Vermont Stage Company’s 21st season announced, collaboration with Shelburne native Greg Pierce continues

Vermont Stage Company will celebrate its 21st season as Burlington’s premier professional theatre company with an inspired selection of notable new plays.

“Last season we took a look back as we celebrated our 20th Anniversary. Now we charge into our next 20 years by delivering the best in cutting-edge contemporary American playwriting. This season includes the latest work from the outrageously absurd Christopher Durang, the award-winning young voice of Katori Hall, the vibrantly theatrical and textually lyrical farce of Liz Duffy Adams, and a continuation of our relationship with local rising-star and Shelburne playwright, Greg Pierce, ” remarks Artistic Director Cristina Alicea about her choices for Vermont Stage’s 2014-2015 season.

The season kicks off Oct. 8 with “Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike” by “Beyond Therapy” playwright Christopher Durang. This winner of the 2013 Tony Award for Best Play by master of comedy, Christopher Durang, equally tickles the casual theatregoer in search of meaningful fun and the ardent student of Russian classics.

In December, pour yourself a cup of hot cider, grab a plate of molasses cookies, and cozy up for the 10th Anniversary of “Winter Tales,” hosted by Artistic Director Cristina Alicea. In this annual event, local storytellers bring life to brand new, funny, and heartfelt stories crafted by members of the Burlington Writers Workshop. Interspersed with poetry from the Young Writers Project and folk songs written and performed by the incomparable Patti Casey, the evening is guaranteed to shine a bit of sunlight on the dark days of winter.

The year 2015 will arrive in a flurry of fast-paced wit with “Or,” by Liz Duffy Adams. The 1660s look a lot like the 1960s in this neo-Restoration comedy about real-life poet, spy, and first professional female playwright, Aphra Behn.

In March, Vermont Stage will continue its collaboration with emerging Shelburne playwright, Greg Pierce with a production of the critically acclaimed “Slowgirl” which premiered at Lincoln Center Theater in 2012. A teenager flees to her reclusive uncle’s retreat in the Costa Rican jungle to escape the aftermath of a harrowing accident. The week they spend together forces them both to confront who they are as well as what they are running from. Pierce’s play is an intimate and elegant glimpse at two people seeking forgiveness and finding the courage to confront the past.

In April, the mainstage season culminates with the 2010 Olivier Award Winner for Best New Play, “The Mountaintop” by Katori Hall. Receiving its Broadway debut in 2011 starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Basset, “The Mountaintop” is a fictional re-imagining of a chance meeting between Martin Luther King, Jr. and a mysterious maid at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis the evening before his assassination.

The season concludes in June with Vermont Stage’s 4th annual experimental production called “The Bake Off.” This show will trisect a play and assign each a different director and cast to explore the myriad ways a play can be brought to life for an audience.

Subscriptions to Vermont Stage Company’s 21st season are on sale now, starting as low as $88. More information about Vermont Stage Company and its performance schedule can be found at www.vtstage.org or call (802) 862-1497.