Phoenix Theatre (Indianapolis)
Encyclopedia
The Phoenix Theatre is a professional non-profit theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...

 located in downtown Indianapolis
Indianapolis
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...

, on Park Avenue near Massachusetts Avenue. It was founded by Bryan D. Fonseca in 1983, initially to perform the three-part (three evening) science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 play, Warp!
Warp!
Warp!, also spelled Warp, was an American science-fiction play created at Chicago, Illinois' Organic Theatre Company in 1971 by co-authors Stuart Gordon and Lenny Kleinfeld, the latter under the pseudonym Bury St. Edmund. The play moved to Broadway for a short run in February 1973...

. It is housed in a church where Jim Jones
Jim Jones
James Warren "Jim" Jones was the founder and leader of the Peoples Temple, which is best known for the November 18, 1978 mass suicide of 909 Temple members in Jonestown, Guyana along with the killings of five other people at a nearby airstrip.Jones was born in Indiana and started the Temple in...

 once preached, a fact that was brought into their production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (musical)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical about a fictional rock and roll band fronted by an East German transgender singer. The text is by John Cameron Mitchell, and the music and lyrics are by Stephen Trask. The musical premiered in 1998 and has been performed throughout the world in hundreds...

. The theatre continues to be run by Fonseca, who serves as Producing Director and directs many of the produced plays.

Fare at the Phoenix tends to be edgy, often with adult language and situations, violence, and even occasional nudity. They have often featured plays dealing with sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...

, homosexuality
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...

, women's issues, AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...

, African-American issues (they have done all of August Wilson
August Wilson
August Wilson was an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...

's plays as they became available for regional theatre use), abuse, and mental disorders.

In 2002, they began using half-seasons, after a coup created by some scheduling problems allowed them to acquire the rights to Bat Boy: The Musical
Bat Boy: The Musical
Bat Boy: The Musical is a musical with a book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming and music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe, based on a June 23, 1992 Weekly World News story about a half-boy, half-bat, dubbed "Bat Boy", found living in a cave....

before it would have been available to theatres with full seasons, thus they were the first regional theatre ever to perform the play.

The theatre also hosts the annual Festival of Emerging American Theatre (FEAT) Awards, originally an open but now a closed competition, which has resulted in productions of anywhere from one to four world premiere productions each season. Toni Press-Coffman
Toni Press-Coffman
Toni Press-Coffman is an American playwright, living and working in Tucson, Arizona. She was born and raised in New York City.-Career overview:...

, with two FEAT wins, became playwright-in-residence in 2000, not long after the second of these was chosen.

Production history

(*=world premiere production)

1983-1984
  • WARP! I,II, & III by Stuart Gordon
    Stuart Gordon
    After the University of Wisconsin demanded future theatrical productions by Screw Theater be overseen by a University Professor, Gordon cut his University ties to form Broom Street Theater. Its first production, the new translation of the risque Lysistrata, premiered in May 1969. Gordon is...

     & Bury St. Edmond
  • Talking With… by Jane Martin
  • Krapp's Last Tape
    Krapp's Last Tape
    Krapp's Last Tape is a one-act play, written in English, by Samuel Beckett. Consisting of a cast of one man, it was originally written for Northern Irish actor Patrick Magee and first titled "Magee monologue"...

    by Samuel Beckett
    Samuel Beckett
    Samuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...

  • How I Got That Story by Amlin Gray
  • Plenty
    Plenty (play)
    Plenty is a play by David Hare, first performed in 1978, about British post-war disillusion. Susan Traherne, a former secret agent, is a woman conflicted by the contrast between her past, exciting triumphs—she had worked behind enemy lines as a Special Operations Executive courier in Nazi-occupied...

    by David Hare
    David Hare (dramatist)
    Sir David Hare is an English playwright and theatre and film director.-Early life:Hare was born in St Leonards-on-Sea, Hastings, East Sussex, the son of Agnes and Clifford Hare, a sailor. He was educated at Lancing, an independent school in West Sussex, and at Jesus College, Cambridge...

  • Lemonade by James Prideaux
  • Cloud Nine
    Cloud Nine (play)
    Cloud Nine is a two-act play written by British playwright Caryl Churchill after workshops with the Joint Stock Theatre Company in late 1978 and first performed at Dartington College of Arts, Devon, on 14 February 1979....

    by Caryl Churchill
    Caryl Churchill
    Caryl Churchill is an English dramatist known for her use of non-naturalistic techniques and feminist themes, the abuses of power, and sexual politics. She is acknowledged as a major playwright in the English language and a leading female writer...

  • Summer Lights* by Sam Smiley
  • Escapes* by David Stooks
  • The Legs on Charlie's Car* by John Sarno
  • Necessities* by Kathy Fletcher & Rita Kohn
  • Sour Noodles* by Jim Watt


1984-1985
  • Agnes of God
    Agnes of God
    Agnes of God is a play by John Pielmeier which tells the story of a novice nun who gives birth and insists that the dead child was the result of a virgin conception. A psychiatrist and the mother superior of the convent clash during the resulting investigation...

    by John Pielmeier
    John Pielmeier
    John Pielmeier is an American playwright and screenwriter.Born in Altoona, Pennsylvania, Pielmeier earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Catholic University of America in 1970 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1978...

