click on the graphic for more information on each show, including photos and cast and creative team bios.
By Lauren Gunderson Directed by Krista Schafer Ewbank
Michigan Premiere
As the British Industrial Revolution dawns, young Ada Byron Lovelace (daughter of the flamboyant and notorious Lord Byron) sees the boundless creative potential in the “analytic engines” of her friend and soul mate Charles Babbage, inventor of the first mechanical computer. Ada envisions a whole new world where art and information converge—a world she might not live to see. A music-laced story of love, friendship, and the edgiest dreams of the future. Jane Austen meets Steve Jobs in this poignant pre-tech romance heralding the computer age.
“What Gunderson achieves in ADA AND THE ENGINE is quite remarkable. She manages to capture the cognitive energy and intellectual intimacy that can strengthen a friendship…ADA AND THE ENGINE is a rare and special artistic achievement: an intelligent play about intelligent historical people that has been crafted by intelligent theatre artists for an intelligent audience.” —MyCulturalLandscape.com.
This production is generously sponsored by Lea Ellwood-Filkins and Brother John Brendan, AF
Featuring Sarah Hawkins, Lindel Salow, Joshua Brown, Kez Settle, Cynthia Szczesny, and Matthew Wallace. Scenic Design by Eric Niece, Lighting Design by Harley Miah, Costume Design by Cheryl Zemke, Choreography by Geri Conner. Stage managed by Danielle Gilbert.
By John Patrick Shanley Directed by Wendy Katz Hiller
In this brilliant and powerful drama, Sister Aloysius, a Bronx school principal, takes matters into her own hands when she suspects the young Father Flynn of impropriety. An engaging examination of the grey areas between suspicion, certainty and doubt.
Winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award. “How splendid it feels to be trusted with such passionate, exquisite ambiguity…. Blunt yet subtle, manipulative but full of empathy for all sides, the play is set in 1964 but could not be more timely. In just ninety fast-moving minutes, Shanley creates four blazingly individual people. DOUBT is a lean, potent drama…passionate, exquisite, important and engrossing.” —NY Newsday. “An eloquent and provocative investigation of truth and consequences. A gripping mystery, tightly written.” —Time Out NY.
Featuring Maggie Gilkes, Meghan VanArsdalen, Joe Sfair and Krystle Dellihue.
By David Lindsay-Abaire Directed by Sarah Hawkins
Nothing will prepare you for the dirty little secret Cass discovers in her husband’s sweater drawer. It is so shocking that our heroine has no choice but to flee to the honeymoon capital of the world in a frantic search for the life she thinks she missed out on. It’s a wild ride over Niagara Falls in a barrel of laughs as Cass embarks on a journey of self-discovery that has her crossing paths with a blithely suicidal alcoholic, a lonely tour-boat captain, a pair of bickering private detectives and a strange caper involving a gargantuan jar of peanut butter, all of which pushes her perilously close to the water’s edge.
“Hefty laughter. David Lindsay-Abaire’s WONDER OF THE WORLD is exceedingly whimsical and playfully wicked.” —NY Times. “Full frontal lunacy is on display. A most assuredly fresh and hilarious tragicomedy of marital discord run amok. Lindsay-Abaire’s flair for the absurd combines nicely with an ability to pull laughs out of any situation. Absolutely hysterical.” —Variety.
Featuring Krista Schafer Ewbank, Linda Rabin Hammell, Richard Payton, Pat Loos, Connie Cowper, Dan Morrison, and Mandy Logsdon.
based on the novel by Mark Haddon, adapted by Simon Stephens Directed by Adriane Galea
15-year-old Christopher has an extraordinary brain: He is exceptional at mathematics but ill-equipped to interpret everyday life. He has never ventured alone beyond the end of his road, he detests being touched, and he distrusts strangers. Now it is 7 minutes after midnight, and Christopher stands beside his neighbor’s dead dog, Wellington, who has been speared with a garden fork. Finding himself under suspicion, Christopher is determined to solve the mystery of who murdered Wellington, and he carefully records each fact of the crime. But his detective work, forbidden by his father, takes him on a thrilling journey that upturns his world.
Winner of the 2015 Tony Award for Best Play. “…just terrific…a profoundly moving play about adolescence, fractured families, mathematics, colours and lights…dazzling.” —Independent (London). “A beautiful, eloquent, dazzlingly inventive show about the wonders of life.” —Evening Standard (London).
Featuring Joshua Whitson, Jaclynn Cherry, Robert Schorr, Carrie Jay Sayer, Jean Pilon, Lindel Salow, Joshua Brown, Jonathan Davidson, Allison Megroet, and Linda Rabin Hammell.
By Sam Shepard Directed by D.B. Schroeder
May and Eddie have a past, ever since high school. Between an old man’s tales, and the arrival of a “man” this night in a run down motel sheds a burning light on the lengths we will go to for love.
“Sam Shepard’s purest and most beautiful play.” —NY Daily News. “It is as mysterious and unsettling—now you see it, now you don’t—as spare and, incidentally, as funny as anything he has ever done.” —The New Yorker. “FOOL FOR LOVE is certainly one of the best plays of our time. FOOL FOR LOVE may very well be one of the great plays of the late twentieth century.” —BackStage.
Featuring Jonathan Davidson, Krista Schafer Ewbank, Lindel Salow and Joshua Brown.