Through circles and arcs of comedy, drama, mystery and music, we dedicate our 60th Anniversary Season to Love! Choose your own slate!  Colonial Players offers you new options this year.  You may subscribe to all seven shows at considerable savings on the single ticket price ($3 or $4 off) or you may select any five shows and receive the usual $2 per show discount.  As subscribers, your seats are reserved for all shows and you have the privilege of exchanging your tickets easily by telephone, mail or in person up to 48 hours before show time.

Please note: Scroll down to read entire page. All shows are subject to rights availability.

The Philadelphia Story
by Philip Barry
Directed by Beverly Hill Van Joolen
September 5 – 27, 2008

This comedy classic from the 40’s tells the story of the wealthy Seth Lords, an upper class Philadelphia family on the eve of the society wedding of the year, of daughter Tracy Lord to snobbish mine magnate, George Kittredge.  The problem is that Seth has jeopardized his reputation with a fling with a Broadway actress, and to prevent public scandal, his son has allowed a magazine writer and photographer to cover the wedding with the proviso that the affair will not be mentioned. Enter the engaging Mike Connor and Liz Imbrie, and C.K. Dexter Haven, Tracy’s former husband. Tracy’s doubts about George fan overnight into a fascination with Mike. An evening of champagne (which Tracy never handled very well) leads to a midnight swim, and on the morning of the wedding, a hung-over Tracy discovers a much more forgiving attitude toward human fallibility – her own, her father’s, her ex-husband’s.

Rabbit Hole
by David Lindsay-Abaire
Directed by Tom Newbrough
October 17 – November 8, 2008

This Pulitzer Prize winning drama exquisitely details the love and struggle of devoted parents who must recover from the death of their little boy. Each one has strengths and terrible vulnerabilities and the playwright has sensitively drawn, in daily interactions with family and each other, how each is coping in his or her own way. They rarely are able to help each other despite the wish for it, but they grow toward it as the play ends.  An affirming, candid portrayal of family strength and stress, Rabbit Hole will move anyone who has ever loved anybody.

A Christmas Carol
Play and Lyrics by Richard Wade
Music by Dick Gessner
Directed by Matt Garcia
December 4 – 14, 2008

An Annapolis tradition returns for its 28thyear. Written specifically for Colonial Players, this musical version of the holiday classic remains faithful to Charles Dickens’ original. The story of the spiritual transformation of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is retold with a bright score and brisk pace that brings the Christmas spirit to one and all.  *A Christmas Carol is not part of the Subscription Series.  Public Ticket sale is on November 22, 2008 at 9 A.M. at the theater.

Two Rooms
by Lee Blessing
Directed by Edd Miller
January 2 – 18, 2009    ARC show

In what was his study, the wife of an imprisoned hostage has created a room that approximates his cell – bare of furniture with a single mat on the floor. She comes here to be close to him as she struggles with his loss and her powerlessness against the walls of silence and inaction her government has built against her.  Two Rooms is about two hostages, a man held by Lebanese radicals and his wife held by his captivity and her government’s implacable inability to free him.

Les Liaisons Dangereuses
by Christopher Hamilton
Directed by Craig Mummey
February 6 – 28, 2009

In 18th century France, on the eve of the Revolution, the leisured classes amuse themselves with cards, gossip, seduction and romance.  Between the Marquise de Merteuil and her adversary and ally, the Vicomte de Valmont, we watch a closely played contest of skill and malice as they maneuver their conquests and enemies into and out of bed. Often wickedly funny, always fascinating, the play draws us through the silken surfaces of their manipulations into the depths of their carefully hidden disappointments and broken hearts.

She Loves Me
based on “Parfumerie” by Miklos Laszlo
By Joe Mastroff, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick
Directed by Beth Terranova
March 20 – April 18, 2009

Set in the 1930’s in a parfumerie in Europe, She Loves Me is the musical story of two lovers who don’t know each other except through letters, but who work in the same shop selling perfumes and beauty goods. As co-workers, their relationship is contentious and competitive and they take comfort in the paragons they hold in their hearts and write to regularly. The shop is peopled with other intriguing characters and the activity in the shop is beautifully captured in music and lyrics. Of course, despite turmoil, firings and mistaken accusations, all ends well in this love story that has appeared often before in the Jimmy Stewart movie, “The Shop Around the Corner” and more recently, the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan update, “You’ve Got Mail.”

Over My Dead Body
by Anthony J. Fingleton and Michael Sutton
Directed by Joan Hamilton
May 8 – 30, 2009

Three aged but renowned authors of mystery novels, dismayed to see the salacious directions their beloved genre has taken, agree to attempt the perfect murder, one where the victim is found in a room locked from the inside with no apparent escape route for the perpetrator. They want to prove it can be done, that the carefully crafted, elegant murder that was the staple of their books, is actually possible, even if they pay for it with a life in prison. At their age, what could it hurt? This funny mystery will delight audiences from the elaborate, bungled murder to the convoluted investigation to the deliciously happy outcome.

Wonder Of The World
by David Lindsay-Abaire
Directed by Ron Giddings
June 12 – 27, 2009  ARC show

Disgusting!  That is what Cass has found her spouse to be and she leaves him and takes off to discover the world outside her door.  In her hilarious progress of adventure, new friends, listed experiences and bad language, audiences will be treated to some of the funniest dialogue and wackiest characters they will ever encounter on stage.  Ending up at Niagara Falls with a suicidal friend, novice private investigators, a therapist whose group plays “The Newlywed Game”, and the “Maid of the Mist” captain, Cass embraces her new life and everywhere it takes her.