At about 6:30pm Thursday evening, the live video feed started rolling and the room quieted as the crowd gathered at the Silvermoon on Broad anxiously waited to hear the announcement. At the end of 27 successful years as Texarkana’s community theatre, the Texarkana Repertory Company was thrilled to reveal next year’s lineup of shows.
Texarkana Repertory Company, Inc., (TexRep) was formed in 1990 by a group of area stage enthusiasts with the attitude, “Let’s do a show!” Since that time, the organization has performed at least four shows a season and hosted a summer drama camp.
Past shows include: Sound of Music, Godspell, Beauty and the Beast, Greater Tuna, Holes, Fiddler on the Roof, My Fair Lady, 1776, Into the Woods, Grease and Steel Magnolias. In all, after 27 years of seasons,
TexRep has showcased over 100 shows for the Texarkana area produced and performed by those in the community. The sets are constructed and the work is done by hard-working, like-minded individuals who love the art of theatre.
It was evident on this particular Thursday night, that the community came out to hear the exciting news. President of the Board, Susannah Linnett, introduced the rest of the board and thanked the crowd for their continued support of TexRep.
“We couldn’t do this without you, nor would we want to,” Linnett said.
She touched on some of the highlights of the 27th season and gave a glowing report, starting with the season opener: the hit musical The Little Mermaid, which delighted audiences and included a party where young theatre goers could meet the cast. That production was followed by Rabbit Hole, which was a powerful, real look at a couple dealing with grief. The educational show of the past season, performed in November, was The Outsiders, and four additional student matinees were offered to area schools.
Linnett reminded attendees that the final show of the season is Peter and the Star Catcher, which will open in two weeks on February 9th. After thanking the audience for their support of the non-profit group, Linnett then gave the floor to Artistic Director, Michael Cooper.
Cooper teased the crowd with tidbits of information about each upcoming show as Linnett waited to turn each poster around. So, what did he reveal?
TexRep’s 28th season will start with the hit Dreamworks movie-turned-hit-musical, SHREK. Auditions will be held Monday, February 12, 2018 A large cast will be needed, and the performances will be in May.
The second show has traditionally featured males as the lead characters, but this year Cooper wanted to showcase more female talent by staging the female version of Neil Simon’s classic play The Odd Couple. A hilarious comedy about a pair of roommates that don’t mesh well, the Odd Couple will be performed in September.
The third show of the upcoming season is a fairly new play, but was an Oscar winning movie about a young “writers-blocked” playwright.
“We are the first non-equity company to get rights to this show,” Cooper glowed as Linnett revealed the poster for Shakespeare in Love which will be performed in November.
The final show of the 28th season started as a best selling book and has gone on to win numerous awards in England and now in America as both a book and, now, a play. Entitled The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime,the show is a mystery about a situation that a young boy with high functioning autism hopes to find a solution to. This play will be performed in February of 2019.
The crowd at the Silvermoon applauded with enthusiasm as each show was announced, and the social media world watching live was excited to hear the new season as well. Memberships are now available for purchase online at texrep.org.
You can also get tickets to the current season’s final production, Peter and the Star Catcher, by following the link on the website. Performances are Feb 9, 10, 16, and 17 at 7:30pm and Feb 11 & 12 at 2pm at the Stilwell Theater located in the Humanities building at Texarkana College.
