The University of Delaware’s Resident Ensemble Players 10th anniversary season brings a celebration of seven plays to the stage, from laugh-out-loud comedies, to sizzling classic dramas, to the premiere of a new play torn from the headlines and written by REP company member Michael Gotch.

Opening the season in the intimate Studio Theatre in the Roselle Center for the Arts is the laugh-out-loud comedy Lettice and Lovage by Peter Shaffer, running Sept. 13 through Oct. 7.  An unexpected friendship develops between a vivacious tour guide who plays fast and loose with historical facts and the stick-in-the-mud bureaucrat who has her fired. This mad comedy delights in the importance of friends, history and the occasional teeny, tiny white lie.

Next door in the Thompson Theatre, Conor McPherson’s dark Irish comedy The Seafarer, plays Sept. 20 through Oct. 7. It’s a devil of a holiday when “Sharky” Harkin returns to Dublin for a whisky-soaked Christmas Eve of companionship and poker. When a mysterious stranger asks to be dealt in, Sharky realizes there is more on the line than just a few pounds in this ultimate high-stakes game.

The season continues with Alan Ayckbourn’s Woman in Mind, Nov. 8 through Dec. 2. Described as the “comic poet of middle-class life,” Ayckbourn creates a black comedy of domestic madness. Susan’s dreary married life is upended after an accident in the garden. Suddenly she finds she has the ideal husband and family but now can’t tell if this is the perfect dream or a perfect nightmare.

The REP ushers in 2019 with the premiere of Minor Fantastical Kingdoms, written by REP company member Michael Gotch, Jan. 24 through Feb. 10.  A young couple builds an off-the-grid, tiny house in an isolated mountain paradise to get away from all the emotional, financial and political upheaval in the world, or so they think. When family, friends and a few quirky neighbors join them for a Fourth of July barbecue, their peaceful redwood glen explodes into a forest of recriminations and revelations.

A sizzling courtroom drama takes the stage when the REP presents the classic play Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, March 7-29. Based on the famous Scopes “Monkey” trial where a high school teacher was arrested for including Darwin’s theories of evolution in his curriculum, two of the greatest legal giants of the 20th century face off in a struggle that continues to this day: the conflict between scientific fact and religious belief.

Mauritius, Theresa Rebeck’s cunningly crafted thriller about deceit, double-crosses and stamps, runs April 17 through May 12 in the Studio Theatre. A cat-and-mouse game plays out when a pair of half-siblings tangle with three, high-stakes collectors over an inheritance of the “crown jewel of philately” — the 1847 one- and two-penny Mauritius stamps, worth millions if authentic.

Closing out the season in the Thompson Theatre is August Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning masterpiece Fences, playing April 25 through May 12. Troy Maxson, a former star of the Negro Baseball League is now a trash collector with little future. Embittered and resentful, Troy builds both literal and figurative fences around his wife and son as he comes to terms with his past disappointments in this poetic and powerful challenge to the American dream.

Season at a Glance

Lettice and Lovage by Peter Shaffer, Sept. 13 through Oct. 7.

The Seafarer by Conor McPherson, Sept. 20 through Oct. 7.

Woman in Mind by Alan Ayckbourn, Nov. 8 through Dec. 2

Minor Fantastical Kingdoms by Michael Gotch, Jan. 24 through February 10

Inherit the Wind by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee, March 7 through 24

Mauritius by Theresa Rebeck, April 17 through May 12

Fences by August Wilson, April 25 through May 12

Tickets

A complete schedule, directions and information on purchasing tickets can be found at www.rep.udel.edu or by calling the REP box office at 302-831-2204.

Seven-, five- and four-show subscription packages for the REP season offer substantial savings with special subscriber benefits. They can be purchased through the REP box office in the Roselle Center for the Arts in person, by mail or by phone at 302-831-2204.  Information can be found online at www.rep.udel.edu.   

General public single tickets range from $27 to $32; discounts are available for students, seniors and University of Delaware faculty and staff.  

REP productions are made possible, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.

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 region with frequent productions of outstanding classic, modern and contemporary plays performed in a wide variety of styles that celebrate and demonstrate the range and breadth of each resident actor in this 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.