DREAMCATCHER REPERTORY THEATRE BEGINS SEASON WITH “PAINTING CHURCHES”
September 24, 2001, Bloomfield, NJ - Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre, the professional theatre-in-residence at Bloomfield College, opens its seventh season with Tina Howe’s Off-Broadway comic drama Painting Churches on Friday, October 12. Dreamcatcher’s revival, which runs through November 4, was produced nearly 20 years ago at the Second Stage and at the Lamb’s Theatre in New York City.
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The play tells the story so familiar to many adult children; the aging of one’s parents and how the family responds to time’s passage. Mags, an almost-famous artist, returns home to help her parents move from their family home to a retirement cottage. Gardner, once a famous poet, and her mother, Fanny, have always had the kind of eccentric and colorful relationship that both fascinated and infuriated Mags. She hopes that by finally painting their portrait during the visit she can come to terms with them - and they with her. She discovers instead that her parents’ lives have moved to a new phase, that the moment has passed, and they must all find forgiveness and peace in a new way.
When the play appeared Off-Broadway, the New York Times called it “Beautifully written…a theatrical family portrait that has the shimmer and depth of Renoir portraits.” Time Magazine wrote, “A radiant, loving and zestfully humorous play…distinctly Chekhovian. Howe captures both the same edgy surface of false hilarity, the same unutterable sadness beneath it, and the indomitable valor beneath both.”
Dreamcatcher’s cast features three New Jersey residents: company member Janet Sales, Noreen Farley, returning from last season’s Fuddy Meers, and Timothy Jecko. The play will be directed by Linda Ames Key, who staged last winter’s critical and popular success Three Days of Rain. Painting Churches will run at Dreamcatcher from October 12 through November 4, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. The exception is the second weekend of the run, when there will be a Thursday night show on October 18 instead of a Sunday matinee on October 21. Tickets are $20 general admission and $15 for students and seniors, with special rates for subscribers and groups.
Performances are in the Westminster Arts Center, located on Bloomfield College’s campus a few blocks from Exit 148 off the Garden State Parkway, on the corner of Franklin and Fremont Streets, and convenient by bus from both Newark and New York City.
For information and tickets for any of Dreamcatcher Repertory Theatre’s programs, please call (973) 748-9008, ext. 995.
