Brown University News Bureau

The Brown University News Bureau

1998-1999 index

Distributed June 9, 1999
Contact: Glenn Hare

Brown Summer Theatre offers three comedies in 30th anniversary season

The Summer Theatre program will present As Bees In Honey Drown, The Last Night of Ballyhoo and Privates Eyes in celebration of its 30th anniversary season. The laughter begins June 22 and continues through August 7 in the Leeds Theatre of the Catherine Bryan Dill Center for the Performing Arts.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- As the temperature rises this summer, so will the laughter. To mark its 30th season of summer productions, the Brown Summer Theatre will present three comedies in the Leeds Theatre of the Catherine Bryan Dill Center for the Performing Arts.

On tap will be Douglas Carter Beane's sophisticated comedy As Bees In Honey Drown June 22 through July 3, The Last Night of Ballyhoo by Tony Award-winning writer Alfred Uhry July 6 through 24, and the highly deceptive lark Private Eyes by Steven Dietz July 27 through August 7.

Performances are Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. The Catherine Bryan Dill Center for the Performing Arts is located at 77 Waterman St. The Leeds Theatre is a 175-seat air-conditioned performance space.

As Bees In Honey Drown
June 22-July 3

The summer kicks off with As Bees In Honey Drown, a wildly funny romp through the trendy New York literary scene. The comedy takes a sharp look at the style, glitz and hype surrounding celebrity, and tells the tale of a young writer and his encounter with a highbrow New York socialite who has a knack for finding new artists on the verge of notoriety and transforming them into public figures. The play was written by Douglas Carter Beane, who also wrote To Wong Fu, Thanks For Everything Julie Newmar. The New York Times calls As Bees In Honey Drown an "extremely entertaining fable for an age that always chooses image over substance."

The Last Night of Ballyhoo
July 6-24

Alfred Uhry's The Last Night of Ballyhoo is set in Atlanta in December 1939. Gone With the Wind is having its world première and Hitler is invading Poland. But the city's elitist German Jews, especially the Freitags, are more concerned with who is going to the Ballyhoo, the social event of the season. The family is preoccupied with finding their daughter an escort to the exclusive gala, when a socially unacceptable Jew from Eastern Europe by way of Brooklyn enters their life. Soon their petty affairs and prejudices are swept up into the realities of the world. The Los Angeles Time calls this dramatic comedy an "achingly beautiful play ... luminous and powerful."

Private Eyes
July 27-August 7

A new play by Steven Dietz, Private Eyes was the star of the 1997 Humana Festival of New American Plays in Louisville, Ky. It is a comedy of suspicion, where nothing is quite what it seems. Is Matthew's wife having an affair with the director? Is he making the whole thing up for his therapist? And who is the mysterious woman following everyone around? The Chicago Tribune calls this play within a play "a romantic comedy which invariably turns out to be an illusion - a Chinese box full of tricks and surprises."

Subscriptions to all three shows are $35 for the general public and $25 for senior citizens, students and Brown employees. Individual performance tickets are $14 for the general public and $10 for senior citizens, students and Brown employees. For additional information, contact the Box Office at (401) 863-2838.

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