What's On Stage - June 8th Edition

This week's calendar of live performances!

Professional Theatre:

Stratford Theatre Festival continues its season in full swing with several productions beginning this week.

Crazy for You continues its run through October 12th.  Performances run throughout the week, with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis: Sent to Deadrock, Nevada, to foreclose on a derelict theatre, banker Bobby Child falls for its owner’s daughter, Polly Baker. Can he reconcile the demands of duty and love – and his own dreams of dancing? “I Got Rhythm,” “Nice Work if You Can Get It” and “Someone to Watch Over Me” are just some of the gems in this dynamic musical’s dazzling score.

Alice Through the Looking-Glass opens on April 30th and runs through October 12th with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis:  Climbing through her living-room mirror, Alice enters a world of wonders populated by such fantastical characters as Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Walrus and the Carpenter – and the fearsome Jabberwock. Children and adults alike will be delighted by this spectacular journey into the topsy-turvy realm of the dreaming mind.

King Lear opens on May 6th and runs through October 10th with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis:  An aging monarch resolves to divide his kingdom among his three daughters, with consequences he little expects. His reason shattered in the storm of violent emotion that ensues, with his very life hanging in the balance, Lear loses everything that has defined him as a king – and thereby discovers the essence of his own humanity.

Man of la Mancha opens May 8th and runs through October 10th with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis:  Awaiting trial by the Inquisition, poet and playwright Miguel de Cervantes is assailed by his fellow prisoners, who try to seize the manuscript of his masterpiece, Don Quixote. His inspired response: a challenge to join him in staging his stirring tale of Quixote’s obsessive quest to attain an impossible dream.

A Midsummer Night's Dream opened May 31st and runs through October 11th with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis: Threatened with death if she marries against her father’s wishes, Hermia elopes with her lover, Lysander, pursued by rival suitor Demetrius and his spurned admirer, Helena. In the enchanted woods, love’s lunacy reaches its giddiest heights – both for the bewildered couples and for an aspiring actor transformed into the unlikely consort of a fairy queen.

King John opened May 28th and runs through September 20th with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis: War is the inevitable result when the King of France demands that John relinquish his crown in favour of his nephew, the young Prince Arthur. Excommunication, attempted atrocity, rebellion and assassination all contribute to a political and personal turmoil that finds devastating expression in an anguished mother’s grief for her son.

Mother Courage and Her Children opened May 30th and runs through September 21st with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis: As the Thirty Years’ War swirls around her, Mother Courage scrapes together a living for herself and her three children by selling provisions to Protestant and Catholic combatants alike. But as she hauls her wagon across the battlefields of Europe, she discovers that the very chaos that sustains her will eventually cost her everything she holds most dear.

Hay Fever opened on May 28th and runs through October 11th with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis: Stage star Judith Bliss, her novelist husband and their two grown children have each invited houseguests for the weekend. But as the Blisses indulge their artistic eccentricities in a hilarious whirlwind of flirtation and histrionics, the guests begin to wonder if they’ve landed in a madhouse – and if they can survive the weekend with their own wits intact. 

Festival Friday Chats begins in the month of June, giving patrons an ability to peer inside the playbill and participate in chats revolving around the shows being performed this season.

Stratford's Food for Thought series kicks off this week with discussions on various shows that can be enjoyed along with brunch or lunch.

Stratford's Peer into the Playbill discussion series with directors begins this week, with varying times available throughout the summer season. 

Stratford's Night Music series, which allows you to hear music in the evenings at different venues around the festival kicks off on May 4th

For ticket info, dates and times, and full show details, please visit the Stratford website

The Tipping Point Theatre opens their summer production of The Red King's Dream on May 29th, running through June 29th with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis:  Stephen Tudor writes indices. That’s the plural of index. His life is solitary, logical, and precise and that’s good. He has read and indexed thousands of works from the solitude of his apartment, visited only by two women; his boss, Ms. Rapell, and his friend, Amy. Under their watchful eye, Stephen has indexed everything from physics to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass.” Still, one corner of knowledge eludes him: love. When Zoe Price moves in across the hall, Stephen’s normally cloistered life is flung open to a wide range of new emotions. But as a gold-card carrying member of his local library, he tends to over analyze everything – including his new emotions towards Zoe. Join Stephen as he ventures through the looking glass to discover the difference between logic, friendship, and love.

The Purple Rose Theatre begins their production of The Last Romance on June 12th, running through August 30th with evening and matinee tickets available.

Synopsis: A crush can make anyone feel young again – even a widower named Ralph. On an ordinary day in a routine life, Ralph decides to take a different path on his daily walk – one that leads him to an unexpected second chance at love. Despite the misgivings of family and the initial reluctance of Carol, the object of his affections, Ralph embarks on the trip of a lifetime and regains a happiness that seemed all but lost. The Last Romance is a heart-warming comedy about the transformative power of love.

College Theatre:

Eastern Michigan University opens its production of Sylvia on June 6th with evening and matinee performances available.  

Synopsis: What do you get when you cross a couple in mid-life crisis and a stray dog? A love triangle in which the "other woman" is a bitch, literally. Greg needs an escape from the frustrations of his job and the lack of fulfillment in his life. His wife of 22 years, Kate, needs a husband who will support her as her career advances and they move into the next phase of their lives. Sylvia is a stray dog who just needs a home and someone to love. The three battle it out in a witty and delightful look at life, love and relationships.