Vassar's Powerhouse Theater Announces the Season

If you are near Poughkeepsie New York this summer, then maybe schedule a trip t the Powerhouse Theater.  I haven't been yet, but I have heard really good things about it.  Here is the Press Announcement.
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NEW YORK STAGE AND FILM

ANNOUNCES 2012 POWERHOUSE SEASON

FEATURING NEW PLAYS BY

R O B E R T O  A G U I R R E - S A C A S A

S T E P H E N  B E L B E R

AT VASSAR COLLEGE

SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE MAY 16; SINGLE TICKETS AVAILABLE JUNE 1

New York, NY – New York Stage and Film (Johanna Pfaelzer, Artistic Director; Thomas Pearson, Executive Director, Mark Linn-Baker, Max Mayer, Leslie Urdang, Producing Directors) and Vassar College (Ed Cheetham, Producing Director) have announced the line-up of their 2012 Powerhouse Theater season. The full season is as follows:

Mainstage (fully staged and designed works-in-progress)

In the Powerhouse Theater

Wednesday, June 27 – Sunday, July 8

ABIGAIL/1702

By Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa

Directed by David Esbjornson

Ten years after the events of The Crucible, Abigail Williams is living under a new identity in Boston and haunted by her past.  When a mysterious figure appears, she confronts Salem’s dark history head on and must atone for her role in it.  Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (The Mystery Plays, Good Boys and True, Glee and Big Love) makes his Powerhouse debut with this suspenseful tale of a young woman’s quest for forgiveness.

Wednesday, July 18 – Sunday, July 29

THE POWER OF DUFF

By Stephen Belber

Directed by Peter DuBois

Charles Duff, a news anchor in a mid-market backwater, has an unexpected spiritual awakening on live TV.  His prayers, and their answers, change his audience, his family, and his own life forever. Stephen Belber (Tape, Match, Dusk Rings a Bell, Fault Lines) returns to the Powerhouse alongside Peter DuBois (Sons of the Prophet, Becky Shaw, Jack Goes Boating, All New People).

Martel Musical Workshops (concert readings of works-in-progress)

In the Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film

Friday, June 29 – Sunday, July 1

THE FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE

Book by Itamar Moses

Music & Lyrics by Michael Friedman

Based on the novel by Jonathan Lethem

Conceived and Directed by Daniel Aukin

Based on the best-selling novel, this is the story of black and white America in the 1970’s, of two boys, Dylan and Mingus, of impossibly joyful afternoons of games in the street and of living in a society that you don’t belong to. This is the story of prison and of college, of Brooklyn and Berkeley, of soul and rap, of murder and redemption. And this is the story of what would happen if two teens obsessed with comic book heroes actually ... maybe … had superpowers.

Friday, July 27 – Sunday, July 29

MURDER BALLAD 

By Julia Jordan & Juliana Nash

Directed by Trip Cullman

A love triangle gone wrong, Murder Ballad centers on Sara, an Upper West Side mom who seems to have it all, but whose downtown past lingers enticingly and dangerously in front of her. Created by composer Juliana Nash, front woman for the 90’s indie rock band Talking to Animals and award-winning playwright Julia Jordan (Tatjana in Color, Sarah, Plain and Tall), this sexy, explosive, new rock musical explores the complications of love, the compromises we make, and the small betrayals that can ultimately undo us.  

Inside Look Play Workshops (semi-staged workshops)

In the Susan Stein Shiva Theater

Friday, July 13 – Sunday, July 15

FIRES ARE CONFUSING

By Eva Anderson, Will Berson & Zach Helm

Created by Teatro de Facto

From Los Angeles company Teatro de Facto, this highly theatrical piece combines dramatic invention and journalistic research to tell the real-life story of Cameron Todd Willingham. Scheduled for execution in the arson death of his children, Willingham awaits his fate while a scientist recreates his crime, casting shadows over Willingham’s conviction, and his community.

Friday, July 20 – Sunday, July 22

THE HOUSE THAT WILL NOT STAND

By Marcus Gardley

After the mysterious death of her lover, Beartrice Albans imposes a period of mourning on her household, keeping her three daughters locked in the house to embroider linens. But when the summer heat intensifies, a handsome bachelor comes calling, and a familial secret is revealed, the foundation of Beartrice’s house is rocked to its core. Set in New Orleans in 1836, this loose adaptation of Lorca’s The House of Bernarda Alba examines the complex system of plaçage – common-law marriages of white men and black Creole women. These free women of color became wealthy and powerful activists who fought against racial oppression pre-Civil War.

Subscriptions to the 2012 Powerhouse Theater season are available online beginning Wednesday, May 16, with single tickets available online Friday, June 1: powerhouse.vassar.edu. The Powerhouse Theater box office on the Vassar College campus (124 Raymond Avenue, Poughkeepsie, NY) opens Wednesday, June 6: (845) 437-5599 or PHTBoxOffice@vassar.edu. 

About Vassar & New York Stage and Film’s Powerhouse Theater

Each summer Vassar & New York Stage and Film's Powerhouse Theater presents new plays and musicals in development, many of which go on to reach wider audiences, including Stephen Karam’s Sons of the Prophet (Roundabout Theater); Michael Mayer and Peter Parnell’s re-imagining of Lerner & Lowe’s On A Clear Day You Can See Forever (St James Theater); Seminar by Theresa Rebeck (Golden Theater); Gabriel Kahane & Seth Bockley’s new musical February House (The Public Theater); and Storefront Church, John Patrick Shanley’s final installment to his “Church and State” trilogy that began with Doubt (Atlantic Theatre Company).  Other projects developed at the Powerhouse include the Tony Award-winning Side Man and Tru; the multi-award-winning Doubt; the groundbreaking Broadway musical American Idiot, and A Steady Rain, produced on Broadway in 2009 with Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig.

The result of a unique collaboration between New York Stage and Film and Vassar College, the Powerhouse program consists of an eight-week residency on the Vassar campus during which more than 250 professional artists and 40 apprentices live and work together to create new theater works.

New York Stage and Film is the not-for-profit company dedicated to both emerging and established artists in the development of new works for theater and film.  Since 1985 New York Stage and Film has played a significant role in the development of new plays, provided a home for a diverse group of artists free from critical and commercial pressures and established itself as a vital cultural institution for residents of the Hudson Valley and the New York metropolitan region.  For more information, visit www.newyorkstageandfilm.org/.

Vassar College is a highly selective, coeducational, independent, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1861. Consistently ranked as one of the country’s best liberal arts colleges, Vassar is renowned for its long history of curricular innovation, and for the natural and architectural beauty of its campus. More than 50 academic departments and degree programs — from Anthropology to Cognitive Sciences to Urban Studies — encompass the arts, foreign languages, natural sciences, and social services, and combine to offer a curriculum of more than 1,000 courses.  Vassar College is sited in New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley in Poughkeepsie, NY.