Shows & Tickets

2024-25 Season

Hey, old friend.

“So, old friends
Fill me in slow, old friend—
Start from hello, old friend”

Three stories of friendship. One altered by marriage, another by fame, and one destroyed by war. Follow these dear friends through moments of growing up and chasing dreams to the inexplicable, unimaginable moments in life when we need our friends the most.

  • Poste image of cast for show, comprising of individuals posing in photos booths. The words "Merrily We Roll Along" by Stephen Sondheim & George Furth.

    Merrily We Roll Along

    Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by George Furth, Directed by Buffie Main & Dugan Jackman, Musical director Dr. John Hamilton, Orchestration Chad Spears

    Success, friendship, and idealism meet in this Tony Award-winning musical about growing up, growing apart, and making dreams come true, no matter the corrupted cost.

    Merrily We Roll Along is about the turbulent relationship between lifelong friends.  With some of Sondheim’s most playful numbers, like “Franklin Shepard, Inc.”, “Not a Day Goes By”, “Our Time,” and “Old Friends”, Merrily takes audiences on a journey of optimism, friendship, dreams, regrets, and of time gone by.

     

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  • Grand Horizons

    By Bess Wohl, Directed by Tiara Thompson & Buffie Main

    Grand Horizons is a Tony-nominated play by Bess Wohl. A hilarious commentary on marriage, family, and the wisdom that comes with age (or not).

    Fifty years into her marriage to Bill, Nancy wants a divorce. While her husband seems unfazed by the decision, her two adult sons are shaken to the core. As the “kids” descend on the Grand Horizons senior living community to mediate, everything they thought they knew about their parents comes crashing down. The family, turned upside down and grappling with their new reality, finds each must reckon with their own imperfect past in this intimate look at the wild, unpredictable, and enduring nature of love. And that seemingly well-adjusted families can be messy.

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  • Honey Brown Eyes

    By Stefanie Zadravec, Directed by Amela Karadza , Assistant Director John Wicks

    In partnership with Little Branch Company, a new theater company founded by Amela Karadza and Jovani Zambrano, Alley Repertory Theater brings you Honey Brown Eyes.

    Bosnia 1992: In two kitchens, two soldiers recover a little of what they’ve lost during the war. A Serbian paramilitary soldier must face the consequences of his own brutality, while a Bosnian resistance fighter, crippled by the limits of his own courage, seeks refuge with a kindred soul.

    The story of two young men, once friends, and the connection that will tie them forever; their love of music and the unimaginable horror of war.

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  • Alley Palooza

    The Funnest FUNdraiser You’ll Ever Attend

    Friday, September 27, 2024

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2023-24 Season

Banned for Being Bold

Iconic, revolutionary, groundbreaking, and BANNED; Alley Rep. takes the stage with stories of being banned in the past and plays at risk of being banned today.

Banned for being in love, banned for contagious curiosity, banned for courage, banned for being the wrong race; this is a season about lovers and dreamers, activists and allies, and the heroes and hippies who spark change, chase freedom, and never let us forget something bigger is going on out there.

  • Flyer for the play Boulevard of Bold Dreams by Alley Rep Theater, square version

    Boulevard of Bold Dreams

    By LaDarrion Williams, Directed by Dakotah Brown, Assistant Director Bren Trotter

    A dynamic story about the night Hattie McDaniel made Hollywood history by becoming the first Black artist to win an Oscar for her performance in Gone with the Wind.

    When Hattie stops at the Ambassador Hotel to debate if she should attend the biggest night in show business, knowing she will not be allowed to sit with her cast but rather in a room at the back of the theater, the bartender, Arthur, and the maid, Dottie, do everything in their power to convince her to go and claim her historic win. A story of dreamers striving to overcome considerable obstacles and fighting for recognition amidst the racism and inequity of the ever-changing landscape of Hollywood.

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  • Flyer for the play Hair by Alley Rep Theater, square version

    Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical

    Book & Lyrics Gerome Ragni, Book & Lyrics James Rado, Music Galt MacDermot, Directed by Buffie Main & John Wicks, Music director Darian Reneé, Musician Rhiannon Terry, Musician Justin Tam, Musician Andrew Pearson

    With a reputation that hasn’t faded, and an iconic score that changed pop culture forever, Hair is as relevant today as when it radicalized a generation in 1968. This revolutionary rock musical celebrates the sixties counterculture in all its barefoot, long-haired, bell-bottomed, beaded and fringed glory. To an infectiously energetic rock beat, the show wows audiences with songs like “Aquarius,” “Good Morning, Starshine,” “Hair,” “I Got Life” and “Let The Sunshine In.”

    Hair follows Claude, his best friend Berger, and their friends as they navigate their young lives, loves, and the sexual revolution, all while rebelling against the war, their parents, and society at large. Hair explores themes of identity, free love, community, global responsibility, and peace and reminds us that history is never far away

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  • Flyer for the play The Normal Heart by Alley Rep Theater, square version

    The Normal Heart

    By Larry Kramer, Directed by Buffie Main & Ben Clegg

    Exploring the early days of an epidemic, and homophobia and prejudice around infectious disease, The Normal Heart pangs with poignant parallels and eerie echoes.

