TAP Announces 2016 Season

Third Avenue Playhouse (TAP) recently announced its 2016 Winter/Spring Season.

From March 3 – 20, TAP brings The Amish Project to the stage, directed by James Valcq and featuring Katherine Duffy. The Amish Project is a stirring tribute to the strength of community and the power of forgiveness. The Amish Project is a devastating and beautiful one-woman tour-de-force that compels audiences to question the paths we take at the crossroads of grief, rage and clemency. Inspired by the 2006 school shootings in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, this fictional account of a real-life tragedy allows us to glimpse into the world of Amish culture, and to come to grips with the true limits of compassion and forgiveness.

A Walk in the Woods will run March 31 – April 17, directed by Robert Boles and featuring Carrie Hitchcock and Alan Kopischke. Set in a wooded area outside of Geneva, Switzerland, the play, nominated for both the Pulitzer Prize and the Tony Award, depicts the developing relationship between two arms limitation negotiators, one Russian and one American, over a year of negotiation.

“Close to You, the Music of the Carpenters” returns to TAP on April 30. Lisa Rock and her incredible band return by popular demand with their memorable tribute to The Carpenters. This concert is part of their 2015-2016 coast-to-coast U.S. tour.

From May 6 – 8, StageKids presents The Laramie Project with high school students from throughout Door County and directed by Robert Boles. In 1998 the murder of a gay University of Wyoming student by the name of Matthew Shepard caught the attention of the world and sparked a debate that continues to this day on the need for federal and state hate crime laws. The play draws on hundreds of interviews conducted by the Tectonic Theatre Project with inhabitants of the town, company members’ own journal entries, and published news reports. Each performance will be followed by an audience talk back with the cast and director.

From May 19 – June 5, PATIO/PORCH, directed by James Valcq and featuring Amy Ensign and Jacque Troy, will be performed. PATIO/PORCH is a pair of two-character plays that provides contrasting but equally incisive studies of life in small-town Texas. “PATIO” is set in the backyard of a middle-class Texas home. Pearl, the younger sister, is preparing a going-away party for her older sister, Jewel, a beautician who is bored with small-town life and is heading off hopefully to the big city. As the two bustle about setting out food and putting up decorations, their conversation reveals progressively more and more of their differences and dreams.

In “PORCH,” the two characters are a crotchety old woman and her restless daughter. As they sit on their ramshackle front porch, complaining of the heat, the meanness of the mother and the aching frustration of the daughter are made vivid through dialogue that captures their longing with humor and heart.

All evening performances begin at 7:30 pm, and matinees begin at 2 pm. For more information visit thirdavenueplayhouse.com or call 920.743.1760.