Okay, let’s try this one again. The Lost Year is ending and the season that never happened is gone for good, but now our darkened theatre is getting ready to light up once again. Plan to join us in September for opening night of our 110th season of Big Theatre in a Small Space, with another exciting schedule of plays never or rarely seen in St. Louis.
September 17-26, 2021: What if you could go back in time and change the one moment that reshaped your life forever? What if you could see a lost love of 40 years ago just one more time, to learn how her life turned out? Would you? Steven Dietz’s Bloomsday, a bittersweet tale of love won and lost on the Emerald Isle, poses the questions. The answers are for you to discover. Jessa Knust makes her WEPG directing debut.
December 10-19, 2021: Shirley Lauro’s A Piece of My Heart is, according to one reviewer, “six women telling a story you are not sure you want to hear.” Four young military nurses, a Red Cross worker and a USO singer fly off to the Vietnam war, full of hope and driven by their desire to serve. But the life they live there breaks their hearts and, for some, their lives. Yes, it’s a story you may not want to hear, but it’s also one you’ll never forget. Dani Mann directs.
February 11-20, 2022: In an alternate universe much like our own, in a budget motel room in a snowy part of the country called New Hampshire, the first woman to make a serious run at a major party’s presidential nomination is teetering on the brink of elimination from a race that hasn’t even really started yet; and her husband, himself an ex-president, isn’t helping much. The play is Hillary and Clinton, Lucas Hnath’s take on what might have happened in that motel room. Is Hnath’s tale history or fantasy? We can’t say for sure, but we can promise a show that is smart, funny and full of characters you just might recognize. Tim Naegelin directs his first WEPG production.
April 29-May 8, 2022: We end our season where it began – in Ireland. But Irish playwright Martin McDonagh’s The Lonesome West is no warm-hearted Irish love story. This dark, dark comedy is the tale of Coleman and Valene, two brothers who can barely keep from killing each other. McDonagh makes you laugh and laugh at things that really shouldn’t be laughed about. But go ahead and laugh out loud. We won’t tell. Robert Ashton returns to WEPG to direct.
Season tickets for the upcoming season go on sale in July online at WestEndPlayers.org/tickets. Individual show tickets will go on sale in August. All shows are at the theatre in the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 Union Boulevard in the Central West End. Watch for further announcements and check for more information, including public health protocols to be observed at the performances (when they are finalized), at WestEndPlayers.org.
Actors, take note: Auditions for A Piece of My Heart, Hillary and Clinton and The Lonesome West will be held July 17 (Bloomsday, originally scheduled to be presented in April, 2020, has already been cast). More information and audition sides will be posted at WestEndPlayers.org/auditions in June.
West End Players Guild is the region’s oldest continuously-operated theatre company, presenting “big theatre in a small space” since 1911.
Lynn (Zipfel) Venhaus has had a continuous byline in St. Louis metro region publications since 1978. She writes features and news for Belleville News-Democrat and contributes to St. Louis magazine and other publications.
She is a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic, currently reviews films for Webster-Kirkwood Times and KTRS Radio, covers entertainment for PopLifeSTL.com and co-hosts podcast PopLifeSTL.com…Presents.
She is a member of Critics Choice Association, where she serves on the women’s and marketing committees; Alliance of Women Film Journalists; and on the board of the St. Louis Film Critics Association. She is a founding and board member of the St. Louis Theater Circle.
She is retired from teaching journalism/media as an adjunct college instructor.