TheatreWorks New Milford’s

2007 Season Announced

NEW MILFORD — TheatreWorks New Milford will present five stage productions for its gala 40th anniversary, which will once again build on TheatreWorks’ commitment to presenting quality dramas, musicals, and comedies.

Opening the season in February will be Dog Sees God: Confessions Of A Teenage Blockhead by Bert V. Royal, an unauthorized satire of one of America’s most popular comic strip characters. It’s been ten years since “CB” has had to deal with kite-eating trees and unkickable footballs. And now, his pet beagle has died of rabies.

Always trying to comprehend life’s deeper meanings and deal with his never-ending identity crisis, CB turns to his pals for answers. But the answers don’t come easy as these once familiar characters weave a modern tale of teenage angst.

Spring will feature Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs.

Set in 1937 Brooklyn, the story unravels in a small crowded home where Eugene Morris Jerome lives with his large, cantankerous family. As Eugene’s father says, “If you didn’t have a problem, you wouldn’t live in this house.”

With cleverness, poignancy and Simon’s trademark humor, the irrepressible adolescent bears witness as everyone around him copes with the hardships of the Great Depression and anxiously watches as Europe teeters on the brink of another World War.

Summer will offer the social satires Reefer Madness: The Musical by Dan Studney and Kevin Murphy.

Based on the 1936 propaganda film of the same name, the show dramatizes the tragic results of smoking the “demon weed.” Just one puff means instant insanity! Sexual obsession! Murder! This musical satire features a cast of characters that includes sugary-sweet kids, overly concerned parents, sensuous reefer sluts, and evil pimps and pushers.

In the fall will be the World War I drama Observe The Sons Of Ulster Marching Towards The Somme by Frank McGuinness.

The play follows eight young Irish Protestant volunteers, members of the 36th Ulster regiment, from their initiation at boot camp to their day of reckoning at the bloody Battle of the Somme in July 1916. The play, which won a number of best play awards in England and Ireland, carries these characters on a journey that takes them from blind patriotism to loss of innocence.

The Philadelphia Story by Philip Barry will round out the season.

This Broadway hit starred Katharine Hepburn as Tracy Lord of the Philadelphia Lords (a role she reprised in the hit 1940 film of the same name), a wealthy “main line” Philadelphia socialite — divorced from CK Dexter Haven — who is preparing for her marriage to nouveau riche snob George Kittredge.

Wedding preparations are complicated when Dexter, still in love with his ex-wife, cooks up a scheme to try to derail the marriage. As the wedding nears, Tracy finds herself torn between Mike, Dexter, and George, and the audience is taken on a ride in this classic romantic screwball comedy.

Performances will be on Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, with a single Sunday matinee per run at 2 pm.

Tickets are $18.50 for plays and $26 for musicals. Season subscriptions, which include all five productions, are $90.

For more information, tickets, and subscriptions visit TheatreWorks.us or call the box office at 860-350-6863.

TheatreWorks is an award-winning, volunteer non-Equity theater company. It is at 5 Brookside Avenue, just off Route 202 (next to CVS).