  • Crimes of the Heart
    Crimes of the Heart
    Crimes of the Heart is a play by Beth Henley.-Synopsis:At the core of the tragic comedy are the three Magrath sisters, Meg, Babe, and Lenny, who reunite at Old Granddaddy's home in Hazlehurst, Mississippi after Babe shoots her abusive husband. The trio was raised in a dysfunctional family with a...

    by Beth Henley
    Beth Henley
    Elizabeth Becker "Beth" Henley is an American dramatist and actress. She writes primarily about women's issues and family in the Southern United States. She is also a screenwriter who has written many film adaptations of her plays...

  • The Lion in Winter
    The Lion in Winter
    -Synopsis:Set during Christmas 1183 at Henry II of England's château in Chinon, Anjou, Angevin Empire, the play opens with the arrival of Henry's wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, whom he has had imprisoned since 1173...

    by James Goldman
    James Goldman
    James Goldman was an American screenwriter and playwright, and the brother of screenwriter and novelist William Goldman.He was born in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up primarily in Highland Park, Illinois, a Chicago suburb...

  • Baby With the Bathwater
    Baby with the Bathwater
    Baby with the Bathwater is a play by Christopher Durang about a boy named Daisy, his influences, and his eventual outcome.-Act I:Two parents who are completely unprepared for parenthood bring home their newborn baby. The two cannot seem to name the baby. John thinks the baby is a boy, but Helen...

    by Christopher Durang
    Christopher Durang
    Christopher Ferdinand Durang is an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s.- Life :...

  • March of the Falsettos
    March of the Falsettos
    March of the Falsettos is a musical with a book, lyrics, and music by William Finn.A sequel to In Trousers, the one-acter continues the story of Marvin and his journey in search of self-understanding, inner peace, and a life with a "happily ever after" ending...

    by William Finn
    William Finn
    William Alan Finn is an American composer and lyricist of musicals. His musical Falsettos received the 1992 Tony Awards for Best Music and Lyrics and for Best Book.-Biography:...

  • Dear John* by Marcia Cebulska
  • True West
    True West (play)
    True West is a play by American playwright Sam Shepard. Like most of his works it is inspired by myths of American life and popular culture. The play is a more traditional narrative than most of the plays that Shepard has written.-Plot:...

    by Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...

  • Taking Steps by Alan Ayckbourn
    Alan Ayckbourn
    Sir Alan Ayckbourn CBE is a prolific English playwright. He has written and produced seventy-three full-length plays in Scarborough and London and was, between 1972 and 2009, the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough, where all but four of his plays have received their...

  • The Call* by Bruce Gelfand
  • My Hand is Not My Heart* by Jack Randall Earles
  • Prep Work* by Bruce Gelfand
  • Porch Songs* by Pearl Cleage
    Pearl Cleage
    Pearl Cleage is an African-American author whose work, both fiction and non-fiction, has been widely recognized. Her novel, What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day was a 1998 Oprah’s Book Club selection. Cleage is known for her feminist views, particularly regarding her identity as an...

  • …And Stuff* by Peter Dee


1985-1986
  • Stage Struck by Simon Gray
    Simon Gray
    Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...

  • Balm in Gilead
    Balm in Gilead
    Balm in Gilead is a 1965 play written by American playwright Lanford Wilson.-Dramatic structure:Wilson's first full-length effort, Balm in Gilead centers on a cafe frequented by heroin addicts, prostitutes and thieves...

    by Lanford Wilson
    Lanford Wilson
    Lanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...

  • El Grande de Coca-Cola by House, Andrews, Shearman, Willis, & White
  • As Is by William F. Hoffman
  • A Soldier's Play
    A Soldier's Play
    A Soldier's Play is a drama by Charles Fuller. The play uses a murder mystery to explore the complicated feelings of anger and resentment that some African Americans have toward one another, and the ways in which many black Americans have absorbed white racist attitudes.This play is loosely based...

    by Charles Fuller
    Charles Fuller
    Charles H. Fuller, Jr. is an American playwright, best known for his play, A Soldier's Play, for which he received the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.-Early years:...

  • Accidental Death of an Anarchist
    Accidental Death of an Anarchist
    Accidental Death of an Anarchist is perhaps the best-known play by the Nobel Prize winner Dario Fo.- About the play :...

    by Dario Fo
    Dario Fo
    Dario Fo is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor and composer. His dramatic work employs comedic methods of the ancient Italian commedia dell'arte, a theatrical style popular with the working classes. He currently owns and operates a theatre company with his wife, actress...

  • Waiting for the Parade by John Murrell
    John Murrell (playwright)
    John Murrell, OC, AOE is an American-born Canadian playwright.Born in Lubbock, Texas, Murrel moved to Alberta after graduating from Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas with a BFA in 1968. He moved to Canada to avoid the draft, studying at the University of Calgary...

