Past Productions
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Murder in Red and GreenNovember 29 - December 1, 2018
The New Theater of Meriden and The Curtis Cultural Center present a fun diversion from crazy, holiday merry making to enjoy some murder-filled holiday merry making fun! Someone isn't going to make it out alive when this murder mystery within a murder mystery gets underway! Someone isn't who they say they are.
Bring your own dinner before and enjoy our coffee and dessert at intermission! Tickets are $20 per person and include dessert at intermission. This show has some suggestive language and is enjoyed best by adults. Wear Your best Red and Green Holiday Attire for Special Prizes! Please bring an unwrapped gift for a child or young adult to make Christmas special for kids who won't otherwise receive a holiday gift. Crossing DelanceyApril 26 - 28, 2018
Isabel is a modern young woman who lives alone and works in a bookshop. When she is not pining after a handsome author, she is visiting he grandmother (Bubbie) in Manhattan's Lower East Side. This irascible granny and her friend the matchmaker have found a "good catch" for Isabel whose initial reluctance gives way to a blossoming romance when she finally meets Sam the pickle vendor.
Performances are in the beautiful Augusta Curtis Rotunda. |
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Scrooge's Christmas
November 30 - December 2, 2017
In Ken Jones' adaptation of Charles Dickens' classic tale, A Christmas Carol, a group of actors portray all the characters of this Christmas tradition. The ensemble provides the songs and sounds as the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is confronted by the Spirits of Past, Present and Future. This unique telling plays to the audience in the intimate setting of the beautiful Curtis Rotunda using nothing but costumes and a few props. Come experience the tradition with the entire family!
Love Letters by A.R. GurneyJuly 28 - July 30, 2017
When Andrew Makepeace Ladd III accepts an invitation to Melissa Gardners birthday party, and Melissa writes a thank-you note to ask just why he got her The Lost Princess of Oz (answer: she looks like a lost princess), a romantic friendship and correspondence destined to last for almost half a century is born. Both from affluent, East Coast families -- Melissa has more money, but Andy has better parents -- the friends communicate with each other through angst-ridden boarding school experiences, European adventures, failed marriages, and the ups and downs of career. Over the course of their lives, Andy and Melissa's relationship goes through many changes, as the sometimes-sweethearts/sometimes-friends go through periods of estrangement, and the intense, clandestine affair which will accelerate Melissa's emotional breakdown. Despite the painful differences which will ultimately tear them apart, they remain each others most trusted confidante, and are true lovers on paper, if not on the earth. A.R. Gurneys Love Letters is a tender, tragi-comic, and nuanced examination of the shared nostalgia, missed opportunities, and deep closeness of two lifelong, complicated friends. While spanning five decades and numerous locations, it is staged simply, with two actors behind desks or sitting in cozy chairs, letting their words describe a world of emotion.
Our production features three casts, one on each of three nights. July 28, (Friday) 7:30p Jessica Bruenn and David Pelletier July 29, (Saturday) 7:30p Susan Jeromson and Pat Petipas July 30, (Sunday) 2:00p Carolyn Daniels and David Wall Over the River and Through the WoodsApril 27-29, 2017
Nick is a single, Italian-American guy from New Jersey. His parents retired and moved to Florida. That doesn't mean his family isn't still in Jersey. In fact, he sees both sets of his grandparents every Sunday for dinner. This is routine until he has to tell them that he's been offered a dream job. The job he's been waiting for. The problem is that the promotion would take him away from his beloved, but annoying, grandparents. He tells them. The news doesn't sit so well. Thus begins a series of schemes to keep Nick around. How could he betray his family's love to move to Seattle, for a job, wonder his grandparents? Well, Frank, Aida, Nunzio and Emma do their level best, and that includes bringing to dinner the lovely and single Caitlin O'Hare as bait...!
The Cemetery ClubMarch 10-12, 2016
Three Jewish widows meet once a month for tea before going to visit their husband's graves. Ida is sweet tempered and ready to begin a new life, Lucille is a feisty embodiment of the girl who just wants to have fun. Doris is priggish and judgemental, particularly when Sam the butcher enters the scene.
Sam meets the widows while visiting his wife's grave. He and Ida begin a sweet romance until Doris and Lucille persuade him to break it off with Ida. They are guilt stricken when this nearly breaks Ida's heart Directed by Donna Wolther, this production features an ensemble cast of seasoned performers: Barbara Harvey, Cheryl Harnois, Jenney Rivard, Pat Petipas and newcomer Jonelle Lawhorn. All proceeds benefit the Center Youth Group and their Silver Lake campership fund. Murder at the TWO MAIN CaféMarch 5-7, 2015
"Murder at the TWO MAIN Cafe" an audience participation murder mystery by long-time Meriden resident Roger Cerbie. This show introduces us to his ditzy but determined lady detective Pinky Ton.
When "Grand Dame",(at least in her mind), Cynthia Snootier decides to take her children, Muffy and Chipper out for a meal, she gets more than the chicken dinner she expects for her first course. Wouldn't you know her despised ex-significant other Halen Harty is there with his two children Les and Bea as well. Shockingly, someone ends up face-down in their meal. Luckily for all Pinky Ton, from the local police force, is having a meal at the cafe too. No one will be allowed to leave the restaurant, including the audience, until this murder is solved! Messiah on the FrigidaireApril 25-26, 2014
The small town of Elroy, South Carolina is thrust into the evangelical spotlight when what seems to be the image of Jesus appears on a refrigerator in a trailer park. The discovery by Lou Ann Hightower, her husband Dwayne, and her best friend Betsy, sets into motion a frenzy of conflict, communion and good old fashioned commerce. When the National Investigator turns the appearance into front page headlines, their trailer park becomes a mecca for miracle seekers, soul searchers and disciples with a decidedly political agenda. At the urging of the towns business leaders, Betsy pretends to get messages from the appliance-based apparition, and the crowds multiply like loaves and fishes. Through the ordeal, the three undergo an evolution in their relationships with each other, and they are forced to come to grips with their lowly status in the caste system of the rural south. In a region where religion is as much a part of life as grits and cotton fields, God surely moves in mysterious ways.
Directed by Donna L Wolther and featuring seasoned local community theater performers: Barbara Harvey, Jessica Bruenn, Pat Petipas, Marc Cerbie, Stu Wolther and Amy Cerbie. The cast is rounded out with newcomer Jeff Elmer! Old Man Joseph and His FamilyNovember 15 - 16, 2013
Comprised of a series of vignettes, bridged by music and deft changes of scene, the play offers a fresh and colorful interpretation of biblical events and figures. As the action begins we meet the aged Joseph, a long-time widower, who, being unmarried, is forced by law to take the young Mary as his bride. All things considered he is bemused and bewildered when she becomes pregnant, although he agrees to accept the child, Jesus, as his son. As for the miracles which begin to occur from infancy on, Joseph is quizzical about these too, and when Jesus grows into a rebellious and confused teenager Joseph's annoyance at the boy's "tricks" deepens. As the various episodes are played out, however, a moving family drama emerges, and the touching humanity of both the old man and the young boy are made real in a way which only the living theatre, and the "Bible of the Folk," could capture and set forth.
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