Pit & Balcony’s 93rd Season Reaffirms How Variety is the Spice of Life

Over the expanse of its 93-year history Pit & Balcony Community Theatre has established an ambitious reputation for presenting a blend of traditional, contemporary, and experimental theatrical performances designed to appeal to a diverse range of tastes, backgrounds, age groups, and ethnicities, which makes the theme for their 2024-24 season, The Spice of Life, all the more apropos.

Under the stewardship of Managing Director Amy Spadafore, Pit & Balcony has resonated throughout the region by showcasing an impressive number of regional theatrical premiers, updating dramatic classics from playwrights such as Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams, while also staging ambitious musical productions designed to engage a broad spectrum of interest and engagement.

When asked about the theme setting the tone for their 93^rd season, Spadafore smiles and remarks how the theme for the season actually came after the shows were selected.   “Our goal every year is to come up with a series of shows that appeals to lots of different tastes, ages, and backgrounds, so in order to properly represent our community we need to tell a variety of stories in order to achieve that goal.  But after we made our show selections and looked for a theme to tie them all together, we couldn’t find one until we realized how variety is indeed the spice of life.”

Seasonal Snapshots

Following long-standing tradition, Pit & Balcony kicks off their 2024-25 season with a musical adaptation of the popular 1980s film The Wedding Singer with performances on Sept. 27-29 & Oct. 4-6^th.  According to Amy, this musical production of the comedy film classic starring Adam Sandler stays very true to the film and was also nominated for several Tony Awards.

“Actor Stephen Lynch reprised Sander’s role in this 2006 Broadway musical, and one of my favorite things about it is that lots of times these musicals that are created from a movie often don’t include music from the film because of legal limitations on the theatrical rights, but with this one not only includes all the songs from the film but also adds in a few fresh ones.  It’s definitely a high-energy ‘80s rock musical.”

Next on the agenda will be the holiday classic ‘A Miracle on 34^th Street’, adapted by Mountain Community Theatre from the novel by Valentine Davies and based upon the 20^th Century Fox motion picture, which will run from Dec. 11-13 & 20-22.  “Pit & Balcony last staged this production back in 2013 and it remains one of our highest selling productions to this day,” she notes.

“People know it and love it and 2013 production was my directorial debut at Pit, so I am staying away from this year’s production because I don’t want to put my own vision on it and am excited to see what a new director and younger cast do with it. There are two different theatrical versions of this production, and the one we are doing is from the 1950s.”

The first production of the 2025 portion of Pit’s 93rd season will be the deeply rendered and beautifully textured romantic meditations contained within the delightful midwinter night’s dream of Almost, Maine, set to run from Feb. 14-16 & 21-23^rd.

Set within the town of Almost, Maine, the reason the town got it name is because it’s almost in Canada and as far north of Maine as you can get. “It was never incorporated as a town, so Almost, Maine is a series of nine vignettes that all happen simultaneously, and the way we show that onstage is because the Northern Lights are happening on the same evening as each of these vignettes throughout the show”, explains Amy. 

“As the northern lights hover, residents of this small town find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and hilarious ways, and it contains a lot of fantastical semi-magical elements,” she continues. “For instance, one of my favorite vignettes involves a couple who have broken up and the woman comes to the man’s house with a big sack an says, ‘I’m returning all the love you gave me and I want my love back.”  I don’t want to ruin it by saying anything more, but this play contains these really poetic moments that avoid becoming cutesy, but are very real and funny and romantic.”

April brings another regional premiere to Pit & Balcony with the vividly rendered moral complexities presented in Coyote on a Fence, which explores the disturbing question: Can one be innocent though proven guilty?   With performances scheduled for April 4-6 & 11-13^th, Spadafore prefaces her remarks by stating, “With every play I’ve ever been involved in, this one contains my favorite script of all time. It’s a show that doesn’t have a nice tidy bow to resolve the questions it raises, so it inspires conversation, which are the kinds of plays I love.”

