2018 Season

 

Love, Lies & the Doctor’s Dilemma
by Michael Parker and Susan Parker, directed by Matt Stepan
Farce

January 11 - 27
One little white lie leads to another in this hilarious farce, complete with a former movie star, a mobster hit man, an accident prone next door neighbor, a mysterious potting shed, and a gardener inexplicably masquerading as a psychiatrist...whose misguided advice actually seems to work! Will everyone survive the mayhem?

A Southern Exposure
Local Playwright!!
by Kelley Kingston-Strayer, directed by Leslie Austin
Comedy/Drama

March 1-17
Unrealistically romantic Callie Belle was raised by her sassy, Bible-thumping grandmother and her two eccentric aunts in a small Kentucky town, but she yearns for more. When her fairy tale doesn’t turn out the way she expects, she grows strong and independent while learning what family is all about - the fiercest kind of love imaginable.

365 Women a Year Festival
Festival

March 22-31
Rover again partners with international playwriting coalition, 365 Women A Year, whose focus is to write and present plays about extraordinary women, bring women back into the social consciousness, and plant seeds of herstory around the country.

Thursday 3/22, Saturday 3/34, and Friday 3/30 at 8:00 pm and Saturday 3/31 at 3:00 pm:

BEST ACTRESS 1962 by Allie Costa EVERY ROSE by Danielle Wirsansky SARAH’S POEM by Charissa Menefee OLGA’S LETTER By J. Sanders Nelson AN UNTIMELY LIKENESS by Nancy Cooper Frank ADMIRAL GRACE HOPPER REVISITS by Jennifer O’Grady BLOODLETTING by Lisa A. Mammel

Friday 3/23 at 8:00 pm, Saturday 3/24 at 3:00 pm, and Thursday 3/29 and Saturday 3/31 at 8:00 pm:

BRYNLEE & THE BULL by Sean Nill BABE by Cindy Cooper DAISY, FIRST GIRL SCOUT by Susan Shafer THREE JUDY GARLANDS by Jess Eisenberg UNVEILED By J. Thalia Cunningham BETWEEN US GALS by Sue Yocum

Smoke & Mirrors
by Will Osborne and Anthony Herrera, directed by Carol M. Rice
Comedy/Thriller

May 10-26
Power hungry film producer-director Hamilton Orr has lured his timid screenwriter Clark into a scheme to get rid of the insufferable star of their multi-million dollar movie. But no one on this isolated island is what they appear to be and twists and turns abound as the talkative local sheriff unearths one surprise after another.

10-Minute Play Festival
Festival

June 21-30
Join us for the winners in our fourth annual 10-minute comedy contest! Funny stuff from playwrights all over the world!

The Awesome 80s Prom
by Ken Davenport, directed by Polly Harrison
Comedy

July 26 - August 11
It’s 1989, and all your high school buddies are at the prom! From the captain of the football team to the foreign exchange student, from the geek to the head cheerleader, they’re all competing for Prom King and Queen...and the audience decides who wins! Travel back in time and join the breakdancing, or just sit back and laugh at everyone!

Charley’s Aunt
by Brandon Thomas, directed by Lon Barrera
Classic Comedy

September 13-29
Jack and Charley invite Kitty and Amy to meet Charley’s wealthy aunt from Brazil, but she cancels at the last minute, leaving them without a chaperone. Desperate, the boys draft a college pal into a black satin skirt, bloomer, and a wig. As “Charley’s Aunt,” this charming frump wins over everyone, but when the real aunt turns up, comic confusion ensues!

The Best of One Day Only, Vol. 3

October 18-27
Some of the BEST 10-minute plays from past One Day Only 24-hour play festivals!

Murder on West Moon Street
by Rob Urbinati directed by Chad Jones
based on the Oscar Wilde short story "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime"
Mystery/Comedy

November 1-17
Young Lord Arthur is deliriously happy – just down from Oxford and engaged to be married – when a mysterious palm reader predicts that he will commit a murder. A proper English gentleman, Arthur believes it is his duty to get this killing business over with before he marries. But his education has not provided him with the required skills, and a hilarious series of mishaps ensues as he sets about finding a victim.
Based on the Oscar Wilde short story, "Lord Arthur Savile's Crime."

Death Imitates Art: A Valentine Murder Mystery
Interactive Dinner Theatre

February 9-10
Somebody in the Rover family will be murdered, and it will be up to the audience to help us solve the crime. Two nights only! This event tends to sell out fast!

One Day Only 29

Saturday, April 7
Another installment of our signature play festival, featuring five short plays, concept to curtain in JUST ONE DAY!

I Am a Star
by Billy St. John, directed by Penny Elaine
Youth Show, Comedy

April 19-21
The “in-crowd” is too involved trying to get parts in the movie that’s going to be filmed at their school to notice nerdy new student Jane. Little do they know Jane is really a teen soap opera star who’s there undercover to prove she can act and earn the film’s lead! Can she succeed...and learn something about herself at the same time?