  • The Madness of Lady Bright
    The Madness of Lady Bright
    The Madness of Lady Bright is a short play by Lanford Wilson, among the earliest of the gay theatre movement. It was first performed at Joe Cino's Caffe Cino in May 1964 and went on to tour internationally, appearing in revivals to the present day...

    by Lanford Wilson
    Lanford Wilson
    Lanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...

  • Days of our Dumping* by D.J.L. Neruda
  • Don't Crush that Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers by Firesign Theatre
  • The Lesson by Eugene Ionesco
    Eugène Ionesco
    Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...

  • Centaurs* by Marcia Cebulska
  • Night Commander* by Silas Jones
  • Replay* by Bruce MacDonald
  • Prairie Sunset* by Richard Sutherland


1986-1987
  • The Threepenny Opera
    The Threepenny Opera
    The Threepenny Opera is a musical by German dramatist Bertolt Brecht and composer Kurt Weill, in collaboration with translator Elisabeth Hauptmann and set designer Caspar Neher. It was adapted from an 18th-century English ballad opera, John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and offers a Marxist critique...

    by Bertolt Brecht
    Bertolt Brecht
    Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...

     & Kurt Weill
    Kurt Weill
    Kurt Julian Weill was a German-Jewish composer, active from the 1920s, and in his later years in the United States. He was a leading composer for the stage who was best known for his fruitful collaborations with Bertolt Brecht...

  • *Orphans
    Orphans (Lyle Kessler play)
    Orphans is a play by Lyle Kessler. It premiered in 1983 at the in Los Angeles starring Joe Pantoliano, Lane Smith and Paul Leiber, where it received critical and commercial success and won the Drama-Logue Award....

     by Lyle Kessler
    Lyle Kessler
    Lyle Kessler is an American playwright, screenwriter and actor, best known internationally for Orphans, the play he wrote in 1983.-Actor:...

  • The Real Thing
    The Real Thing (play)
    The Real Thing is a play by Tom Stoppard, first performed in 1982. It examines the nature of honesty, and its use of a play within a play is one of many levels on which the author teases the audience with the difference between semblance and reality....

    by Tom Stoppard
    Tom Stoppard
    Sir Tom Stoppard OM, CBE, FRSL is a British playwright, knighted in 1997. He has written prolifically for TV, radio, film and stage, finding prominence with plays such as Arcadia, The Coast of Utopia, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour, Professional Foul, The Real Thing, and Rosencrantz and...

  • Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
    Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
    Ma Rainey's Black Bottom is a 1982 play - one of the ten-play Pittsburgh Cycle by August Wilson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning American playwright - that chronicles the twentieth century African American experience...

    by August Wilson
    August Wilson
    August Wilson was an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...

  • Shivaree by William Mastrosimone
    William Mastrosimone
    William Mastrosimone is an American playwright and screenwriter from Trenton, New Jersey. He attended high school at The Pennington School and received a graduate degree in playwrighting from Mason Gross School of the Arts, a part of Rutgers University....

  • Hurlyburly
    Hurlyburly
    Hurlyburly is a dark comedy play by David Rabe, first staged in 1984.-Plot:More than three hours long, Hurlyburly focuses on the intersecting lives of several low- to mid-level Hollywood players in the 1980s. Fueled by massive amounts of drugs, they attempt to find some meaning in their isolated,...

    by David Rabe
  • Hair
    Hair (musical)
    Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. A product of the hippie counter-culture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement...

    by Gerome Ragni
    Gerome Ragni
    Gerome Bernard Ragni was an American actor, singer and songwriter, best known as the co-author of the groundbreaking 1960s Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical.-Early life:...

    , James Rado, & Galt MacDermot
    Galt MacDermot
    Galt MacDermot is a Canadian composer, pianist and writer of musical theatre. He won a Grammy Award for the song African Waltz in 1960. His most successful musicals have been Hair and Two Gentlemen of Verona...

  • Dreams* by Nell Weatherwax
  • Pumpkin Pie, Sweet Potato Pie, and Other Cultural Differences by Various Poets
  • Cowboy Mouth
    Cowboy Mouth (play)
    Cowboy Mouth is a 1971 play, written and performed by Sam Shepard and Patti Smith, and directed by Robert Glaudini.-Plot:The play is about Cavale and Slim, two absolute messes living in sin together. Unable to move, yet at complete unrest, Slim swings from blaming Cavale for the disaster that is...

    by Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...

  • Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music by Lee Blessing
    Lee Blessing
    -Biography:Blessing's best-known play is A Walk in the Woods, which depicts the developing relationship between two arms limitation negotiators, one Russian and one American, over years of negotiation...

  • Grendel!
    Grendel (novel)
    Grendel is a 1971 parallel novel by American author John Gardner. It is a retelling of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf from the perspective of the antagonist, Grendel. The novel deals with finding meaning in the world, the power of literature and myth, and the nature of good and evil.Grendel...

    * by John Gardner & Bart Simpson
  • Spell #7 by Ntozake Shange
    Ntozake Shange
    Ntozake Shange born October 18, 1948, is an American playwright, and poet. As a self proclaimed black feminist, much of the content of her work addresses issues relating to race and feminism....

