The Season

ArtsCenter Stage 2010-11 Season

Please visit CURRENT PRODUCTIONS to purchase tickets for upcoming events.

From 10 minutes to 48 hours, scripted to improvised, local to international, magical to romantic, and historic to fantastical, ArtsCenter Stage’s 2010-11 lineup has got it going ON and ON and ON!  This year ArtsCenter Stage celebrates the 10th unbelievable year of 10 By 10, a festival of ten-minute plays.  ArtsCenter Stage also announces its original productions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Picasso at the Lapin Agile and the Halloween classic, Living Dead in Denmark.  And that’s not all!  We are the proud stomping grounds for Hidden Voices, Paperhand Puppet Intervention, The Monti, Transactors Improv, the Playwrights Roundtable, the North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival, and OneSong Productions.  
 

The Monti: Turning Points
September 11 @ 8 pm
The Monti’s season opens at The ArtsCenter with favorite storytellers George Singleton, David Gessner, Belle Boggs and Greg Taylor.  Stories that are personal, amazing, amusing and compelling stories are par for the course at The Monti.  From the comedic and absurd to the deeply painful and dramatic, it’s just simple storytelling, unscripted and real. 

 

Transactors: Suspense!
October 1 @ 8 pm
Transactors explores horror, mystery, thriller, and sci-fi film genres with musical accompaniment by Killer Filler, specialists in instrumental rock, surf, and R&B. Composed of five different improvised episodes, Suspense! is almost certainly unlike any improv you've ever seen. Or, in the words of an audience member who saw the first Suspense! show last year, "That was really creepy!" 

 

 

 

ArtsCenter Stage and the Youth Performing Arts Conservatory
Living Dead in Denmark by Qui Nguyen
October 15-17, Fri-Sat @ 8 pm, Sun @ 3 pm
Living Dead in Denmark, a comic book fantasia that throws Shakespeare’s most beloved characters including Ophelia, Juliet (both back from the dead), Lady M, Puck Titania and Horatio into an us-versus-zombies apocalyptic scenario.  Mixing martial arts, horror movies and comic books, Living Dead in Denmark is the perfect storm of Halloween theatre.  Intended for audiences 14 and up. 

 

 

Transactors: Gratitude
November 5 @ 8 pm
Transactors explores gratitude. What are you thankful for and why? Give it some thought because Gratitude is based on your ideas.

 

 

 

PlaySlam!
8th Annual PlaySlam!  Where the audience calls the shots!
November 6 @ 8 pm
This is theatre at its liveliest and least-rehearsed and voting at its most irregular!  Join us for an evening of convivial competition in which one-minute plays vie for fame and fortune and the audience calls the shots.  An ArtsCenter Stage original, in conjunction with the Playwrights Roundtable. 

 

 

 
Transactors: Holiday Extravaganza
December 3 @ 8 pm
Celebrate the ups and downs of the holiday season--before you're sick of it--with Transactors' Holiday Extravaganza. This company tradition features music, merriment, and an extra vaganza in case one isn't enough. 

 

ArtsCenter Stage and the Youth Performing Arts Conservatory
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
December 10-12, 16-19 Thursdays-Saturdays @ 8 pm, Sundays @ 3 pm
Oompa - Loompas, Golden tickets, and candy bars! Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is a magical fantasy where dreams really do come true. Travel through the wacky (and top secret, shhh!) world of jellybean stalks, chocolate rivers and hair toffee. Join Charlie, Willy Wonka and all the others in their dazzling adventures through the Chocolate Factory, a journey that celebrates the endless possibilities in life.  




10th Annual 10 By 10 Call for Submissions
January 10-February 11 “Hands-down the best short play festival in the country” (Playwright Mike Folie).  Open call for submissions to this international festival of new, ten-minute plays.  Click Here  for submission guidelines.

