Marco Island Center for the Arts, announces 2023-2024 Season
March 31, 2023, Marco Island: Marco Island Center for the Arts, one of SW Florida’s premier arts organizations, announces another exciting season planned for 2023-2024. In its second year, the Arts Center Theatre (ACT) will present five stage productions, live entertainment, and another season of the successful monthly comedy series. The 2023-2024 season will bring audiences back for more exciting local entertainment on Marco Island.
Arts Center Theatre is set to kick off a second season with The 39 Steps Adapted by Patrick Marlow from the novel by John Buchan (October 25-November 12, 2023) Mix a Hitchcock masterpiece with a juicy spy novel, add a dash of Monty Python and you have the intriguing, thrilling, riotous and unmissable comedy. The show hurtles a notorious fugitive and a spellbound blonde-haired woman from a London music hall north by northwest to Scotland’s most remote highlands. Will they save Britain from a den of devious spies? A cast of four actors plays over 150 characters in this fast-paced tale of an ordinary man on an extraordinarily entertaining adventure. The 39 Steps contains every single legendary scene from the award-winning movie — including the chase on the Flying Scotsman, the escape on the Forth Bridge, the first theatrical bi-plane crash ever staged and the sensational death-defying finale in the London Palladium.
The Complete Works of Shakespeare (abridged) [revised] [again] by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield (November 29-December 17, 2023) is an irreverent, fast-paced romp through the Bard’s plays, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) was London’s longest-running comedy having clocked a very palpable nine years in London’s West End at the Criterion Theatre! Join these madcap men in tights as they weave their wicked way through all of Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories and Tragedies in one wild ride that will leave you breathless and helpless with laughter.
Private Lives by Noël Coward January 3-Janaury 21, 2024, was revived in 2002 by the Royal National Theatre in a production that sparkled on Broadway, Private Lives is one of the most sophisticated, entertaining plays ever written. Elyot and Amanda, once married and now honeymooning with new spouses at the same hotel, meet by chance, reignite the old spark and impulsively elope. After days of being reunited, they again find their fiery romance alternating between passions of love and anger. Their aggrieved spouses appear and a roundelay of affiliations ensues as the women first stick together, then apart, and new partnerships are formed. A uniquely humorous play boasting numerous successful Broadway runs with stars like Coward himself, Laurence Olivier, Tallulah Bankhead, Gertrude Lawrence, Tammy Grimes, Richard Burton, and Elizabeth Taylor.
The Queen of Bingo by Jeanne Michels and Phyllis Murphy (February 7 – February 25, 2024) The Queen of Bingo explores the worlds of Bingo, family ties, diet crazes, widowhood, hot flashes and winning! 'Sis' and 'Babe,' two sisters on the other side of 50, want to add a little fun and excitement to their lives. However, where to find it? BINGO! The audience joins in the fun during the "Middle Bird Special" - a real Bingo game where some lucky audience member wins a prize at every performance! Theatergoers young and old will howl with laughter as two zany, crazy gals, light up the stage in this comedy hit.
Vanities by Jack Heifner (March 13-March 30, 2024) this bittersweet comedy is an astute, snapshot-sharp chronicle of the lives of three Texas girls. In 1963, Joanne, Kathy, and Mary are aggressively vivacious cheerleaders. Five years later in their college sorority house, they are confronting their futures with nervous jauntiness. In 1974, they reunite briefly in New York. Their lives have diverged and their friendship, which once thrived on assumptions as well as coordinated sweater sets, is strained and ambiguous. Old-time banter rings false. Their attempts at honest conversation only show they can no longer afford to have very much in common. The musical production of the play was revived Off-Broadway at The York Theater Company but you can see the play on Marco Island in 2024.
Subscription tickets for the 2023-2024 season for new season ticket holders will be available on https://www.marcoislandart.org/ from May 5 through May 26, 2023. Single-show tickets will go on sale on June 9. Auditions dates will be posted as soon as they become available on the audition page at https://www.marcoislandart.org/arts-center-theater-audition/
About Marco Island Center for the Arts and Arts Center Theatre
Marco Island Center for the Arts and Arts Center Theatre brings a wide variety of arts to its community through art exhibitions, engaging educational programs for adults and children, and a diverse assortment of events. The Arts Center serves as a professional and financial driver for visual and performing artists and educators through exhibition, performance, and teaching opportunities while being a catalyst that fuels economic development, an understanding of cultural diversity, and community cohesion.
Mission: Marco Island Center for the Arts inspires artistic expression and advances education and appreciation of the arts. The Arts Center honors Marco Island and Southwest Florida’s rich, diverse, and creative heritage through active community engagement in the visual and performing arts.