  • Rap Master Ronnie by Garry Trudeau
    Garry Trudeau
    Garretson Beekman "Garry" Trudeau is an American cartoonist, best known for the Doonesbury comic strip.-Background and education:...

     & Elizabeth Swados
    Elizabeth Swados
    Elizabeth Swados is an American writer, composer, musician, and theatre director. While some of her subject matter is humorous, such as her satirical look at Ronald Reagan, Rap Master Ronnie, and Doonesbury - both collaborations with Garry Trudeau - much of her work deals with dark issues such as...

  • Not Funny* by Douglas Anderson
  • Caril & Charlie* by Gram Slaton
  • Ken's Brain* by Jim Mitchell


1987-1988
  • Execution of Justice by Emily Mann
    Emily Mann (director)
    Emily Mann, born April 12, 1952, is the multi-award–winning Artistic Director and Resident Playwright of McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, where she has overseen over 85 productions....

  • …and when the bough breaks* by Marcia Cebulska
  • Loot
    Loot (play)
    Loot is a two-act play by the English playwright Joe Orton. The play is a dark farce that satirises the Roman Catholic Church, social attitudes to death, and the integrity of the police force....

    by Joe Orton
    Joe Orton
    John Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...

  • Advice to the Players by Bruce Bonafede
  • Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You
    Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You
    Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You is a play by Christopher Durang first performed on December 14, 1979, at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City. It was performed on a bill with one-act plays that included works by David Mamet, Marsha Norman, and Tennessee Williams...

    by Christopher Durang
    Christopher Durang
    Christopher Ferdinand Durang is an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s.- Life :...

  • A Lie of the Mind
    A Lie of the Mind
    A Lie of the Mind is a play written by Sam Shepard, first staged at the off-Broadway Promenade Theater on 5 December 1985. The play was directed by Shepard himself with stars Harvey Keitel as Jake, Amanda Plummer as Beth, Aidan Quinn as Frankie, Geraldine Page as Lorraine, and Will Patton as Mike...

    by Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard
    Sam Shepard is an American playwright, actor, and television and film director. He is the author of several books of short stories, essays, and memoirs, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1979 for his play Buried Child...

  • Savage/Love and Tongues
    Tongues (play)
    Tongues is a 1978 play by Sam Shepard and Joseph Chaikin. Tongues is a series of monologues set to percussion and meant for one actor. Shepard and Chaikin had previously agreed to do a piece surrounding the concept of the voice, and nearing completion of the piece, decided it required some kind of...

    by Sam Shepard
  • A…My Name is Alice by Joan Micklin Silver
    Joan Micklin Silver
    Joan Micklin Silver is an American director.She was born in Omaha, Nebraska and received her B.A. From Sarah Lawrence College....

     & Julianne Boyd
  • Chug by Ken Jenkins
    Ken Jenkins
    Ken Jenkins is an American actor, best known for his role as Dr. Bob Kelso, the Chief of Medicine on the American comedy Scrubs....

  • Graceland by Ellen Byron
  • The House of Blue Leaves
    The House of Blue Leaves
    The House of Blue Leaves is a play by American playwright John Guare, first staged in 1966 by Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut....

    by John Guare
    John Guare
    John Guare is an American playwright. He is best known as the author of The House of Blue Leaves, Six Degrees of Separation, and Landscape of the Body...

  • Cards & Beer* by Jack Randall Earles
  • Rebels* by Gary Williams & Steven Ridenour
  • Nightbreath* by Dennis Clontz


1988-1989
  • Steel Magnolias
    Steel Magnolias
    Steel Magnolias is a 1989 American comedy-drama film directed by Herbert Ross that stars Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah and Julia Roberts....

    by Robert Harling
    Robert Harling (writer)
    Robert Harling is an American writer, producer and film director best known for his play Steel Magnolias.-Life and Career:Robert Harling was born in 1951 in Natchitoches, Louisiana...

  • Miss Margarida's Way by Roberto Athayde
  • Bouncers by John Godber
    John Godber
    John Harry Godber is an English dramatist, known mainly for his observational comedies. In the 'Plays and Players Yearbook' for 1993 he was calculated as the third most performed playwright in the UK behind William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn. He has a wife and 2 children.-Biography:Godber was...

  • Dreamgirls by Tom Eyen
    Tom Eyen
    Tom Eyen was an American playwright, lyricist, television writer and theatre director.Eyen is best known for works at opposite ends of the theatrical spectrum...

     & Harry Krieger
  • Laughing Wild
    Laughing Wild
    Laughing Wild is a 1987 play written by Christopher Durang.The show is written for one actor and one actress. The woman's character is emotional and unstable, and talks about hitting someone in the supermarket who wouldn't get out of the way of the tuna fish she wanted to buy. The man's character...

    by Christopher Durang
    Christopher Durang
    Christopher Ferdinand Durang is an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s.- Life :...

  • Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune
    Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune
    Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune is a two-character play by Terrence McNally.It focuses on two lonely, middle-aged people whose first date ends with them tumbling into bed. Johnny is certain he has found his soul mate in Frankie. She, on the other hand, is far more cautious and disinclined...

    by Terrence McNally
    Terrence McNally
    Terrence McNally is an American playwright who has received four Tony Awards, an Emmy, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Rockefeller Grant, the Lucille Lortel Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, and a citation from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He has been a member of the Council of the...

  • Coastal Disturbances by Tina Howe
    Tina Howe
    Tina Howe is an American playwright. She is the daughter of journalist Quincy Howe and was raised in a literary family...

  • Beach Party Nuclear Protest* by Jack Randall Earles & David Meek
  • Lloyd's Prayer by Kevin Kling
    Kevin Kling
    Kevin Kling is an American commentator for National Public Radio and acclaimed storyteller.Kevin Kling grew up in Osseo, Minnesota and graduated from Gustavus Adolphus College in 1979 with a B. A. in Theatre...

  • Aunt Dan & Lemon by Wallace Shawn
    Wallace Shawn
    Wallace Michael Shawn , sometimes credited as Wally Shawn, is an American stand-up comedian, actor, writer, author, voice artist, and intellectual. His best-known film roles include Wally Shawn in My Dinner with Andre , Vizzini in The Princess Bride , and debate teacher Mr...

  • Three Guys Naked from the Waist Down by Jerry Colker & Michael Rupert
  • Mr. Right and Other Stories* by Linda Carson
  • Mortal Risk* by Ron Marks


1989-1990
  • Burn This by Lanford Wilson
    Lanford Wilson
    Lanford Wilson was an American playwright who helped to advance the Off-Off-Broadway theater movement. He received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1980, was elected in 2001 to the Theater Hall of Fame, and in 2004 was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters...

  • Beirut by Alan Bowne
    Alan Bowne
    Alan Bowne was an American playwright and author. He was a member of the New Dramatists.He wrote a number of plays including Beirut, Forty-Deuce, Sharon and Billy, and The Beany and Cecil Show, many of which are available from Broadway Play Publishing Inc..He also wrote one novel Wally Wonderstruck...

  • The Day Room
    The Day Room (play)
    The Day Room is a play written by Don DeLillo and first produced at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts in April, 1986. It is DeLillo's first play. Since its premiere, the play has been produced in New York in 1987, and in Chicago in 1989 and 1993, among others. The first...

    by Don DeLillo
    Don DeLillo
    Don DeLillo is an American author, playwright, and occasional essayist whose work paints a detailed portrait of American life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries...

  • Here I Am* by David Meek (cabaret)
  • On the Verge (or The Geography of Yearning) by Eric Overmyer
    Eric Overmyer
    Eric Overmyer is a writer and producer. He has written and/or produced numerous TV shows, including St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Street, Law & Order, The Wire, New Amsterdam, and Treme.-Biography:...

  • Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends (A Final Evening with the Illuminati)
    Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends (A Final Evening with the Illuminati)
    Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends is a comedy by Larry Larson and Levi Lee, first performed in 1981 at the Nexus Theatre in Atlanta Georgia. In 1986 it was performed at the Humana Festival at the Actor's Theatre of Louisville in 1986 and subsequently published by Dramatists Play...

    by Larry Lawson
    Larry Lawson
    Larry Lawson is an American playwright, actor, and director. He, along with Levi Lee and Rebecca Wackler, created the plays Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends and Tent Meeting....

     & Levi Lee
  • The Rocky Horror Show
    The Rocky Horror Show
    The Rocky Horror Show is a long-running British horror comedy stage musical, which opened in London on 19 June 1973. It was written by Richard O'Brien, produced and directed by Jim Sharman. It came eighth in a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the "Nation's Number One Essential Musicals"...

    by Richard O'Brien
    Richard O'Brien
    Richard Timothy Smith , better known under his stage name Richard O'Brien, is an English writer, actor, television presenter and theatre performer. He is perhaps best known for writing the cult musical The Rocky Horror Show and for his role in presenting the popular TV show The Crystal Maze...

  • Fences
    Fences
    Fences is a 1983 play by American playwright August Wilson. Set in the 1950s, it is the sixth in Wilson's ten-part Pittsburgh Cycle. Like all of the Pittsburgh plays, Fences explores the evolving African-American experience and examines race relations, among other themes...

    by August Wilson
    August Wilson
    August Wilson was an American playwright whose work included a series of ten plays, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama...

  • The Marriage of Bette & Boo by Christopher Durang
    Christopher Durang
    Christopher Ferdinand Durang is an American playwright known for works of outrageous and often absurd comedy. His work was especially popular in the 1980s.- Life :...

