The Purple Rose Theatre Company New Season
Founded in 1991 by acclaimed actor and Chelsea native Jeff Daniels, The Purple Rose Theatre Company is a creative home for theatre artists to define our collective Midwestern voice. It is a place for emerging talent and seasoned professionals to learn more about and to practice their craft; a place for patrons of the arts to laugh, cry, and perhaps even learn something new.
Season 2022 – 2023
In a wild comedy about America’s fastest growing sport, four below average players must overcome their own limitations in order to achieve greatness in a game that has nothing to do with pickles by Jeff Daniels.
Jeff Daniels is an American actor, musician, and playwright. Known for his work in television, film, and multiple stage productions, he is the recipient of various accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for three Tony Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Golden Globe Awards.
Madelyn and Keenan are NPR-listening, latte-sipping blue-staters who are planning a family. Or they were, anyway, until the fertility clinic screwed up and accidentally implanted their fertilized embryo in another uterus — a uterus belonging to a small-government churchgoing NRA cardholder. Can these ideologically hostile couples make it together through nine months of gestation without killing each other?
Eric Pfeffinger Used to be a newspaper cartoonist, Left that to become a playwright his works include Human Error, Accidental Rapture, Assholes and Aureoles, Barrenness, Glutted, Hunting High, Malignance, Mouse Cop.
Human Error – Review
“Playwright Eric Pfeffinger has a wonderful time running the couples through the blender of our American experience, putting them out of their element and demonstrating how fragmented our country has become … There’s one more final twist in the script that turns everything on its head once again, a wicked little left turn from Pfeffinger that leaves the audience reeling… Plays such as “Human Error” provide much-needed lenses on the degree to which the U.S. has splintered into tribal factions.”
—Vail Daily
Melanie is haunted by a voice that won’t leave her head. Call it a ghost, a hallucination, or clear evidence of a mental collapse. Either way, it’s a lingering reminder of a friend who was killed years ago; the friend was black, Melanie is white, and questions about why it happened – and who was to blame – come newly into focus when Melanie is drawn into a relationship that offers her a brighter future, but no clear escape from the past.
Quinn D. Eli grew up in the Bronx and lives now in Philadelphia. His short plays have appeared in Best American Ten-Minute Plays and been produced throughout the country. Longer works include the award-winning My Name is Bess, produced by Trustus Theatre; Hazardous, produced locally at Society Hill Playhouse; and Hot Black/Asian Action, a satire about sexual and racial stereotypes that premiered at the New York International Fringe Festival. The two-time recipient of Fellowships in Literature from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Eli has served as a Playwright-in-Residence at Plays & Players Theatre.
At a senior living community in the Adirondacks, a small group of residents decide they’re not quite ready to “go gentle into that good night.” This band of displaced former city dwellers from Brooklyn and The Bronx hatch a plot to prove that aging is not a New York state of mind. A Jukebox for the Algonquin is a tale about those who will not be forgotten – a serious comedy about sex, drugs, and rocking chairs.
Paul Stroili’s autobiographical solo show Straight Up with a Twist toured the U.S. for nearly ten years, culminating in a twice-extended Off-Broadway run. Stroili’s playwriting credits include A Jukebox for the Algonquin, Last Call at The Aardvark, Cheese Louise (with Maureen Morley), Plane Crazy (with Cissy Conner), and My Dinner with Arlecchino. His screenplay for the film The Beating was utilized by Columbia College in their course of study on short filmmaking. Stroili’s writing has also appeared in Los Angeles Magazine and the Chicago Tribune. Recently, he served as Executive Producer for the feature film, Wake., currently in distribution through Gravitas Ventures. While residing in Los Angeles, he was a faculty member in the UCLA Entertainment Studies program. He currently lives in his adopted hometown of Chicago. He is a proud member of Actors’ Equity, the Screen Actors Guild and The Dramatists Guild, as well as being a resident artist at The Purple Rose Theatre, founded by Jeff Daniels. www.PaulStroili.com
The Purple Rose Theatre Company 137 Park Street Chelsea, MI 48118
