Peninsula Players Theatre Announces 2016 Performance Lineup

Peninsula Players Theatre is thrilled to announce its 81st season performing June 14 through October 16, 2016.

“Less than two weeks ago Peninsula Players closed a successful 2015 season (our 80th), but, even before it was over, audiences leaving the fall’s final production of Nunsense were eagerly telling me how much they were already looking forward to next season and asking me what it was going to be,” said Artistic Director Greg Vinkler. “I usually just smile and say ‘We’ll see,’ not having any idea what the heck it’ll be, but this year I did indeed have a good idea and am surprising a lot of people by announcing next year’s season now!”

Chapatti, the Wisconsin première of Christian O’Reilly’s late-in-life romance opens the Peninsula Players 81st season, June 14 – July 3. Unexpected sparks fly when Betty, the caregiver to an older woman and 19 cats, meets Dan and his dog Chapatti in a Dublin vet office. This funny, gentle and poignant story centers around two lonely animal lovers who rediscover, very unexpectedly, the need for caring and companionship.

Agatha Christie’s The Hollow plays July 6 – July 24. The Players second play is a brilliant murder mystery set in a classic English country house after WWII.

The Full Monty, the big pop-rock musical, takes it all off for the Players third opening, July 27 – Aug. 14. Based on the Oscar-nominated film of the same name, this adult musical comedy has a very warm heart at the center of its raucous fun. Six unemployed, misfit and discouraged Buffalo steelworkers are low on cash and prospects. After seeing how much their wives enthusiastically enjoyed a touring company of the Chippendales, these average Joes decide to earn some quick cash by trying hard to put together a similar act and show the world what they’re made of.

For the fourth production the Players are proud to present the Midwest première of Kenneth Jones’ new play Alabama Story, Aug. 17 – Sept. 4. Inspired by true events, it centers on Emily Wheelock Reed, a fearless librarian who fights a campaign to purge, what becomes during the course of the play, a controversial book from the state library. The book is The Rabbit’s Wedding, a picture book aimed towards children aged 3 to 7, illustrated by Garth Williams. The book tells the sweet story of two little rabbits who lived ‘happily ever after’ in the friendly forest. However, one rabbit is white and the other black and we are in 1959 Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama Story was a 2014 finalist for the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Playwrights Conference.

The Players close the season from Sept. 7 – Oct. 16 with the wildly comic thriller The 39 Steps by Patrick Barlow in which the entirety of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 adventure film The 39 Steps (with more than 150 characters) is performed on stage by a cast of only four. It’s filled with dangerous femme fatales, dastardly villains, deadly assassins and lightning-fast costume changes.

More information on casting, etc. for the 2016 season will be forthcoming in 2016. Season ticket sales for the 2016 season begin in January. Individual online ticket sales will be available in March. For gift certificates and more information, visit peninsulaplayers.com or call 920.868.3287.