THEATRE + COMEDY

Main Street Theater has extended its run of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia through June 20 at Main Street Theater – Rice Village, 2540 Times Blvd. (There is no performance on June 11.)

Main Street Theater closes its 34th season with Tom Stoppard’s magnum opus Arcadia. With previews May 8, 9 and 12, Arcadia opens May 13 and runs through June 6 at Main Street Theater – Rice Village, 2540 Times Blvd. (There is no performance on May 14.) Performances are on Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm.

“[Arcadia] is an English country-house farce about the death of the universe. It is a laugh-filled tragedy about what happens if you take the intoxicants of poetry and science seriously. It is a play where Stoppard turns himself into a clown whose juggling balls are Romanticism, Classicism, and the meaning of life. . . .

[Arcadia] is perhaps the greatest play of its time.”
--Johann Hari, The Independent

About Arcadia:  “It’s the best possible time to be alive, when everything you thought you knew is wrong.” In Tom Stoppard’s time-traveling masterpiece, Arcadia, the time is 1809, as the Coverly gardens are being transformed to the Gothic picturesque and the young genius Thomasina is forming a startling scientific theory while the adults around her are preoccupied with illicit passions and professional rivalries. The time is also two hundred years later, as academic adversaries Hannah and Bernard piece together puzzling clues from 1809 in their search for an increasingly elusive truth about Lord Byron and his connection to the Coverleys. Both worlds intersect and even collide as the quests for knowledge and passion run their courses, and everyone is forced to confront the reality of the attraction Newton left out.

First produced in 1993, Main Street Theater presented the Houston premiere in 1996 at its then newly-opened Chelsea Market theater.

“Views from Arcadia” Discussion Series:   Main Street is pleased to offer the “Views from Arcadia” Discussion Series in connection with the production.

Following the performance on Sunday, May 23, Professor Terrence A. Doody of Rice University will lead a discussion on the uses and abuses of history with the audience, the cast, and director Rebecca Greene Udden.

Following the Thursday, May 27 performance, Dr. John H. Leinhard of KUHF’s “Engines of Our Ingenuity” will lead a discussion on Romantics, how technology preempted rational science about that time, the coming rise of the science of thermodynamics, the emerging role of women in science, and more.

There is no additional charge to attend these discussions.

Parent Play Date:   Saturday, 5/29, for an additional fee, parents may take their 6 – 11 year olds to MST - Chelsea Market while they attend that evening’s performance of Arcadia. Call 713-524-6706 for more information.

About Playwright Tom Stoppard:  Sir Tom Stoppard (knighted in 1997) has an illustrious list of playwrighting credits to his name including The Invention of Love, Rock ‘n Roll, The Coast of Utopia, Hapgood, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Thing, Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Inspector Hound, Rough Crossing, On the Razzle, and many more. He has won 4 Tony awards: The Coast of Utopia (2007), The Real Thing (1984), Travesties (1976), and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1968). He has won 7 Evening Standard awards, including 1 for Arcadia, which also won the Critics’ Circle Theatre award and the Laurence Olivier Award.

About the Production: MST Founding Artistic Director Rebecca Greene Udden directs Arcadia. Udden also directed MST’s 1996 production of the play. She was seen on stage earlier this season in MST’s production of The Last Night of Ballyhoo. The 1809 cast includes Steven Laing (The Busy World Is Hushed) as Septimus, Jennifer Gilbert as Thomasina, Ruddy Cravens (A Number, Mr. Pim Passes By, The Best Man) as Noakes, Crystal O’Brien as Lady Croom, Joel Melcher as Chater, Josh Taylor (Driftwood, Third) as Capt. Brice, and George Brock (Awake and Sing!, Wondergirl, Margin for Error) as Jellaby. The 21st Century cast includes Philip Lehl as Bernard, Justin Doran (Driftwood, The Busy World Is Hushed, The Best Man) as Valentine, Shannon Emerick (Design for Living, Wondergirl, Arcadia) as Hannah, and Ivy Castle-Rush as Chloe. Aaron Tallman plays Gus and Augustus.

The design team includes Liz Freese (set and properties design), Macy Perrone (costume design), Eric Marsh (lighting design), and Shawn W. St. John (sound design). Debs Ramser is the production stage manager.

Since 1975, Main Street Theater has produced high quality professional theater for audiences of all ages through its MainStage productions and Main Street Youth Theater. The Main Street Theater Kids On Stage program offers performing arts classes and camps for children 5 years to 14 years of age. The organization produces plays at two locations, 2540 Times Boulevard in Rice Village and 4617 Montrose Boulevard at Chelsea Market.

Main Street Theater is a member of the Fresh Arts Coalition, a collaboration of 25 arts organizations that work collectively to raise awareness of the size and diversity of the arts in Houston, and a constituent of Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national service organization for not-for-profit theaters. Main Street Theater offers a lively year-round repertory of classic and contemporary plays for audiences of all ages and provides a much-needed showcase for Houston theater professionals. Main Street Theater is also a member of Actors’ Equity Association and of ASSITEJ, the world theatre network of theatre for children and young people.

Main Street Theater is funded in part by grants from the City of Houston through the Houston Arts Alliance, and the Texas Commission on the Arts.