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Pick Your Plays B owmer close down his illegal gambling operation. Suitability Suggestions Nathan is desperate for $1,000 to secure his

These play descriptions provide specific next dice game’s location, so he bets high- T content information and suggestions roller Sky Masterson that Masterson cannot he a for play suitability for your students. convince a straight-laced Salvation Army tre

Each school and community is unique, doll named Sarah to go on a date. To add to so please read carefully to determine the pressure, Nathan’s fiancée of 14 years, what is appropriate for your students. a nightclub performer named Adelaide, will Be aware that these suggestions walk out if she doesn’t walk down the aisle soon. Guys and Dolls is a delightful musical during the Communist takeover of China in are made before the plays go into 1949. Decades later, as death nears for Jiang, rehearsal. Occasionally, decisions are based on Damon Runyon’s fond stories of gamblers and showgirls. The bad guys aren’t he makes a last attempt to track down the made during the rehearsal process or really dangerous, the dolls have superhuman woman he lost so many years before. The preview performances that change patience, and what everybody wants deep other company is rehearsing Peach Blossom the appropriateness of a production. down inside is to reform and lead respectable Land, a bawdy retelling of an ancient Chinese When changes occur, the Education lives. Classic songs and great make about a lost fisherman who finds Department posts updated suitability Guys and Dolls an odds-on favorite to please himself in a utopian land. Amid the chaos, suggestions on our website and makes the entire family. squabbles and humorous jabs at theatre every effort to contact group leaders. life, the two plays unfold and mysteriously intertwine, their themes calling to each Questions? Please contact OSF group Fingersmith other across the centuries. Since its premiere sales or the education department at Adapted by Alexa Junge in 1986, Secret Love in Peach Blossom Land has [email protected]. from the by Sarah Waters become regarded as a masterwork of modern February 21 – July 9 World Premiere theatre in China and Taiwan. The play is at Sue Trinder has become the most talented times raucous, at times heartbreaking and Much Ado about Nothing pickpocket in Mrs. Sucksby’s employ, romantic. It contains occasional profanity, a by earning her the nickname “fingersmith.” love triangle, farcical sexual situations and February 20 – November 1 Mrs. Sucksby’s acquaintance, Gentleman bawdy talk about size and fertility. Well- Don Pedro and his soldiers, drunk with victory Rivers, wants to borrow Sue to assist in an prepared teenagers who can handle these from the war, arrive in Messina to visit his elaborate scheme to cheat a gullible young elements will enjoy this funny, profound friend Leonato. Traveling with Don Pedro heiress named Maud out of her fortune. work and gain historical insight into the are his two finest officers: the quick-witted, But nothing is quite what it seems in this plight of thousands of Chinese forced to flee cynical Benedick and his earnest young friend gritty, wild ride of a crime set in to Taiwan in 1949. Prologue* recommended. Claudio. In Leonato’s household are two Victorian England. Maud is the ward of a women: his earnest young daughter Hero man who collects erotic from all Sweat (whom Claudio wishes to marry) and his over the world and holds private readings by Lynn Nottage quick-witted, cynical niece Beatrice. Benedick to the “discerning gentlemen” who visit his July 29 – October 31 World Premiere country estate. As the twisting story sends and Beatrice have long waged a “merry war” A group of close friends shares everything: Sue spiraling through squalid London streets, of clever insults. It’s clear to everyone but drinks, secrets and laughs. But their world madhouses and a stifling mansion, it leads the two combatants that the battle of words is overturned when a shake-up disrupts the her to the most dangerous of is their way of disguising their feelings for factory where they work, and a horrific crime all: love and betrayal. This world-premiere each other. It will take a monumental comic sends shock waves across two generations. adaptation of Sarah Waters’ celebrated deception to make them realize and admit This powerful world premiere by acclaimed is a psychologically rich and intriguing the truth. But Messina’s is shattered playwright Lynn Nottage explores America’s mystery. There is occasional strong profanity, when Claudio, influenced by a scheming industrial decline of the 1990s with a look sexuality, sensuality between women, as malcontent, levels a shocking accusation at inside a Pennsylvania community whose well as physical and emotional violence Hero that brings the play perilously close people struggle to reclaim what’s lost, inflicted in a madhouse. Brief snippets of to . This sophisticated and witty find redemption and redefine themselves 19th century are read. Mature high battle of the sexes, set in modern Italy, will in a new century. Sweat is a timely and school students who are prepared to handle also explore jealousy and rage, leaving one thought-provoking look at contemporary the play’s content will enjoy this literate and couple’s happiness still in doubt at the play’s American life. It explores the effects of recent thrilling look at Victorian England through end. Exuberant, passionate and complex, economic and trade policies and how a close the lens of Waters’ 21st-century feminist Much Ado about Nothing may be best suited community responds to devastating change. point of view. Prologue* recommended. for well-prepared middle and high school The play contains frequent strong profanity students. Prologue* recommended. and occasional racial epithets. An of Secret Love in violence will be shown or described. It may Guys and Dolls Peach Blossom Land be best suited for well-prepared high school Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser; by Stan Lai students who are able to handle the play’s book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows April 15 – October 31 content. As Sweat is still in development, February 22 – November 1 Two theatre companies have accidentally check back closer to opening for possible Nathan Detroit runs the oldest established been booked into the same theatre for the updates. Prologue* recommended. permanent floating crap game in New York. same day. One company is rehearsing Secret The “floating” part is all about staying one Love, a tender tale of Jiang and Yun, two *For information on Prologues, see page 6. step ahead of the police, who would love to young lovers who lose track of each other

