THEATRE + COMEDY

After 18 years, Wendy Wasserstein’s Pulitzer Prize winning play, The Heidi Chronicles, is back in Houston. With previews November 20, 21, and 24, The Heidi Chronicles opens November 26 and runs through December 19 at Main Street Theater – Rice Village, 2540 Times Blvd. (There is no performance on Thanksgiving Day, November 25.)

About The Heidi Chronicles
Wendy Wasserstein’s 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning play chronicles the glory days of the feminist movement through the character of art historian Heidi Holland. Over a 25-year period -- from high-school in the mid-sixties through the “having-it-all” era of the late eighties -- the experiences of Heidi and her friends and lovers chart the transformative political and social changes of that exhilarating period. 

Main Street Theater presented the Houston premiere of the play in 1992. MST has championed Wasserstein’s work over the years, producing Uncommon Women and Others (twice), The Sisters Rosensweig, An American Daughter, Third, and The Heidi Chronicles (twice).

About Playwright Wendy Wasserstein
Wendy Wasserstein’s contribution to the theater was truly extraordinary. The Heidi Chronicles, Uncommon Women and Others, and The Sisters Rosensweig are among her most enduring plays. For Heidi… she won the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award, and the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize. She also won an OCC Award for The Sisters Rosensweig. She was posthumously inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame in 2007.

Wasserstein was born in Brooklyn, one of five children of a wealthy textile executive and an amateur dancer, who reportedly inspired several of her characters. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College and Yale School of Drama, her major plays chronicled the struggles of ‘baby-boom’ women to create meaningful work lives and still find emotional happiness. A single woman, Wasserstein gave birth to a daughter, Lucy Jane, in 1999. In December 2005 Wasserstein was diagnosed with lymphoma. Her untimely death came in January of 2006.

Discussion Series
Main Street is pleased to continue its Post-Show Discussion Series with The Heidi Chronicles. Following the performance on Sunday, December 5, Dr. Elizabeth Gregory, Director of the Women’s, Gender & Sexuality Studies Program at the University of Houston, will lead a discussion on some of the themes and issues of the play with the audience, the cast, and director Rebecca Greene Udden.

About the Production
Cheryl L. Kaplan plays Heidi. She was last seen at MST in her one-woman show, My Mother’s Medicine. Her directorial work for MST includes Driftwood, Third, Homebody/Kabul, and Wondergirl. Justin Doran (Breakfast at Eight, Arcadia, Driftwood) plays Heidi’s longtime love Scoop, and David Wald (The Doctor’s Dilemma, A Number, Wondergirl) plays Peter, Heidi’s longtime friend.

The rest of the cast includes Amanda L. Baird, Jessica Boone, Patrick D. Earl, Stephanie Holladay Earl, and Jen Lucy.

The design team includes Trey Otis (set and properties design), Macy Perrone (costume design), Carrie Cavins (lighting design), and Janel J. Badrina (sound design). Lauren Smith is the production stage manager.

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

Performances are on Thursdays at 7:30pm, Fridays and Saturdays at 8pm, and Sundays at 3pm. Tickets range from $26 - $40 (Previews are $10, and $5 Friday is December 3), depending on date and section, and are on sale in person at the Main Street Theater Box Office, 2540 Times Blvd., via phone at 713.524.6706, or online at MainStreetTheater.com.

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.

Pictured above:  Heidi (Cheryl L. Kaplan). (All images by www.RicOrnelProductions.com).