The Resident Ensemble Players (REP), the University of Delaware’s professional resident acting company, is once again preparing to bring the world’s great plays to the stage at the Roselle Center for the Arts.

To be staged during the 2016-17 season are Yasmina Reza’s Tony Award-winning black comedy God of Carnage, Samuel Beckett’s modern masterpiece Waiting for Godot, Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning razor-sharp satire Clybourne Park, Theresa Rebeck’s haunting drama The Bells, Bernard Pomerance’s Tony Award-winning play The Elephant Man, and Molière’s classic French farce Tartuffe.

Subscriptions and single tickets are on sale and can be purchased in person at the REP box office in the Roselle Center for the Arts, by phone at 302-831-2204 or online at this website.

“Our 2016-17 season features the REP’s resident professional acting company in six very different plays,” says Sanford Robbins, producing artistic director. “We continue to provide audiences in the tri-state area with a wide variety of characters, stories, genres and styles to create a full season of great entertainment. And with the artistic contributions of guest directors, designers, and actors, this season is sure to be one of the REP’s best yet.”

Kicking off the season in the REP’s intimate Studio Theater is God of Carnage, a raucous dark comedy of ill-manners and salty language. Written by Yasmina Reza, translated by Christopher Hampton and directed by Kate Buckley, God of Carnage plays Sept. 17 through Oct. 9, with previews on Sept. 15 and 16.

Two sets of parents meet for a civil discussion about a schoolyard squabble between their two sons. As the evening wears on and the rum flows freely, harmony devolves into hostility when everyone’s inner child comes out swinging, and the evening descends into hilarious, unmannered chaos.

Next door in the Thompson Theatre, Samuel Beckett’s existential classic Waiting for Godot runs Sept. 24 through Oct. 9, with previews on Sept. 22 and 23. Irish director Ben Barnes, who previously staged the REP’s Juno and the Paycock, returns to direct Waiting for Godot.

Beckett’s masterpiece about two vagrants waiting for someone who is notoriously unreliable at keeping appointments is part allegory and part vaudeville and dances between absurdist comic sketch and captivating philosophical drama.

In November, Clybourne Park takes the Thompson stage, running Nov. 12 through Dec. 4, with previews on Nov. 10 and 11. Directed by REP actor Lee E. Ernst, Bruce Norris’ social satire is a sharp look at race, real estate and role-reversal.

Inspired by the classic A Raisin in the Sun, Clybourne Park examines the same urban neighborhood 50 years apart: first in 1959, when a black family wants to purchase a home in a white neighborhood and then in 2009, when a white family wants to buy the exact same house in what is now a predominantly African-American neighborhood.

The REP company heads north to the Yukon Territory and the great gold rush of the 19th century in Theresa Rebeck’s captivating drama The Bells, from Jan. 21 through Feb. 5, with previews on Jan. 19 and 20.

Rebeck, playwright of the REP’s productions of O Beautiful and Fever, returns to Delaware to direct her compelling tale of ghosts, grit and guilt. The mystery of a murder and a bounty hunter’s mission to dig up the truth is at the center of this frigid land where stories are never taken lightly and nothing is quite what it seems.

Hearts will melt in March when Robbins stages Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man. John Merrick, named the “Elephant Man” in a touring freak show, is a passionate, artistic soul trapped in a body disfigured by a rare disease. He is rescued by a renowned surgeon and becomes the unlikely toast of London society.

Playing March 4 through March 19, with previews on March 2 and 3, The Elephant Man is a poignant look at compassion, intolerance, and the power of forgiveness.

Last season, award-winning director Maria Aitken staged the REP’s striking production of Shaw’s Heartbreak House. She returns to the REP in April to direct Molière’s delightfully wicked French farce Tartuffe, translated into English verse by Richard Wilbur.

Tartuffe masquerades as a pious man of the cloth while endeavoring to swindle the gullible Orgon out of his fortune, daughter and reputation. But everyone else in the household smells a rat. When Tartuffe is threatened with exposure, he ups both the ante and the hilarity with his dastardly shenanigans.

Tartuffe runs April 22 through May 7, with previews on April 20 and 21.

Tickets and information about the REP’s full season can be found at the website.

About the REP

The Resident Ensemble Players (REP) is a professional theatre company located at the University of Delaware.

The REP’s mission is to engage audiences throughout the tri-state area with frequent productions of outstanding classic, modern, and contemporary plays performed in a wide variety of styles that celebrate and demonstrate the range, breadth, and ability to transform a full-time ensemble of nationally respected stage actors who have been trained in the same way.

The REP is committed to create future audiences for live theatre by offering its productions at low prices that enable and encourage the attendance of everyone in the region, regardless of income.