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Pericles by William Shakespeare February 26 – November 1 Pericles, Prince of Tyre, sets out to woo a princess and sails headlong into a harrowing odyssey. Fleeing the wrath of the King of Antioch, Pericles embarks on a series of adventures that carry him all over the Aegean. With jousts, shipwrecks, encounters with pirates, finding the love of his life and losing her and his infant daughter in a storm-tossed sea, this sprawling Shakespearean romance follows Pericles from youth to maturity. In true storybook fashion, the lost are reunited with those who love them, finding joy and safe harbor at last. This story of good and evil includes an incestuous relationship, scenes in a brothel with dialogue about Long Day’s Journey into Night The Happiest Song Plays Last the trade, and an attempted rape. by Eugene O’Neill by Quiara Alegría Hudes However, at the play’s end, good triumphs March 25 – October 31 July 7 – November 1 with the help of divine intervention. The year is 1912. Actor James Tyrone’s Iraq War vet Elliot Ortiz has a bright new Middle and high school students who summer home is haunted by alcohol, career: movie star. But shooting a film on are prepared to handle these aspects of addiction, failed dreams and ghosts of location in Jordan with the tumultuous the play will find Pericles a delightful and resentments gone but hardly forgotten. Arab Spring rumbling nearby, he finds that moving tale. Prologue* recommended. Tyrone wrestles with his guilt over what his wartime nightmares have followed his traveling-actor lifestyle has done to him into his new life. Meanwhile, his his family. His delicate wife Mary lives cousin Yazmin, having purchased the old with a morphine addiction and clings to family home in North Philadelphia, spends an idealized past. Their oldest son Jamie her nights cooking food for the needy struggles with the guilt of throwing away members of her community. As Elliot and his promising acting career on a dissipated his friends on the film crew watch the life of expensive drink and cheap women. Arab Spring unfold on the news, Yazmin Their youngest son Edmund, who spent tries to keep her beloved community from years running away from his family by crumbling and finds herself drawn to an traveling the world on merchant ships, older musician friend. This powerful sequel contends with tuberculosis. Over the to Quiara Alegría Hudes’ Water by the course of a single day, recriminations Spoonful explores the places we live our and guilt lead the family to a harrowing lives and the places we can’t forget. The examination of their love and anger Happiest Song Plays Last contains frequent toward each other. Eugene O’Neill’s strong profanity and deals with themes autobiographical masterpiece is a journey of PTSD and stories of the horrors of war. into the heart of addiction and family Mature high school students will find dynamics. There is no overt sexuality it both moving and thought provoking. or physical violence, but there is great Prologue* recommended. emotional violence. It may be best suited to older high school students who are prepared to handle the mature themes and a language-driven . Prologue* Left: Actor Miles Fletcher leads a Student Tour. Above: recommended. Daniel José Molina and Nancy Rodriguez, Water by the Spoonful (2014). Near right: Dan Donohue, Richard III (2014). *For information on Prologues, see page 6. Far right: A student group arrives at the OSF campus.

