The Resident Ensemble Players (REP), the professional theatre company in residence at the University of Delaware, is excited to announce its 2023-2024 Season. The upcoming season brings four great stories to the stage!
The REP opens the 23-24 season of plays with Dame Eileen Atkins's Vita & Virginia, running from Sept. 21 through Oct. 1. Adapted from letters and diaries to deftly weave the story of the improbable love affair and enduring friendship between aristocratic novelist and poet, Vita Sackville-West, and aloof literary icon, Virginia Woolf. This play is a beautiful rebuke against today's culture of hastily sent emails and tweets. This was an age when people wrote profusely and frequently, though few were as adept at correspondence as Vita and Virginia.
The fall continues with suspense and intrigue in John Ball's In the Heat of the Night, on stage Nov. 2 through Nov. 19. Set in 1962 — a white man is discovered dead in a small town of Alabama. Local police arrest the only stranger in town, a black man named Virgil Tibbs. Little do they know, their suspect is a detective from California. Left with no witnesses, no motives, and no clues, Detective Tibbs becomes this racially-tense community's only hope of solving the brutal murder. Adapted for the stage by Matt Pelfrey from the book that inspired the Oscar-winning film, In the Heat of the Night is sure to be a compelling evening of theatre, filled with murder and mystery.
Next, the REP presents Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu's groundbreaking play, Pass Over, running from Feb. 8 through Feb. 18. A mashup of Beckett's Waiting for Godot and the Biblical Exodus story told by a bold new American voice. Two young black men, Moses and Kitch, stand on the corner – talking trash, killing time, and dreaming of the promised land. Emotionally charged with poetic and humorous riffs, this play asks, “what is the value of a young black man's life?"
Closing out the season is Ira Levin's dark comedy thriller, Deathtrap, on stage Apr. 11 through Apr. 28. Once famous playwright, Sidney Bruhl is fresh out of ideas with a string of failures and a shortage of cash to prove it. A change in fortune arrives in the form of a script, sent by a former student, with all the makings of a Broadway hit. The opportunity to steal the script and pass it off as his own may be too tempting for Sidney to ignore. Hugely popular on stage and screen, this story is a perfect blend of schemes, plot-twists, and outrageous humor.
The REP's Producing Artistic Director Steve Tague says, “As theatre fans you know this, but I never get tired of saying it, these plays are the stories of us, inquiring into what it means to be human whether that inquiry is humorous, thrilling, or political. Join us for more of these stories."
