run at the Variety Arts Theatre. Her newest work, The Understudy, premiered at the 2008 Williamstown Theatre Festival and ran in New York at the Laura Pels Theater in a Roundabout Theatre Company production as part of their 2009 - 2010 season.
"People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them." ---- George Bernard Shaw, "Mrs. Warren's Profession" (1893) act II
2011/12
New Beginnings
We are very proud to announce our new season. Join us as we celebrate our first decade of Pear Excellence.
Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson
September 16 – October 9
This compassionate, funny play is Lanford Wilson’s valedictory to the 1960s. Friends and family, lovers and strangers hang out on a porch in Lebanon, Missouri, in July 1977, as the nation begins its third century and the Talley family tries to figure out what’s next for them. If Chekhov had been born a century later (and a few thousand miles westward), he might have written this beautiful play.
A Pair of Kornbluths for the Pear
October 23
The inimitable Josh Kornbluth (credits include Haiku Tunnel, Red Diaper Baby, Love and Taxes,Ben Franklin Unplugged, Andy Warhol: Good for the Jews?, The Josh Kornbluth Show) and his brother and partner in film, Jake (director of the film Haiku Tunnel, writer and director of The Best Thief in the World) , will apPearon behalf of the Pear, in a benefit for the Pear, but not AT the Pear.
(The performance will take place at the Mountain View Community School of Music and Arts because it seats 240--the equivalent of about six performances at our little Pear.)
The Brothers K will entertain, inspire, and thoroughly delight you. Josh and Jake have just completed a new film, Love and Taxes, based on Josh's highly successful solo performance piece of the same name. The film is expected to be released--when else?--on Tax Day, April 15, 2012. At the Pear benefit, Josh will perform excerpts from Love and Taxes, and then he and Jake will tell us about how they transformed the theatre piece into a film--including sneak previews of excerpts from the finished work. Refreshments will follow.
Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck
November 4 – 20
The seemingly genteel bequest of a stamp album fans the flames of greed and sibling rivalry, as two half-sisters and several shady characters fight over an extremely pricey pair of stamps (we’re talking seven figures). Crackling dialogue, black humor, psychological complexity, and a tense, surprising plot make Mauritius a “ripping good play.” Stamp collecting as a blood sport—who knew?
A Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O’Neill
January 13 – February 5
This play revisits a member of O’Neill’s iconic Tyrone family (last seen in Long Day’s Journey at the Pear). Irish immigrant Phil Hogan, along with his coarse and wanton daughter, Josie, work a farm rented from James Tyrone, an alcoholic, washed-up actor. In a scheme to buy the farm, Josie aims to seduce James. But as their entanglement grows, they open up to each other about their dreams, their fears, and their disappointments, realizing how much they have in common -- as well as how wide a gulf separates them. O'Neill's classic vibrates with moonlight, love, betrayal, and truth.
Familiar Strangers by Margy Kahn (world premiere)
March 2 – 18
Set in Los Angeles during the Iranian festival of No Rooz (“new day”), this wonderful new play explores the generational and cultural conflicts of an Iranian family split by revolution. With insight and humor, Slices alumna Margy Kahn portrays the struggle between an Iranian woman and her Americanized teen-aged daughter. Adolescent excesses charge the force field of cultural conflict, as each character comes to understand that neither Iranian nor American society has all the answers.
Bach at Leipzig by Itamar Moses
April 6 – 22
Six men in wigs and knee breeches—all named either Johann or Georg--converge on Leipzig in 1722. Each Johann/Georg has his eyes on the prize position of organmeister of the Thomaskirche. Madness of a comically German variety ensues, as witty barbs and historical allusions zip around the stage like nobody’s business. It’s a possenhaft lustspiel (laff riot)!
Pear Slices 2012 by the Pear Playwrights Guild
May 11 – June 3
Can you believe that this is our ninth serving of Pear Slices? See what the talented and versatile writers in the Pear Playwrights Guild are up to this time around. Fresh and ripe, these short new plays will surprise and delight us all.
Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw
June 22 – July 15
We proudly conclude our tenth season with the first play produced at the Pear: Mrs. Warren’s Profession, Shaw’s stunning and ageless indictment of hypocrisy. As she did in the 2002 production, Pear Artistic Director Diane Tasca will appear in the title role.