The Belle of West Texas
by Carol M. Rice, directed by Nancy Pistilli
Youth Show, Melodrama

July 19-21
When villain Gerald Snively and his sidekick, Melinda Mooch, hit Oilwell, Texas, it's rack and ruin from start to finish. From providing poor widow Lizzie Holiday a fake map to her dead husband’s oil well, to keeping apart true love between our hero, Eddie Allswell, and the angelic Belle, these two are evil personified! But naturally good triumphs and “all’s well with oil wells.”

 

2019 Season

 

Any Wednesday
by Muriel Resnik, directed by Carol M. Rice
Romantic Comedy

January 10 - 26
John, a company president, is using the executive suite to house his mistress, Ellen, whom he sees once a week. Cass recently sold his factory to the middle-aged romancer and is mistakenly directed to the suite by a new secretary...as is John’s wife Dorothy, who assumes Ellen and Cass are a nice young married couple. All the confusion creates a delightful comedy, in which tax advantages don’t always translate to love.

The Playmakers
by Julie Zaffarano, directed by Jill Lightfoot
Comedy

February 7-23
Lisa and Sebastian were a successful romantic comedy playwriting team and lovers whose professional and personal relationships unraveled, crashed, and burned. After several years apart, they are thrown together by a producer to create a revival play. As they try to recapture their signature spark, their characters revolt as the lines between reality and fantasy blur. Winner of our 2018 New Full-Length Play Contest!

The Bold, the Young, and the Murdered
by Don Zolidas, directed by Nicole Denson
Youth Show / Comedy

February 28 - March 2
The executive producer of long-running yet troubled soap opera The Bold and the Young gives the squabbling cast an ultimatum: Complete one episode overnight or the show dies. But when the director ends up murdered and then the cast members start dropping like flies, it seems like his threat might actually come true. Can these misfits discover the murderer before the show is literally killed off?

Presented by actors ages 10-18. Now included in the regular season!

365 Women a Year Festival
Festival

March 28-April 6
Rover again partners with international playwriting coalition, 365 Women A Year, whose focus is to write and present plays about extraordinary women, bring women back into the social consciousness, and plant seeds of herstory around the country.

Delirium’s Daughters
by Nicholas Korn, directed by Carol M. Rice
Comedy/Farce

May 2-15
When suitors arrive to ask for the hands of Signor Di Lirio's lovely daughters, the old gentleman agrees, as long as they have the approval of their mother. The problem is, his wife died three years ago, and he has gone so mad with grief that he still believes she is alive. However, one of the suitors is the town scoundrel, Giovio, who plays a series of kind-hearted but hilarious tricks that bring the father back to sanity and the intended couples together.

Sharing the Stage is Murder
by Carol M. Rice, directed by Molly Bower
Comedy/Mystery

May 30 - June 15
An English drawing room comedy, an American sex farce, and a play about Chicago mobsters running from the law collide onstage in this hilarious yet surreal comedy/mystery. Featuring stereotypical characters from each genre meeting unexpectedly during what they think is “real life,” all is not as it appears as the bodies pile up and the beleaguered stage manager must come make things right. World Premiere!

One Day Only 29, take 2
Festival

June 22
Another installment of our signature play festival, featuring five short plays, concept to curtain in JUST ONE DAY! Once again included in the regular season!

Francine’s Will
by Mary Dattillo, directed by Nancy Pistilli
Youth Show - Comedy

July 11-13
Francine Faraday dies and leaves her entire estate to her longtime companion H.P. Manly. While the loyal members of Francine's staff are delighted, her money-hungry relatives are furious. Though the will is ironclad, the relatives find that they can inherit Francine's fortune if H.P. dies of "natural" causes. As the family plots H.P.'s demise, the staff schemes to save him, resulting in counter-plots and mixed-up romances aplenty.

Presented by actors ages 10-18. Now included in the regular season!

10-Minute Play Festival
Festival

July 25 - August 10
Join us for the winners in our fifth annual 10-minute comedy contest!
Funny stuff from playwrights all over the world!

Morning’s At Seven
by Paul Osborn, directed by Kim Titus
Classic Comedy

August 29 - September 14
Aaronetta and Ida Gibbs have lived next door to each other most of their lives and all of the Gibb sisters are an open book to each. Into the fray comes Myrtle Brown, perpetually engaged to Ida's son Homer. But Homer can't seem to pop the question. Taking matters into her own hands, Myrtle finally gets a proposal by compelling Homer to fly the nest. Sort of. A perennially charming portrait of small town America fifty plus years ago.

Chemical Imbalance: A Jekyll and Hyde Play
by Lauren Wilson, directed by Mikey Abrams
Dark Comedy

October 10-26
A darkly comic adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this is a fast-paced romp about men and women tightrope walking the line between aristocracy and depravity, and between the twin spectres of good and evil. "The humor is nonstop, but cannot cover the highly sinister aspects of the plot…" —San Francisco Bay Times.

A Comedy of Tenors
by Ken Ludwig, directed by Penny Elaine
Farce

November 7-23
One hotel suite, four tenors, two wives, three girlfriends, and a soccer stadium filled with screaming fans. What could possibly go wrong? It’s 1930s Paris and the stage is set for the concert of the century - as long as producer Henry Saunders can keep Italian superstar Tito Merelli and his hot-blooded wife Maria from causing runaway chaos. It’s an uproarious ride, full of mistaken identities, bedroom hijinks, and madcap delight.