NEW SHOWTIMES THIS SEASON: All mainstage shows 7:30 PM Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, 2pm Saturday and Sunday matinees
The Blue Bird
Young Rep Production
Play by Maurice Maeterlinck
Adapted by Irina Zaurov, edited by Jennifer Zaurov
July 24-27
From Nobel Prize winning author in Literature, Maurice Maeterlinck, this youth play has been entertaining audiences for over 100 years. In a fairy-tale-like setting, Tyltyl and Mytyl, the son and daughter of a poor woodcutter, are sent out by the Fairy Bérylune to search the world for the Blue Bird of Happiness. After many challenges and adventures, they find it in their own backyard.
Six – Teen Edition
Young Rep Production
written by Toby Marlow & Lucy Moss
August 8-10
SIX is a modern retelling of the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII, presented in the form of a singing competition. In the show, the wives take turns telling their story to determine who suffered the most from their shared husband, but ultimately seek to reclaim their individual identities and rewrite their stories.
Pippin
September 12-21
With an infectiously unforgettable score from four-time Grammy winner, three-time Oscar winner and musical theatre giant, Stephen Schwartz, Pippin is the story of one young man’s journey to be extraordinary. Winner of four 2013 Tony Awards including Best Musical Revival, this updated circus-inspired version of Pippin continues to captivate and appeal to the young at heart throughout the world.
Heir to the Frankish throne, the young prince Pippin is in search of the secret to true happiness and fulfillment. He seeks it in the glories of the battlefield, the temptations of the flesh and the intrigues of political power (after disposing of his father, King Charlemagne the Great). In the end, though, Pippin finds that happiness lies not in extraordinary endeavors, but rather in the unextraordinary moments that happen every day.
On Golden Pond
October 24-November 2
This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning to their summer home on Golden Pond for the forty-eighth year. He is a retired professor, nearing eighty, with heart palpitations and a failing memory—but still as tart-tongued, observant, and eager for life as ever. Ethel, ten years younger, and the perfect foil for Norman, delights in all the small things that have enriched and continue to enrich their long life together. They are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist fiancé, who then go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the “grandchild” the elderly couple have longed for, and as Norman revels in taking his ward fishing and thrusting good books at him, he also learns some lessons about modern teenage awareness—and slang—in return. In the end, as the summer wanes, so does their brief idyll, and in the final, deeply moving moments of the play, Norman and Ethel are brought even closer together by the incidence of a mild heart attack. Time, they know, is now against them, but the years have been good and, perhaps, another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.
A Christmas Carol
December 5-14
The Toledo Rep’s Holiday Card to the Community. Celebrate the season with Ebenezer Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Bob Cratchit and the three spirits as they take the miserly Scrooge on their fantastic journey through Christmases past, present, and future on the 10th Street Stage. Brimming with joyful songs and holiday cheer, this community classic embodies a story of joy, redemption, and the spirit of Christmas.
Lost in Yonkers
February 20-March 1
This Neil Simon memory play is set in Yonkers in 1942. Bella is thirty-five years old, mentally challenged, and living at home with her mother, stern Grandma Kurnitz. As the play opens, ne’er-do-well son Eddie deposits his two young sons on the old lady’s doorstep. He is financially strapped and taking to the road as a salesman. The boys are left to contend with Grandma, with Bella and her secret romance, and with Louie, her brother, a small-time hoodlum in a strange new world called Yonkers.
The Shark is Broken
April 24-May 3
The first summer blockbuster movie is being filmed—but no one working on the film would know it. Dive deep into the tumultuous, murky waters of the making of a major motion picture with testy, feuding costars, unpredictable weather, and a shark prop whose constant breakdowns are looking like an omen for the future of the movie. In this comedy co-written by Ian Shaw and Joseph Nixon, the short tempers of Jaws stars Robert Shaw (father of co-writer Ian), Richard Dreyfuss, and Roy Scheider take center stage as they bond, argue, drink, gamble, and pray for an end to the shoot, not knowing it will change their lives forever.
Fiddler on the Roof
June 5-21
The award-winning tale of Tevye the Dairyman and his family’s struggles in a changing Russia is a true musical theatre tradition. Winner of nine Tony Awards when it debuted in 1964, Fiddler on the Roof is the brainchild of Broadway legends, Jerome Robbins and Harold Prince; songwriters, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick; and bookwriter, Joseph Stein.
Set in the little village of Anatevka, the story centers on Tevye, a poor milkman, and his five daughters. With the help of a colorful and tight-knit Jewish community, Tevye tries to protect his daughters and instill them with traditional values in the face of changing social mores and the growing anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. Rich in historical and ethnic detail, Fiddler on the Roof’s universal theme of tradition cuts across barriers of race, class, nationality and religion, leaving audiences crying tears of laughter, joy and sadness.