 

Hidden Voices: To Buy the Sun: The Challenge of Pauli Murray
February 3-5 @ 8:00pm
Fifteen years before Rosa Parks refused to stand, Pauli Murray refused to sit in the back of the bus; 20 years before the Greensboro sit-ins, she organized restaurant sit-downs in the nation’s capital.  Decades ahead of her time, Durham native Pauli Murray not only lived on the edge of history, she seemingly “pulled it along with her.”  Celebrate her history; create our future.  Join Hidden Voices, the Pauli Murray Project, and the Duke Human Rights Center as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of Pauli Murray‘s birth with a new play that explores the life and legacy of one of North Carolina’s own.  Tickets by Donation.

 

 

Transactors Improv: The Love Show
Saturday, February 12 @ 8pm
Transactors Improv presents The Love Show, the company’s annual celebration of the joys and tortures of romantic love. This completely improvised performance is based on audience suggestions and features the tradition of every cast member kissing every other cast member during the performance.

 

 

 

One Song Productions: February 48
Sunday, February 13 @ 7:30pm
For the 7th year in a row, a bunch of zany teenagers will write, rehearse, produce, and perform a new play.  All in 48 hours!

 

 

North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival
February 17-19
The North Carolina Comedy Arts Festival is North Carolina’s leading festival of improv, sketch, film/video, and standup comedy.  Comics and comedy acts from across North America have been selected to showcase the best work the alternative comedy scene has to offer, including talent from MTV, Comedy Central, Late Show with David Letterman, and New York's Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre.

Full schedule including times, descriptions and ticket pricing can be found online at www.nccomedyarts.com

 

 

 

Paperhand Puppet Intervention
Winter Show
February 24-27, March 3-6, Thurs-Sat @ 8pm, Sun @ 3pm AND 8pm
Paperhand Puppet Intervention returns to The ArtsCenter for their 3rd annual winter show! With giant puppets, masks, shadow plays and more, Paperhand tells stories, beats drums and pushes boundaries to help make the world a better place. Their shows are celebrations and expressions of love for the earth and its creatures.  

Picasso at the Lapin Agile
By Steve Martin
March 25-27, 31 - April 3, Thursdays-Saturdays@ 8 pm, Sundays @ 3pm
In a dazzling display of fictional history with a heavy dose of Steve Martin's trademark wit and humor, Picasso at the Lapin Agile imagines a meeting between Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in 1904, one year before Einstein published the special theory of relativity and three years before Picasso painted Les Demoiselles D'Avignon. The two young men discuss art, science, the future, and the value of genius and talent while interacting with a host of other interesting characters. 

 

 

Transactors Improv
Saturday, April 30 @ 8 pm
The Triangle's premier improvisational theater takes on topical subjects and brings the audience in on the action as the unofficial member of the company.  Bring your ideas and see Transactors bring them spontaneously to life.  Check

 

The Monti
Saturday, May 7 @ 8 pm
The Monti, which has been home to such local favorites as Clyde Edgerton, Daniel Wallace, Jill McCorkle, Tom Rankin, Dan Ariely, Randall Kenan, and Frank Stasio, invites interesting members of the community to share personal narratives with an audience.  From the comedic and absurd to the deeply painful and dramatic, it’s just simple storytelling.

Transactors Improv
Friday, June 10 @ 8 pm
The Triangle's premier improvisational theater takes on topical subjects and brings the audience in on the action as the unofficial member of the company.  Bring your ideas and see Transactors bring them spontaneously to life.  Check

 

ArtsCenter Stage
The 10th Annual 10 By 10 Festival in the Triangle
July 8-10, 14-17, 21-24, Thursdays-Saturdays @ 8 pm, Sundays @ 3 pm
Playwright Gala July 9
Wine and Meet the Artists July 16

10 Plays, 10 Minutes, 10 Actors, ONLY 10 Bucks!

10 plays, 10 minutes, 10 actors, ONLY 10 bucks!  This international festival of new, 10-minute plays brings the very best of the 10-minute format to the Triangle!