BLKS
by Aziza Barnes
(November 16 - December 3)
RI Premiere 

When shit goes down, your girls show up. Waking up to a shocking and personal health scare, Octavia and her best friends, June and Imani, go on a crusade to find intimacy and joy in a world that could give a fuck less about them or their feelings. This 24-hour blitz explores what it is to be a queer blk woman in 2015 New York, how we survive and save ourselves from ourselves.

“A raucous comedy of misbehavior and a quiet tragedy of mistreatment… the pure joy of seeing the best of people at their worst…the uncomfortable proximity of terror and pleasure, the mark of mortality in the midst of intimacy, percolates beneath the surface at all times, so that even at its most extreme and obscene—BLKS is not for prudish ears or eyes—it is serious and sad and profoundly human.”
—NY Times

“Hilarious in the most uncomfortable ways. It’s the kind of comedy you watch with one hand covering your eyes, and the other suspending your dropped jaw…Barnes’s lack of fear as a writer is what makes BLKS a particularly joyous experience…Each of Barnes’s characters is a mess in his or her own special way, and it is in their flaws that we are best able to see reflections of ourselves—and laugh-cringe at the mirror’s harsh truth.”
—Theatre Mania

“…a disarming, vivacious comedy…Barnes’s irreverent and exuberant play, saturated in race and sexuality, is part romantic sitcom, part existential reflection…Before you know it, a deep, soulful riff is unwinding…It’s a persistent, perceptive entertainer.”
— Washington Post

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Hanukkah Shmanukkah
an Aaron Blanck Original Production
December 8th - 17th

Deep in the proudly Jewish working class section of Victorian England, the penny pinching head of the waistcoat factory, Scroogemacher, seems to have lost her humanity and her Hanukkah Spirit. But with the help of some ghostly visits, she just might learn the true meaning of Chanukkah, or however you spell it.

Hanukkah Shmanukkah is a wild and zany, mildly offensive and completely inappropriate ride that asks that timeless question, can you do a play in Rhode Island about Jews written and directed by a Jew actually starring Jews without mentioning the Holocaust? Only one way to find out!

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PLAYHOUSE CREATURES
By April De Angelis
(February 1 - 25)
In partnership with WomensWorkRI

The year is 1669 a bawdy and troublesome time. Theaters have just reopened after seventeen years of Puritan suppression. There is a surge in dramatic writing and the first English actresses appear on stage. Playhouse Creatures focuses on five of the most famous (Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Farley, Rebecca Marshall, Doll Common and Mary Betterton) to provide a moving and often comic account of the precarious lives of Restoration actresses.

"An immense talent and witty sensitive dialogue...Thoroughly entertaining."
— Tribune

"Flesh and blood heroines...move and inspire...a few more female role models stamped firmly on your heart."
— Time Out New York

"With delicious absurd extracts from the heroic repertory and frantic dressing room scenes, the prevailing tone is comic but you are not allowed to forget the gutter waiting to reclaim these glittering figures."
— The Independent

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COLLECTIVE RAGE: A Play in 5 Betties
by Jen Silverman
(March 28 - April 21)
RI Premiere

Betty is rich; Betty is lonely; Betty’s busy working on her truck; Betty wants to talk about love, but Betty needs to hit something. And Betty keeps using a small hand mirror to stare into parts of herself she’s never examined. Five different women named Betty collide at the intersection of anger, sex, and the “thea-tah.”

“Straight-up funny.” — New York Magazine

Critic's Pick! “A fult-tilt lesbian/bi-curious/ genderqueer/Shakespearean comedy for everyone... If you're wondering whether you'll enjoy the revolution, Collective Rage makes an excellent (and hilarious) test case.”

— New York Times

“Anger, love and loneliness are comedically but honestly rendered in this occasionally absurd, stylized, queer-centric play... With hilarity and poignancy, Collective Rage offers a broad spectrum of queer voices rarely seen on stage.”
— Variety

“A perfect balance between the really absurd and the absurdly real.”
— Broadway World

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THE MOTHERF**KER WITH THE HAT
by Stephen Adly Guirgis
(May 23 - June 16)

Struggles with addiction, friendship, love, and the challenges of adulthood are at the center of the story. Jackie, a petty drug dealer, is just out of prison and trying to stay clean. He’s also still in love with his coke-addicted childhood sweetheart, Veronica. Ralph D. is Jackie’s too-smooth, slightly slippery sponsor. He’s married to the bitter and disaffected Victoria, who, by the way, has the hots for Jackie. And then there’s Julio, Jackie’s cousin…a stand-up, “stand by me” kind of guy.

"Guirgis, a brilliant comedic talent…also has an original and knowing take on class… Guirgis’ characters are strivers who lack the language to 'pass’ in a white-collar world; they’re frustrated by limitations that they’re only half aware of, and that frustration provides much of the painful hilarity in their dialogue, which piles miscommunication on top of misunderstanding.”
— New York Times

“It’s a tight, smart and splendidly well-made, a tough-minded, unromantically romantic comedy that keeps you laughing, then sends you home thinking.”
— Wall Street Journal

“Funny indeed—not to mention surprising, disturbing and poignant…dark, rich comedy…By not putting characters or their dilemmas in neat boxes, Guirgis gives us, in HAT, a slice of hard life that’s as provocative as it is absorbing.”
— USA Today

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Information

Please contact our box office at (401) 484-0355 or info@burbagetheatre.org if you would require wheelchair accessible seating.

Plays and dates are subject to change.


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