  • The Boys Next Door by Tom Griffin
  • Su Me* by Su Ours (cabaret)
  • Boy's Life by Howard Korder
  • Stiff Cuffs* by Christina Cocek & John DiAguino
  • Elizabeth/Regina* by Linda Carson


1990-1991
  • Eastern Standard by Richard Greenberg
  • T-Bone And Weasel by Jon Klein
  • Split Second by Dennis McIntyre
  • Vampire Lesbians of Sodom by Charles Busch
  • Reckless by Craig Lucas
  • Eleemossynary by Lee Blessing
  • One Mo' Time by Vernel Bagneris
  • Kennedy's Children by Robert Patrick
  • Roosters by Milcha Sanchez Scott
  • Woman in Mind by Alan Ayckbourn
  • The Mystery of Irma Vep by Charles Ludlum
  • Lady & the Clarinet by Michael Cristopher
  • Dorothy Parker-A Symptom Recital* by Leo P. Carusone
  • Dragon Slayers* by William Rough


1991-1992
  • Other People's Money by Jerry Sterner
  • Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill by Lanie Robertson
  • Square One by Steve Tesich
  • The Cemetery Club by Ivan Menchell
  • Only Kidding! by Jim Gehoghan
  • 4 AM America by Ping Chong
  • Christmas on Mars by Harry Kondoleon
  • The Heidi Chronicles by Wendy Wasserstien
  • Angry Housewives by A.M. Collins & Chad Henry
  • Joe Turner's Come & Gone by August Wilson
  • The Lisbon Traviata by Terrence McNally
  • Womandingo* by Sterling Houston & Arnold Aprill
  • Objects in the Mirror are Closer than They Appear* by Lester Purley & Mark Cryer
  • hip my heart* by Paulette Licitra


1992-1993
  • M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang
  • Dorothy Parker-A Symptom Recital* by Leo P. Carusone
  • Lips Together, Teeth Apart by Terrence McNally
  • The Promise by Jose Rivera
  • Assassins by Stephen Sondheim & John Weidman
  • Sight Unseen by Donald Margulies
  • The Piano Lesson by August Wilson
  • Blind Spot* by Michael Davis Sutton
  • Candy Store Window* by Cherie Bennett


1993-1994
  • The Good Times Are Killing Me by Lynda Barry
  • Six Degrees of Separation by John Guare
  • Su Ours: No E, No H, Noel* by Su Ours & Michael Klass (cabaret)
  • Marvin's Room by Scott McPherson
  • Death & the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman
  • Three Ways Home by Casey Kurtti
  • Mama Drama by Leslie Ayvazian, Christine Farrell, Donna Dailey, Mariana Houston, Rita Nactmann, & Anne O'Sullivan
  • Pretty Girls, Not too Bright* by Dos Fallopia (Peggy Platt & Lisa Koch)
  • Heart Timers* by Stuart Warmflash
  • Veronica's Position* by Rich Orloff


1994-1995
  • Falsettos by William Finn & James Lapine
  • Keely & Du by Jane Martin
  • Five Guys Named Moe by Clarke Peters
  • Conversations With My Father by Herb Gardener
  • All in the Timing by David Ives
  • Jeffrey by Paul Rudnick
  • Bewitched, Bothered & Bananas* by Dos Fallopia (Lisa Koch & Peggy Platt)
  • Points of Deviation* by Scott Sandoe
  • Scotland Road by Jeffery Hatcher


1995-1996
  • The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe by Jane Wagner
  • If We Are Women by Joanna Glass
  • The Holiday Survival Game Show* by Dos Fallopia (Lisa Koch & Peggy Platt)
  • Six Women with Brain Death by Mark Houston
  • Denial of the Fittest by Judith Sloan & Warren Leher
  • Love! Valour! Compassion! by Terrence McNally
  • Spike Heels by Theresa Rebeck
  • Glengarry Glen Ross by David Mamet
  • Pretty Girls, Not too Bright* by Dos Fallopia (Lisa Koch & Peggy Platt)
  • The Katydid* by Michael Davis Sutton


1996-1997
  • Whoop-Dee-Doo! by Howard Crabtree
  • Three Viewings by Jeffery Hatcher
  • The Holiday Survival Game Show* by Peggy Platt, Rick Rankin, & Lisa Koch
  • A Tuna Christmas by Ed Howard, Joe Sears, & Jaston Williams
  • Florida * by Marcia Cebulska
  • Trick the Devil by Bill Harris
  • Sylvia by AR Gurney
  • All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Ernest Zulia, David Caldwell, & Robert Fulghum
  • Worst of Dos Fallopia* by Dos Fallopia (Peggy Platt & Lisa Koch)
  • Reading the Mind of God * by Pat Gabridge
  • Girl Party * by David Dillion & Virginia Smiley


1997-1998
  • The Old Settler by John Henry Redwood
  • Poor Super Man by Brad Fraser
  • The Holiday Survival Game Show* by Jack O'Hara
  • Summer Games* by James Farrell
  • Taking Sides by Ronald Harwood
  • Durang/Durang by Christopher Durang
  • Company by Stephen Sondheim & George Furth
  • latitude* by Tony McDonald
  • Party by David Dillon
  • Bride of Dos Fallopia* by Dos Fallopia (Peggy Platt & Lisa Koch)
  • Princess Warrior by Julie Goldman