Set on Death Row in Texas and based upon a true story, it tells the tale of John Brennan, educated and arrogant who from what we understand was framed in a murder. While in prison he writes obituaries for inmates after they are executed and brings out the humanity in them, highlighting something people don’t understand or see about them because they are accused of heinous crimes. He gets a new cell neighbor named Bobby Reyburn who loves to do impressions and is a racist predator and member of the Aryan nation who burns down a black church because he believe Gold told him to. Having no remorse because he believes it is something he was destined to do, he has a reasonable insanity defense, which raises the question does he deserve to die?

“Everyone is somewhat of a villain in this play,” reflects Amy, “but they kind of exonerate each other through their humanity, so this is a tough play for people to digest, which is what I love about it - the fact it’s a penetrating drama that offers no clear verdict, yet utterly compelling theatre.”

Closing out the regular season will be the regional premiere of Carrie: the Musical on May 8-10 & 16-18^th, which is based on the Stephen King novel with music by Michael Gore and lyrics by Dean Pitchford.  “White this musical played on Broadway for only three days and did not have a stellar run, it clearly does have a cult following, so we felt this would be a fun musical to close out our regular season,” notes Amy. “It also contains many of the scenes from the movie, such as the whole thing with pig blood and fire in the gymnasium, so our technicians will get put through the ringer on this one, and it should appeal to a broad spectrum of audiences.”

After Dark • How to Successfully Walk on the Cutting Edge

For their controversial and highly cutting-edge After Dark Series, which features productions pushing the envelope of contemporary theatre, this year’s productions will include POTUS: or Behind Every Great Dumba** are Seven Women Trying to Keep Him Alive, which offers a bawdy and irreverent look at sex, politics, and the women in charge of the man in charge of the free world. Set for production on November 1 & 2 and because we are in an election year, Spadafore says this year’s holiday production for After Dark will be Election Day and this highly driven female piece will be staged a week before the November presidential election.

Then on June 26-27 will close out their 93^rd Season with the After Dark production of 5 Lesbians Eating a Quiche, which is set in 1956 at the Susan B. Anthony Society for the Sisters of Gertrude Stein’s annual quiche breakfast, and won a 2012 NYC International Fringe Festival award for Best Overall Production.

When asked if the controversial nature of these adult-oriented After Dark productions has carried any negative or polarizing impacts upon attendance, Amy responds by noting how all choices come with a price tag.

“Whenever you design  a season based upon goals of attendance and familiarity verses engaging new audiences through creative and challenging works, those choices have had both positive and adverse impacts, depending upon the show and the audience,” she reflects. “You can’t have it all and we know that, so something we reiterate in our play selection committee meetings every year is that we’re not going to make everybody happy with each show, so the overall goal is to make them happy with each season. 

“Not everyone in our audience appreciates the After Dark productions, but many truly love it. Our most successful shows based upon ticket sales and feedback, in terms of percentage of tickets sold last year, were The Play That Goes Wrong and Milk Milk Lemonade, which was an After Dark production.

Flex Pass & Season Ticket Presales

With Pit & Balcony’s all new flex pass option you have the freedom to choose how you want to use your tickets.  Patrons can see all the shows contained within the season, or just one, by selecting any of the following options and enjoy a discount on the general admission price of $20 each: 5 tickets: $80; 4 Tickets: $70; 3 tickets: $55, with UNLIMITED After Dark tickets added to ANY Flex Pass for $10 each (normally $15).

“Flex Passes don’t lose their value and you can use them for any of the performances,” notes Amy. “One thing we’ve noted is that more and more 20 to 30% of our audience for any given show is a walk up rather than a pre-sale, so it’s harder for us  to plan. When people purchase Season Tickets they help us defray our frontloaded production costs, such as the royalties involved with each production, which we need to pay a year in advance. Flex Passes help us recoup those costs and is the best way to support Pit & Balcony.”

To purchase Flex Passes, Season Tickets, and Individual tickets please visit PitandBalconyTheatre.com