Hamlet
October 2016The keystone of Shakespeare’s works, this most famous play of all plays has a thousand times more words written about it than the play itself contains. Compass Rose Theater celebrates the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare by sharing a live production of his most celebrated play. To portray this work, and bring it to life on our stage is an honor and a privilege. Hamlet, aggrieved son and nephew to the new king, seeks to avenge his father’s most certain murder.
Eleanor Roosevelt: Her Secret Journey
September 2016A winning entry in last season’s Rose Play Festival, this personal story of Eleanor Roosevelt is back by popular demand. On a limited run of nine performances, Sue Struve, who played the role last season, will recreate this personal journey of Eleanor at a time when we are deciding our next President. As the play reveals, women and politics were matched long ago. Discretion was the friend of power, and Eleanor Roosevelt became the first and greatest of influential women politicians and statesmen.
The Diary of Anne Frank
March 2016A simple diary discovered after World War II shares the inmost thoughts and wishes of a young girl, Anne Frank, penned up in an attic hiding from the Nazis. The story is too real, too poignant to be fiction. This Pulitzer Prize and Tony award winning play not only shares a young girl’s life during wartime, but also explores the longings and dreams of all young girls. Innocence and youthful spirit are unquenched by circumstance, as Anne still discovers the world looking at the sky through a crack in the roof.
Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd
May 2016An upper class gent and a lower class commoner compete for the top of the heap in this play contest of wills. Add a band of rowdy urchins and this un-story dances into our hearts. Running on Broadway in the late nineteen sixties, this play is less a story than an allegory. Featuring such hit songs as “Who Can I Turn to” and “Feeling Good” this play is a circus romp of good and bad, up and down. Let us entertain you, and enjoy the ride.
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
January 2016This steamy southern drama, filled with characters whose lives are torn with passion and lies won a Pulitzer Prize and was one of Tennessee Williams favorite plays. From the cat-like Maggie, the repressed Brick, with his latent longings, to the shadows of Big Daddy and Big Mama, this powerful story twists and turns our hearts and stirs our own longings. Come with us as we inhabit their world and watch it explode.
Brigadoon
November 2015Emerging from the mists of Scotland just once in a century is the town of Brigadoon, a place of wonderment and adventure. This love story beguiles us as it leads two American travellers into the world of long ago. There is danger and darkness in this place out of time, but love abides in the end. The outstanding score by Lerner and Loewe thrilled Broadway audiences long ago and will now grace the Compass Rose stage, with its tribute to simplicity, true love, and goodness.
Greater Tuna
April 2015A howlingly funny play about the folks of the fictitious town of Tuna, Texas. Two actors play twenty different colorful characters of the town. An irreverent satire on politics and family in middle America.
Murder in the Cathedral
January 2015T. S. Eliot's verse dramatization of the murder of Thomas Becket at Canterbury, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. A vastly different view of T.S. Eliot’s poetic gift, this gripping drama portrays the assassination of Archbishop Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral in 1170. Becket struggles with four tempters, each with posing a different challenge. Praised for its poetically masterful handling of issues of faith, politics, and the common good, T. S. Eliot's play bolstered his reputation as the most significant poet of his time.
Cats
November 2014The second longest running play in Broadway history, and one of the plays which revolutionized American musical theater. Based on the poem Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot, a playful examination of the nature of cats. Dance, music, and memories – and of course, lots of cats!
A Raisin in the Sun
September 2014Winner of four Tony awards, the iconic story of the struggle of an African-American family poses eternal questions about identity, justice, and moral responsibility. An unflinching vision of what happens when dreams are constantly deferred, this American classic is as powerful today as it was 50 years ago.