1998-1999
  • Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner
  • Angels in America: Perestroika by Tony Kushner
  • The Holiday Survival Game Show* by Jack O'Hara
  • How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel
  • Mother Russia* by Jeffrey Hatcher
  • No Way to Treat a Lady by Douglas J. Cohen
  • Shakin the Mess Outta Misery by Shay Youngblood
  • Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde by Moises Kaufman
  • The Gene Pool by Christi Stewart-Brown
  • As Bees in Honey Drown by Douglas Carter Beane
  • Lisa Koch and Friends* by Lisa Koch
  • Touch* by Toni Press-Coffman


1999-2000
  • Three Days of Rain by Richard Greenberg
  • The Woman in Black
    The Woman in Black
    The Woman in Black is a 1983 thriller fiction novel by Susan Hill about a menacing spectre that haunts a small English town.It was adapted into a stage play by Stephen Mallatratt...

     by Stephen Mallatratt
    Stephen Mallatratt
    Stephen Mallatratt was an English playwright and television screenwriter. He is best known for his television work on the ITV series Coronation Street, The Forsyte Saga and Island at War , and for his stage adaptation of the novel The Woman in Black...

  • The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told by Paul Rudnick
  • The Holiday Millennium Game Show* by Jack O'Hara
  • Jackie: An American Life by Gip Hoppe
  • The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh
  • Wit by Margaret Edson
  • Beautiful Thing by Jonathan Harvey
  • Journal of Ordinary Thought by David Barr
  • Resident Alien by Stuart Spencer


2000-2001
  • Snakebit by David Marshall Grant
  • The Gathering by Will Power
  • Tongue of a Bird by Ellen McLaughlin
  • The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris
    David Sedaris
    David Sedaris is a Grammy Award-nominated American humorist, writer, comedian, bestselling author, and radio contributor....

  • Uh, Oh - Here Comes Christmas by Ernie Zulia, David Caldwell
  • Bluff by Jeffrey Sweet
  • The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler
  • Fuddy Meers by David Lindsey Abaire
  • Another American: Asking and Telling by Marc Wolf
  • Bodies and Hearts in the Face of the Monster* by Toni Press-Coffman
  • Woody and Me* by Brad Erickson
  • Seven Guitars by August Wilson


2001-2002
  • The Laramie Project by Moises Kaufman
  • Two Trains Running by August Wilson
  • Ham for the Holidays by Dos Fallopia (Lisa Koch & Peggy Platt)
  • Dirty Blonde by Claudia Shear
  • This is our Youth by Kenneth Lonergan
  • True to Scale* by Wendy Beldon
  • savant* by Tony McDonald
  • Goats* by Alan Berks
  • Born to Goof* by Kevin Burke
  • Lunching by Alan Gross
  • Bat Boy: The Musical by Keythe Farley, Brian Flemming, & Laurence O'Keefe
  • The Action Against Sol Schumann by Jeffrey Sweet


2002 - 2003
  • Proof by David Auburn
  • Flow by Will Power
  • Hedwig and the Angry Inch
    Hedwig and the Angry Inch (musical)
    Hedwig and the Angry Inch is a rock musical about a fictional rock and roll band fronted by an East German transgender singer. The text is by John Cameron Mitchell, and the music and lyrics are by Stephen Trask. The musical premiered in 1998 and has been performed throughout the world in hundreds...

     by Stephen Trask & John Cameron Mitchell - starring Blaine Hogan
    Blaine Hogan
    Blaine Hogan is an actor from Minnesota, United States, who graduated from Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana and has performed on stage in Indianapolis and Chicago at the Indiana Rep, Chicago Shakespeare, and the Goodman Theatre...

    , Jessica Benge, Jimmy Sizemore, Royston Lloyd, Steve Hayes and Ryan
  • Over the Tavern by Tom Dudzick
  • Praying for Rain by Robert Lewis Vaughan
  • Stones in his Pockets by Marie Jones
  • The Washington-Sarajevo Talks by Carla Seaquist
  • The Home Team* by Kim Carney
  • La Sangre Llama* by Toni Press-Coffman & Tony Artis
  • Phideas8* by Mike Whistler
  • Spain by Jim Knable
  • The Handler by Robert Schenkkan


2003-2004
  • The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? by Edward Albee
  • Trucker Rhapsody* by Toni Press-Coffman
  • Circumference of a Squirrel by John Walch
  • Sophie Tucker: American Legend by Jack Fournier & Kathy Halenda
  • Boston Marriage by David Mamet
  • Curanderas by Elaine Romero
  • Loving Lucy by Philip blue owl Hooser
  • Take Me Out by Richard Greenberg
  • Top Dog/Underdog by Suzan-Lori Parks
  • Naked Boys Singing! by Robert Schrock
  • And/Or* by Andrew Barrett


2004-2005
  • The Exonerated by Jessica Blank & Erik Jensen
  • Crowns by Regina Taylor
  • Mrs. Bob Cratchit's Wild Christmas Binge by Christopher Durang
  • Running With Scissors by Michael McKeever
  • Blown Sideways Through Life by Claudia Shear
  • Frozen by Bryony Lavery
  • This Is My Body by Amy Fortoul
  • Rounding Third by Richard Dresser
  • Cabfare for the Common Man* by Mark Harvey Levine
  • Further Mo' by Vernel Bagneris
  • Bug
    Bug (play)
    Bug is a play by American playwright Tracy Letts. It was adapted into a film in 2006.- Synopsis :Most of the play takes place in a seedy motel room. Lonely cocktail waitress Agnes lives there, hiding from her violent ex-con ex-husband Jerry Goss. One night, her lesbian biker friend R.C. introduces...

     by Tracy Letts
    Tracy Letts
    Tracy Letts is an American playwright and actor who received the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play August: Osage County.-Biography:...



