A Streetcar Named Durang: Two Burlesques and a Western
by Christopher Durang
L'Etage Cabaret
November 9-28, 2014
Directed by Tina Brock
Director
Tina Brock
Costumier
Erica Hoelscher
Stage Manager/Light and Sound Operator
Mark Williams
Production Manager
Bob Schmidt
Photoshop Magic
Bill Brock
Photography
Peggy Woolsey / lapegphoto.com
Presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Service, Inc., New York
The IRC’s 2014 season is made possible in part by generous grants from Wyncote Foundation; The Samuel S. Fels Fund; The Philadelphia Cultural Fund; Arts & Business Council of Greater Philadelphia; The Pennsylvania Partners in the Arts program of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency funded by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency with support also provided by PECO and administered regionally by Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance; The Charlotte Cushman Foundation; CHG Charitable Trust and Plannerzone.
Playing time is approximately 80 minutes; there will be no intermission.
This is an audience friendly show, feel free to order beverages during the performance.
Restrooms are located in the lobby.
Reviews
A Streetcar Named Durang (2014)
"...a whole lot of laughs packed into a rapid-fire 70-minutes of ridiculously amusing entertainment..."
Debra Miller, Phindie.com
"...which is why we’re glad this show by the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, providing delirious send-ups of Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Glass Menagerie” and Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind,” is out there, doing its wacky thing."
Philadelphia METRO
Director's Notes
November, 2014
2015 marks 9 years for the IRC in Philadelphia! It seemed fitting to look back to 2006 when this grand experiment began. And so, the first program letter for our inaugural show at L’Etage. Still going after all these years. Thank you for helping us continue doing what we love.
“Idiotic… ridiculousness?” “Idiopathic radical company?”
“Idio… radicular…huh?”
After trying in vain to locate our artist welcome packet, the woman at the Fringe Festival Artist Check-in table finally surrendered, pleading, “PLEASE JUST SPELL IT FOR ME?!”
Welcome to the first production from The Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, or IRC, for ease of communication.
In one of many incarnations over the past 15 years, cobbling together a living in this business, I was employed as a Standardized Patient (remember the Kramer/Seinfeld episode) portraying a sick person for 4th year medical students in testing and teaching environments. One day a medical student offered “Idiopathic Radiculopathy” as the cause of my malaise: “Which basically means there is no known cause of origin for your problem.”
So many syllables… so little communication.
This seemed a suitable name for a theater company presenting absurdist plays illustrating the many ways language can be a vehicle for stereotyped, meaningless exchanges -- how insufficient it can be at expressing the essence of the human experience.
I imagine how exciting it might have been like to live in Paris in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, when the absurdist plays of Eugène Ionesco and Samuel Beckett were introduced. L’Étage Cabaret seemed an ideal setting for a celebration of their work.
Thank you for spending your evening with us. We hope to see you as we explore “The Theatre of the Absurd” in the months and years to come.
Tina Brock
Producing Artistic Director
A STREETCAR NAMED DURANG (IRC): 60-second review
Phindie.com
Click HERE to read original article
November 18, 2014 - Debra Miller
Susan Giddings in A STYE OF THE EYE from the IRC’s A STREETCAR NAMED DURANG (Photo credit: Peggy Woolsey @ lapegphoto)
High-energy hilarity fills L’Étage as the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium remounts its 2008 Fringe Festival hit A STREETCAR NAMED DURANG, a trio of one-act parodies by playwright Christopher Durang. The audience-friendly cabaret-style show (you can order food and drinks during the performance) lovingly skewers such beloved classics of American theater as Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, and Sam Shepard’s A Lie of the Mind, in three short but strapping burlesques: DESIRE, DESIRE, DESIRE; FOR WHOM THE SOUTHERN BELLE TOLLS; and A STYE OF THE EYE.
Tina Brock directs and performs with ridiculopathic favorites David Stanger, Kristen Norine, Susan Giddings, and Andrew Carroll, along with rookies Langston Darby and Kate Graham, making their impressive company debuts. All fully deliver the big laughs and expertly capture the absurdist spirit at which the IRC excels, in outrageous wigs and costumes designed by Erica Hoelscher. You’ll have a grand time watching the rollicking ensemble turn iconic dramas and tragedies into wacky comedies, and identifying the jumble of characters and quotations from other popular plays that Durang throws into his uproarious mix (including references to Willliams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Eugene O’Neill’s The Iceman Cometh, Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross, and more). It’s a whole lot of laughs packed into a rapid-fire 70-minutes of ridiculously amusing entertainment, and a great start to a festive holiday season. [L’Étage, 6th & Bainbridge Sts.]
November 9-28, 2014; idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.org.
What to do in Philly this weekend
Philadelphia Metro
Click HERE to read original article
November 8, 2014
A Streetcar Named Durang
Through Nov. 28
L’etage
624 S. Sixth St.
$10, 215-285-0472
www.idiopathicridiculopathyconsortium.org
Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard are two of American’s all-time greatest playwrights. Still, all that insanity and family dysfunction can be a little much, which is why we’re glad this show by the Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, providing delirious send-ups of Williams’ “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “The Glass Menagerie” and Shepard’s “A Lie of the Mind,” is out there, doing its wacky thing.