2010 - 2011 Season

Regional Premiere
REASONS TO BE PRETTY
By Neil LaBute
Sept. 29-Oct. 24, 2010

 

“It is tight, tense and emotionally true, and it portrays characters who actually seem part of the world that the rest of us live in.”—Time

 

A 2009 Tony Award nominee for Best Play, Neil LaBute's bristling new comedy puts a ferocious cap on a trilogy of plays that began with The Shape of Things and Fat Pig. America's obsession with physical beauty is confronted headlong in this brutal and exhilarating work, in which a slip of the tongue has a tsunami effect on man's relationships, romantic and otherwise. Simultaneously sentimental and uncompromising, Reasons To Be Pretty is a gorgeous play.

Back by Popular Demand

EVERY CHRISTMAS STORY EVER TOLD

By Michael Carleton, Jim FitzGerald and John K. Alvarez

Nov. 17-Dec. 19, 2010

 

“The actors in this play were so funny, their timing so impeccably perfect, that they literally killed three-quarters of the audience, whose bodies have already been donated to science for the study of comedy's lethal effects.”—Metro

 

This fast-moving, irreverent comedy returns to The Stage for another round of extreme holiday cheer. Every Christmas Story Ever Told is a fond and furious look at the holiday classics and traditions we all remember. From Frosty to Rudolph and the Grinch to It's A Wonderful Life, no pop culture holiday icon is spared in this whirlwind of holiday merriment.

West Coast Premiere

ON THE WATERFRONT

By Budd Schulberg with Stan Silverman

Feb. 16–March 13, 2011

 

“It is a dazzling performance in a group show that offers not a carbon copy, but an imaginative re-invention of what is an iconic movie. It makes for a gripping piece of theatre”—The Guardian

 

This stunning and newly released stage adaptation by the original screenplay author departs from cinematic realism to provide a piece of dockside expressionism. The hero remains Terry Malloy, the ex-boxer and waterfront bum who struggles with his conscience and takes on the corupt union mafia. This breathtakingly original piece of theatre gained critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2008.

World Premiere

LOLITA ROADTRIP

By Trevor Allen

April 6-May 1, 2011

 

The first recipient of a grant from the New Play Production Fund of San Francisco's Playground, launched to supprt plays by local playwrights.

 

This darkly comic play follows Julia, a rebellious Stanford graduate student researching her thesis, and Danny, a hitchhiking teenage runaway she picks up, as together they retrace novelist and lepidopterist Vladimir Nabokov's actual 1941 roadtrip from New York to Stanford. A series of cross country adventures ensues, as they confront their own dark pasts and discover what really causes a chrysalis to transform into a butterfly. Lolita Roadtrip marks Trevor Allen's second world premiere with San Jose Stage Company, following the 2005 hit Tenders in the Fog.

Summer's Hottest Ticket

AVENUE Q

Music and Lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx

Book by Jeff Whitty

June 1-July 3, 2011

 

"A breakthrough musical...Savvy, sassy and delicious!"—The New York Times

 

Winner of three Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Avenue Q is the hilarious and irreverent smash-hit musical about real life in New York City. See what all the fuzz is about.


(all titles and dates subject to change)