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Each year
Mt. Hood Repertory Theatre Company presents its annual
American Classics Theatre Festival to East Multnomah County audiences.
The Festival is a chance for both new and old audiences to see some of the
greatest plays from the past century in a new light, performed by a mix of professional,
community and collegiate actors.
Past years have featured such masterpieces as Inherit
The Wind, The Man Who Came To Dinner, and Harvey.
We're already setting our sights on next year's festival season! Plays under
consideration include:
The Front Page
by Ben Hect and Charles MacArthur
Set in the world of wise-cracking news men of the 1920's, this
classic comedy finds raucous laughs in the midst of big-city corruption
and a pack of reporters who'll do anything to get the next big story!
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The Robber Bridegroom
by Alfred Uhry
A folk legend from Mississippi involving the romantic
'Robin Hood-like' figure Jamie who saves Clemment Musgrove
(the richest planter in the county) from the Harp gang and
pursues and wins his daughter, the 'moon-sizzling' Rosamund.
A rollicking, riotous romp from America's early history.
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The Solid Gold Cadillac
by Howard Teichmann and George S. Kaufman
The annual stockholders' meeting of General Products, a colossal
manufacturing empire, seems to be going smoothly. Suddenly, a
timid old lady who owns ten shares asks if she can ask a
question... why are the members of the board of directors being
paid so much? The board tries to hush her up by offering her a job where she "won't cause
any trouble..." and hilarity ensues! "This is good funny theater - you'll laugh."
- NY Journal-American
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A Thousand Clowns
by Herb Gardner
Murray Burns is a bachelor uncle left to rear his precocious nephew.
He has tired of writing cheap comedy for children's tv,
finds himself unemployed with some free time to saunter through
New York and do everything he has always wanted to do. When social services comes
to insure that the nephew is receiving a proper upbringing, he
finds himself solving their problems. Eventually, he must go back
to work or lose his nephew, or he might marry the social worker.
In any case, he remains one of the funniest non-comformists of the
stage.
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Talley and Son
by Lanford Wilson
The second chapter in "The Talley Cycle" that began with 2003's popular
Talley's Folly.
The action of this play occurs at the same time Matt and Sally are
kindling their romance in the Talley family's boat house. The time is
independence day, 1944, the place the parlor of the Talley homestead in Lebanon, Missouri.
As World War II rages in Europe, the Talleys are beset with crises of
a different sort. Slipping into senility, the elder Mr.
Talley still has flashes of explosive lucidity as he schemes to
dispose of his fortune before his death. By the end we're aware
that a dynasty built by hard work and clear if conniving vision
is about to be dismantled by lesser men who have inherited the
property, but not the character of their predecessors.
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To Kill A Mockingbird
by Christopher Sergel
based on the book by Harper Lee
This literary classic is a touchingly remembered story of
southern life as seen through the eyes of a young southern girl.
The play’s first story line, which serves as a frame for the
second, revolves around three children’s journey from childhood
to adulthood and their curiosity about a mentally ill neighbor named
Boo Radley. The second story revolves around a trial, in which a
heroic lawyer defends a black man on charges of assaulting a white
woman. To Kill A Mockingbird is, in the end, a play about kids and
their capacity to see the truth. It is a story of families and
community; of racism and courage; of childhood and fatherhood and
learning how to love.
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Luv
by Murray Shisgal
One of Broadway's brightest comedy hits! Harry Berlin's life has
sunk so low that he has no future except to jump off a bridge
and is about to do so when his old college chum Milt Manville
comes along and intervenes. Milt has problems of his own, and over
the course of their evening
together the two friends share their misery, their laughter... and possibly
the love of the same woman! "...an evening of unalloyed pleasure, of
sustained and perfect comedy, of total, tempestuous and glorious glee."
-NY World-Telegram & Sun.
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The Gin Game
by D.L. Coburn
A smashing success during our
2003-2004 Readers Theatre season, this pulitzer prize-winning play
uses the game of gin is a metaphor for life, as the two residents
of a retirement home (Fonsia Dorsey and Weller Martin) begin
to reveal intimate details of their lives as they are
playing cards. Over the course of the game their secrets
become weapons used against one another.
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All The Way Home
by Tad Mosel
Based on the pulitzer prize-winning novel A Death in the Family
by James Agee, this is a portrait of early twentieth century family life
and the crushing intrusion of sudden death. A young father sets off with
his pregnant wife, son, mother and his brother's family to visit Aunt
Saidy and Grandma. The husband leaves to check on his dying father and
is killed en route. "A striking drama about death... a somber and
beautiful play." -NY Post.
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Sea Marks
by Gardner McKay
The winner of the LA Drama Critics Circle Best Play Award, this is
the touching story of a fisherman living on a remote Irish island
who has fallen in love with a woman he's glimpsed only once.
Unschooled in letter-writing, he tries his utmost to court by mail
and after a year-and-a-half succeeds in arranging a rendevous at
which, to his surprise, she persuades him to live with her in
Liverpool. "There's abundant humor, surprisingly honest humor, that
grows between two.... people who love each other but whose lives
simply cannot be fused..." -The New Yorker.
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Room Service
by John Murray and Allen Boretz
One of the great comedy successes of all time! A nimble-witted
producer, living on credit with several actors in a Broadway hotel,
is desperately in need of a good script. He finds one, and, by
great good luck, he also finds an angel with $15,000. During a
hectic few days, the producer plays hide-and-seek with the angel
who wants to withdraw his financial support, manages to outwit
his creditors, and at the very last moments puts over his play in
spite of the most ludicrous and unexpected obstacles.
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The Trip to Bountiful
by Horton Foote
This is the poignant story of Mrs. Watts, an aging widow living with
her son and daughter-in-law in a three-room flat in Houston, Texas.
Mrs. Watts imagines that if she can get away and return to her old
home in the town of Bountiful, she is sure to regain her strength,
dignity and peace of mind. So she attempts to run away, only to
find that the friends of her youth have all died or scattered and
her home is no longer the spacious mansion of her memories but a
crumbling wreck. After plunging her hands into the strength-giving
earth, however, she leaves with a sense of strength and
dignity will give her the courage to survive.
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On Golden Pond
by Ernest Thompson
This is the love story of Ethel and Norman Thayer, who are returning
to their summer home on Golden Pond for the forty-fourth year. They
are visited by their divorced, middle-aged daughter and her dentist
fiance' who proceed go off to Europe, leaving his teenage son behind
for the summer. The boy quickly becomes the "grandchild" the couple
has longed for. in the end, as the summer wanes, the couple are
brought even closer together, and are left with the hope that
another summer on Golden Pond still awaits.
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The Fourposter
by Jan de Hartog
Another hit from our 2003-2004
Readers Theatre season! This Tony Award-winning play chronicles
the marriage of Agnes and Michael from their
wedding night in 1890 through 35 years of marriage, all in
and around the couple's old 4-poster bed. They laugh and cry,
fall in and out of love, and grow together in the same room
where they began their married life.
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We want to hear from you! Our audience is, after all, why we bring the
American Classics Theatre Festival to East Multnomah County each year.
Is there a play you'd like to see added to the list? Would you prefer
one of the plays listed above over another? and let us know what you'd like to see brought to
the stage next summer!
Watch this space, and be sure to subscribe to our online newsletter,
The Aside. As we get closer to making a decision it'll be you,
our loyal audience, who are the first to know.
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