[NEohioPAL] BNC Seeking Directors for 2008

[alanna at bnctheatre.com]

The Bang And The Clatter Theatre Company is now accepting applications
for directors for the 2008 Season at both their Akron and Cleveland
locations.

Interested parties should send resumes to
The Bang and The Clatter Theatre Company
140 E. Market St.
Akron, OH 44308

For any additional questions regarding this email, please contact Sean
McConaha, Co-Founding Artistic/Managing Director, at 330-618-6930. For
any other information, you can contact the theatre at 330-606-5317.

The shows for the 2008 season at both locations are listed below.

The Bang and the Clatter
A Shot Rings Out… (Akron)
Theatre Company
2008 Season

Orange Flower Water
By Craig Wright
Jan. 11-Feb. 9

…A brutally honest drama about marriage and infidelity – one that
chronicles the inevitable big damage and ugly fallout engendered by a
ceaseless pursuit of selfishness and an unrestrained search for
personal happiness. An emotionally and physically lacerating ordeal,
it is at once fiercely adult, shrewdly observant, often painfully
graphic and most definitely not for the meek." – The Chicago Sun-Times

"Uncommonly intense and intimate ninety-minute drama…quirky, raw and
nervy..." –The Chicago Tribune

Essential Self Defense
By Adam Rapp
Feb. 22-March 22

Disgruntled outcast Yul Carroll takes a job as an attack dummy in a
women's self-defense class and finds himself mysteriously drawn to
Sadie, the repressed bookworm mercilessly honing her skills on him.
Meanwhile, all's not well on the unassuming Midwestern streets of
Bloggs: with local children vanishing at an alarming rate, our hero,
his lady friend, and a motley assortment of poets, butchers, and punk
librarians prepare to battle the darkness on the edge of town.

How His Bride Came To Abraham
By Karen Sunde
April 11-May 10

"How His Bride Came To Abraham creates an extraordinary modern
pacifist myth in which a wounded Israeli soldier and a female
Palestinian terrorist experience each other's passionate hunger for
their home and rights…it indelibly etches itself upon viewers' souls."
–Contemporary Dramatists, London

"…Its events seem ripped right out of today's headlines. …pacifist
tragedy…a fateful night that profoundly changes them-and us. It's
incisive dialogue, riveting action, and searing audience impact…"
–Plays international, London

A Nervous Smile
By John Belluso
May 23-June 14

A wealthy New York couple, strained to the breaking point by caring
for their severely disabled daughter, Emily, weighs their own
happiness against that of their child-with shocking consequences.
Emily's lyrical poetry, the bitter volleys of the couple's
disintegrating marriage, and the appraisals of the outside world frame
the narrative of this insightful play. A Nervous Smile is a brutal
portrait of love, lust and despair set against Belluso's fiery brand
of social satire.

Betty's Summer Vacation
By Christopher Durang
June 27-July 26

Looking for a little rest and time by herself, Betty rents a summer
share at the beach. But Betty's luck turns to delicious lunacy when
this sensible Everywoman gets drawn into the chaotic world of some
very unsavory housemates-her friend Trudy who talks too much; the
lewd, semi naked Buck, who tries to have sex with everyone; and Keith,
a possible serial killer who hides in his room with a mysterious hat
box. With sand between her toes, walking a thin line between sanity
and survival, poor Betty will leave her summer vacation more
terrorized than tan.

"Betty's Summer Vacation is not only wickedly funny but a trenchant
commentary on the state of American culture and the most original play
to hit the New York stage in years." -MSNBC

In A Dark, Dark House
By Neil LaBute
Aug. 8-Sept. 6

On the grounds of a private psychiatric facility, two brothers
confront each other. Drew has been court-confined for observation, and
he has called his older brother, Terry, to corroborate his claim of
childhood sexual abuse by a young man many summers ago. Drew's request
releases barely hidden animosities between the two men: Is he using
these repressed memories to save himself while smearing the name of
his brother's friend? Through pain and acknowledged betrayal, the
brothers come to grips with and begin to understand the legacy of
abuse, both inside and outside their family home.

Cagelove
By Christopher Denham
Sept. 19-Oct. 18

"Cagelove is a compulsively watchable mix of melodrama and horror."
–The New York Times

"An accomplished work by a distinctive new voice… Christopher Denham's
gripping new drama does what few new plays do: it tells the truth
about a great many things…those who seek it out will have a powerful
and gratifying experience." –nytheatre.com

Defender Of The Faith
By Stuart Carolan
Oct. 31-Nov. 29

Set in 1986 in County Armagh, Ireland, historically one of Ireland's
most IRA-friendly regions, the play uses the era's violence to mirror
the collapse of a community. A dairy farmer leads the local fight
against the British. He is angry because someone has been diffusing
the bombs planted by the resistance. As he hunts the rat, he drives
his friends and his son to drastic, paranoid action.


The Bang and The Clatter
Sometimes In The Silence…  (Cleveland)
Theatre Company
2008 Season

Blackbird
By Adam Rapp
Feb. 1-March 1

"There is a strange tenderness in Rapp's writing that marks him out as
one to watch. Rapp has genuine Gorky-esque talent and loves his
characters as all-consumingly as they do each other." –The Guardian

"…A terrifically impressive debut for new U.S. playwright Adam Rapp.
Froggy and Baylis are two wrecked drifters in a New York squat…
Blackbird could, in the hands of a lesser dramatist, be a crude mix of
in-your-face grunge and sentimentality…actually, the squalor here is
both appalling and cryingly funny and Rapp has a brilliant ear for
talk."