2005-2006
  • Urinetown
    Urinetown
    Urinetown: The Musical is a satirical comedy musical, with music by Mark Hollmann, lyrics by Hollmann and Greg Kotis, and book by Kotis. It satirizes the legal system, capitalism, social irresponsibility, populism, bureaucracy, corporate mismanagement, and municipal politics...

    : the Musical by Greg Kotis
    Greg Kotis
    Greg Kotis is a New York-based playwright, who specializes in dark, disturbing comedies with socially relevant themes.-Earlier career:Kotis studied political science at the University of Chicago. He dropped out when took a course on the Short Comic Scene, he realised that he wanted to be part of...

     & Mark Hollmann
    Mark Hollmann
    Mark Hollmann is an American composer and lyricist.Hollmann grew up in Fairview Heights Illinois, where he graduated from Belleville Township High School East in 1981. He won a 2002 Tony Award and a 2001 Obie Award for his music and lyrics to Urinetown. He is a former ensemble member of the...

  • I Am My Own Wife by Doug Wright
  • Every Christmas Story Ever Told!! by Michael Carleton, John Alvarez, & Jim Fitzgerald
  • A Number by Caryl Churchill
  • From My Hometown conceived by Lee Summers and written by Lee Summers, Ty Stephens, & Herbert Rawlings, Jr.
  • The Marijuana-logues by Arj Barker, Doug Benson, & Tony Camin
  • Orson's Shadow by Austin Pendleton
  • The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh
  • The Sugar Bean Sisters by Nathan Sanders
  • The Ice-Breaker by David Rambo


2006-2007
  • The Musical of Musicals: the Musical! by Eric Rockwell & Joanne Bogart
  • Nijinsky's Last Dance by Norman Allen
  • The Parenting Project: Callie's Tally by Betsy Howie & The Hoosier Dads by Kevin Burke, Dave Dugan, & Brad Tassell
  • A Very Phoenix Xmas* by Christopher Bibby, Dianne Cormier, Bryan Fonseca, Jonathan Graham, Lou Harry, Tony McDonald, Jack O'Hara, Peggy Platt, Joan & L. I. Rapkin, Matthew Roland, Chris Saunders, & Scott Warrender
  • Ten Percent of Molly Snyder (Marta Solano) by Richard Strand
  • tempOdyssey by Dan Dietz
  • Miss Witherspoon by Christopher Durang
  • Rhythms by Chris White (hosted... presented by DePauw University)
  • And Her Hair Went With Her* by Zina Camblin
  • Fat Pig by Neil LaBute
  • The Little Dog Laughed by Douglas Carter Beane
  • Dos Fallopia: Desperate Spuddwives by Lisa Koch and Peggy Platt


2007-2008
  • Altar Boyz Music, lyrics and vocal arrangements by Gary Adler and Michael Patrick Walker, book by Kevin Del Aguila - based on an idea by Ken Davenport and Marc Kessler
  • Stuff Happens by David Hare
  • A Very Phoenix Xmas* by various wacky playwrights
  • End Days by Deborah Zoe Laufer
  • The Lieutenant of Inishmore by Martin McDonagh
  • Well by Lisa Kron
  • Black Gold by Seth Rozin
  • Our Dad Is In Atlantis by Javier Malpica
  • Some Men by Terrence McNally
  • Murderers by Jeffrey Hatcher


2008-2009
  • November by David Mamet
  • Drunk Enough to Say I Love You? by Caryl Churchill
  • June 8, 1968 by Anna Theresa Cascio
  • On Thin Ice: A Very Phoenix Xmas 3* by various wacky playwrights
  • Love Person by Aditi Brennan Kapil
  • The Seafarer by Conor McPherson
  • Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck
  • References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot by José Rivera
  • The Zippers of Zoomerville - or 200 Laps and a Lass* by Jack O'Hara with music by Jack O'Hara and Tim Brickley
  • Octopus by Steven Yockey
  • The Dos and Don'ts of Time Travel by Nicholas Wardigo


2009-2010
  • The Most Damaging Wound by Blair Singer
  • Shipwrecked! An Entertainment by Donald Margulies
  • A Very Phoenix Xmas 4:Our Stockings Are Stuffed* by Various Artists
  • The Housewives of Mannheim by Alan Brody
  • Call Me Boricua!* by Ricardo Melendez
  • Sunlight* by Sharr White
  • Yankee Tavern by Steven Dietz
  • Speech and Debate by Stephen Karam
  • Reasons to Be Pretty by Neil LaBute
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