4 T A he Antony and Cleopatra Head Over Heels llen a tre

by William Shakespeare Script by Jeff Whitty; E

June 2 – October 9 music and lyrics by the Go Go’s liz

June 3 – October 10 World Premiere a A legendary love affair reshapes the beth ancient world when the great Roman Basilius, the Duke of Arcadia, goes to a

warrior Mark Antony, like Caesar visit the Oracle, hoping to hear nothing n before him, becomes enamored of the but good prophecies for himself and his incomparable Cleopatra, Queen of the Nile. family. Instead, he is told that his oldest His devotion to desire rather than duty is daughter will never have a relationship the beginning of a downward spiral for with a man, his youngest daughter will him, the Republic and Cleopatra, the last in defy him and marry beneath her station, her bloodline. The play chronicles Antony’s he will commit adultery with his own wife, relationship with Cleopatra, their rule of and within a year another man will be Egypt together, the growing separation Duke instead of him. Indeed, his youngest The Count of Monte Cristo between Antony and Octavius Caesar, and daughter Philoclea is already starting to by Alexandre Dumas; his final defeat by Octavius, who becomes realize that she is in love with the shepherd adapted by Charles Fechter sole ruler of Rome. Shakespeare gives us Mucidorous. It takes a while longer for his June 4 – October 11 a complex and very human look at the oldest daughter Pamela to realize that it is France, 1815. Edmund Dantès is about to realities of love, lust, politics and ambition. the maid Mopsa who sets her heart aflutter. have it all: promotion to captain of his ship The play is a vast, sprawling tapestry that As for Basilius committing adultery with his and marriage to the woman of his dreams. leaps back and forth from the lushness of own wife? Well . . . never mind—it has to But instead, a fateful and unfortunate Egypt to the military rigidity of Rome. The be seen to be believed. Jeff Whitty’s bawdy encounter with the exiled Napoleon, play is sensual but not overtly sexual, and adaptation of Sir Philip Sidney’s pastoral coupled with the jealous conniving of a there is little violence, although suicide is romance Arcadia plays out to the music and romantic rival, send him wrongfully to a a at the end. Antony and Cleopatra lyrics of the Go Go’s, blending Elizabethan dank prison cell. Years later, fate gives him is a complicated play in both its language adventure with an ’80s beat. The play may freedom, wealth and a new identity: the and its themes. It may be best enjoyed by contain some risqué components; there Count of Monte Cristo. Bent on vengeance, well-prepared high school students. is a great deal of clever dialogue that is he sets traps to ensnare the villains who Prologue* recommended. laced with sexual punning and innuendo. wronged him. Will he succeed in taking Teenagers who can handle these elements his revenge, be foiled in the attempt, or will enjoy this high-energy musical romp. discover instead the need for compassion As Head Over Heels is still in development, and mercy? Adapted from the classic novel check back closer to opening for possible by Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte updates. Prologue* recommended. Cristo is an -packed tale with a sharp comedic edge and romantic heart that plays out with panache and style. With some preparation on the intricacies of the , it is suitable for the entire family. Prologue* recommended.

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