This Is How It Goes
By Neil LaBute
March 14-April 12

Belinda and Cody Phipps appear to be a typical midwestern couple:
teenage sweet-hearts now married with children and a luxurious home.
Typical except that Cody is in almost every respect an outsider-"rich
and black and different," in the words of Belinda who finds herself
attracted to a (white) former classmate. As the battle for her
affections is waged, Belinda and Cody frankly question the foundation
of their initial attraction, opening the door wide to a swath of
bigotry, deception, and betrayal.
Staging his work on a continually shifting moral ground where nothing
is sacred and the unexpected is a given, LaBute unblinkingly
challenges the reader's received notions of gender, ethnicity, and
even love itself. Powerful, profane, and above all unpredictable, This
Is How It Goes is a devastating exploration of the myriad ways in
which the wild card of race is played by both black and white in
America.

"LaBute…continues to probe the fascinating dark side of
individualism…his great gift is to live in and to chronicle that murky
area of not-knowing, which mankind spends much of its waking life
denying." –The New Yorker

Dougie's Machinery
By Cliff Hershman
April 25-May 24

 A dark comedy & a world premier by a Cleveland playwright!


The God Of Hell
By Sam Shepard
June 6-July 5

An uproarious, brilliantly provocative farce that b rings the gifts of
a quintessentially American playwright to bear on the current American
dilemma. Frank and Emma are a quiet, respectable couple who raise cows
on their Wisconsin farm. Soon after they agree to put up Frank's old
friend Haynes, who is on the lam from a secret government project
involving plutonium, they're visited by Welch, an unctuous government
bureaucrat from hell. His aggressive patriotism puts Frank, Emma and
Haynes on the defensive, transforming a heartland American household
into a scene of torture and promoting a radioactive brand of
conformity with a dangerously low half life.

"Startling…apocalyptic…a confident and unsettling scenario of surreal
doom." –New Yorker

Deliriously entertaining and deeply scary…a shivering work of
existential mystery." –NY Newsday


On The Line
By Joe Roland
July 18-Aug 16

Three lifelong friends take on management, the union and ultimately
each other when a strike wreaks havoc on their working-class town.
Along the way they have to negotiate mobs of angry first graders,
bat-wielding bartenders, no-neck corporate shills and the North
American Free Trade Agreement. Lines are drawn, crossed and
double-crossed in this raw, powerful and often hilarious story about
loyalty, love and the crippling power of unbending principles.

"In a theater culture more likely to produce a play set in a
well-heeled living room than on a factory floor, Joe Roland's On The
Line, an unflinching portrait of a strike in New Jersey, is a welcome
anomaly. It smartly addresses the highly topical question of what
happens to a company town when the company seems to have given up on
it… the drama moves with the momentum of a well-told anecdote…Like
Odets, Mr. Roland puts a frowning human face on labor unrest…" –The
New York Times

The Lieutenant Of Inishmore
By Martin McDonagh
Aug. 29-Sept. 27

On a lonely road on the island of Inishmore, someone killed an Irish
Liberation Army enforcer's cat He'll want to know who when he gets
back from a stint of torture and chip-shop bombing in Northern
Ireland. He loves his cat more than life itself, and someone is going
to pay.

"…Cunningly constructed, deeply and intensely felt, bitterly blood
curdling and breathtakingly funny." –The Sunday Times (London)

"McDonagh weaves the strands of his plot together with superb panache
and his dialogue is a joy, full of debunking humor that reveals the
terrorists in their absurdly dim true colors." –The Daily Telegraph
(London)

"The plot is so sublime, the script so witty and the twist at the end
so clever that I was won over…" –The Stage (London)

White People
By J.T. Rogers
Oct. 17-Nov. 15

Now – right now – what does it mean to be a white American? What does
it mean for any American to live in a country that is not the one you
were promised? White People is a controversial and darkly funny play
about the lives of three ordinary Americans placed under the
spotlight: Martin, a Brooklyn- born high powered attorney for a
white-shoe law firm in St. Louis, MO: Mara Lynn, a housewife and
former homecoming queen in Fayetteville, NC; and Alan, a young
professor struggling to find his way in New York City. Through
heart-wrenching confessions, they wrestle with guilt, prejudice, and
the price they and their children must pay for their actions. White
People is a candid, brutally honest medication on race and language in
our culture.

"In brutally honest confessions that eat through protective layers
like acid from a battery… the piece never strikes a false note… Rare
plays like this one help lift the veil." –The Los Angeles Times

"This play by J.T. Rogers is a sobering, unsettling but deeply
rewarding look at a combustible issue many of us prefer to sidestep…
White People is not easy to sit through. It raises questions as it
challenges our assumptions about race." –The Salt Lake Tribune

Blasted
By Sarah Kane
Nov. 28-Dec. 27

"With just 5 plays, Sarah Kane changed the face of British theatre...
Blasted, is where it all began..." –Graeae Theatre Company (London)

Sarah Kane's first play, lambasted by critics when it was first
performed in 1995 as "a disgusting feast of filth" –The Daily Mail, is
now considered a classic of 20th century theatre. This is a rare
chance to see this powerful anti war play set in a hotel room in
Leeds, while war rages outside in the streets.