NOISES OFF

Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury

Directed by Stephanie Monday

Evjue Stage, October 9-24, 2026

Dark Fantasy

 

Something Wicked This Way Comes is a dark fantasy play by science fiction author

Ray Bradbury. Join us for our annual Halloween production, about best friends, Jim

Nightshade and William Halloway, and their nightmarish experience with a traveling

carnival that comes to Green Town, Illinois in the early 1960’s. The carnival's leader is

the mysterious "Mr. Dark", who seemingly wields the power to grant the townspeople's

secret desires. In reality, Dark is a malevolent being who, like the carnival, lives off the

life force of those it enslaves.

 

The Rivals, by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, adapted by Murray Fane

Directed by Julia Houck

Drury Stage, February 12-27, 2027

Comedy

 

The Rivals is a comedy of manners just in time for Valentine’s Day. Jack Absolute and

Lydia Languish, have a complicated courtship. They are finally united despite the

unhelpful interventions of Jack's father, Sir Anthony, and Lydia's aunt, Mrs Malaprop, as

well as two further suitors of Lydia's – a bellicose Irishman and an English country

bumpkin. A sub-plot depicts another young couple – Julia Melville and her fiancé, Jack's

friend, Faulkland – whose romance is disrupted by Faulkland's obsessive jealousy, but

has a similarly happy ending.

 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, by Tom Stoppard

Directed by Karl Stoll

Evjue Stage, March 12-27, 2027

Tragicomedy

 

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is an existential tragicomedy by Tom

Stoppard, produced in memory of the playwright and our friend, Jeffrey Knupp, both of

whom we lost in 2026. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from

Hamlet, the courtiers Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and the main setting is Denmark.

The action of the play takes place mainly "in the wings" of Hamlet, with brief

appearances of major characters from Hamlet who enact fragments of the scenes.

Between these episodes, the two protagonists voice their confusion at the progress of

events occurring onstage without them in Hamlet, of which they have no direct

Knowledge.

 

Switzerland, by Joanna Murray-Smith

Directed by Julia Houck

Evjue Stage, May 14-29, 2027

Drama

 

Somewhere in the Swiss Alps, grande dame of crime literature Patricia Highsmith, the

creator of Ripley, lives with an impressive collection of books, and a somewhat sinister

collection of guns and knives. She finds solace in her solitude, her cats and cigarettes.

But when a mysterious international visitor arrives at her perfectly secluded home, her

love of fictional murders becomes a dangerous reality.