    Pulitzer-nominated, The Normal Heart is set in 1980s New York and explores the impact of the AIDS endemic in the early years. A searing drama about public and private indifference to the AIDS plague and one man’s lonely fight to awaken the world to the crisis. Based on Kramer’s real-life experience, writer and activist Ned Weeks attempts to channel his anger at the systems in place while he fights to unite the gay community to talk about their rights to survive.

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  • Bent Compass

    By Neil Brookshire and Colin Sesek

    Following the journey of an Army Medic from fresh recruit to seasoned combat veteran, the text of BENT COMPASS is taken from transcribed interviews detailing the effects of war on a personal level. The stories begin with Colin, years after his deployment, as a student teacher who witnesses an event during one of his teaching assignments. Because of his combat experience, he sees the situation differently than the other teachers. At once personal, reflective, humorous, raw, and candid, these stories honor a man whose unique perspective speaks to both veterans and non-combat civilians alike.

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2022-23 Season

Powered By the Times In Which We Live

Intimate and electrifying, Alley Repertory Theater’s 2022-23 season mixes exciting new works that explore current issues with classics that remind us how today’s headlines came to be. Political and provocative, joyful and heartfelt, hilarious and challenging; in a time when the world is changing forever, these are stories not often told – or that cannot be told enough.

  • In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)

    By Sarah Ruhl, Directed by Buffie Main

    In the waning years of the 19th century, a ground-breaking physician treats the “hysteric” needs of his female patients while overlooking domestic discontentment of his bored, and lonely wife. An examination of female sexuality and autonomy, this historically accurate comedy navigates love and marriage, and the remarkable origins of electrifying medical treatments for women.

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  • Hot Asian Doctor Husband

    By Leah Nanako Winkler, Directed by Daniella Wheelock

    In the dead of winter, at the Cherry Blossom Garden, we meet Emi a multiracial Japanese woman lost and confused in grief and cultural expectations. Just a few months ago, Emi knew exactly what she wanted and got it: A Hot Asian Doctor Husband.

    On paper, he was the perfect candidate for Emi, but she pays the cost when he turns out not exactly as she imagined. Suddenly her ancestors, her legacy, and culture are all at stake. This hilariously contemporary and honest play explores the multi-racial experience. Lost in between her personal responsibility to carry on the culture passed down from her Japanese mother and her inability to control the cultural identity of the one she loves; this wry, award-winning play by Leah Nanako Winkler is a coming-of-age story beautifully woven with humor, emotion, and memories.

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  • Cabaret

    Based on the play by John Van Druten, Stories by Christopher Isherwood, Music by John Kander, Lyrics by Fred Ebb , Book by Joe Masteroff, Directed by Buffie Main & Jodi Eichelberger, Musical director Dr. John Hamilton

    In a world where inexplicable ways can get you down, the Cabaret is one place where everyone can be free. This December, you’re invited to The Kit Kat Club, where it transforms VAC as it’s never been seen before.

    In a decadent Berlin nightclub, as the 1920’s draw to a close, a garish Master of Ceremonies welcomes the audience to forget all their troubles at the Cabaret. With the Emcee’s bawdy songs as wry commentary, Cabaret explores the dark, heady, and tumultuous life of Berlin’s natives and expatriates as Germany slowly yields to a second World War. While the world unravels outside, in the Cabaret, life is beautiful.

    Intimate and electrify, Cabaret is a fierce, meaty musical that pushes the boundaries of the form and literally holds “the mirror up to nature”, with musical numbers that include the classics “Willkommen,” “Cabaret,” “Don’t Tell Mama”, “Maybe This Time”, and “Two Ladies.” Cabaret is a 12-time Tony Award-winning musical, taking home eight in its original run in 1967 and four more in the 1998 revival.

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Priscilla Queen of the Desert

2021-22 Season

Metamorphosis

Intermission is over! As we return to the stage, Alley Rep’s 13th season reflects the bold-risk-taking theater we have always been and the theater we want to become. We have taken advantage of our time off the stage to thoroughly examine the theatre we make. This season we are asking for growth from our audiences, our play choices, and ourselves.

We ask our audience to evolve with us as we tell stories of experiences they are less familiar with. In the shadow of the ghost light, we all found ourselves hiding and hardening away into a cocoon. The difficult part is growing out of that calcified state and into something wholly different. The metamorphosis is nothing to fear. We plan to play more fiercely and connect more deeply with our community. No more hiding or hardening. Welcome to Alley Repertory Theatre’s 2021-22 season “Metamorphosis.”

This season we are asking for growth from our audiences, our play choices, and ourselves.

We plan to play more fiercely and connect more deeply with our community.

Alley Rep is committed to working intentionally and rigorously to break down barriers to attending, learning, and creating theater—including those based on race, gender, sexuality, ability, and economics.

Over 13 seasons, Alley Rep has grown into a theater of, and for, our community.

  • Priscilla Queen of the Desert The Musical

    By Stephan Elliott, By Allan Scott, Directed by Buffie Main, Music director Dr. John Hamilton

    Based on the smash-hit movie, The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert is the heartwarming, uplifting story of three friends, Tick, Bernadette, and Adam. A glamorous Sydney-based performing trio, they agree to take their show to the middle of the Australian outback. Hopping aboard an old, battered bus (nicknamed Priscilla), these friends search for love and friendship and end up finding more than they ever imagined. This Olivier and Tony award-winning musical features a hit parade of dance floor favorites including “It’s Raining Men,” “I Will Survive,” “Hot Stuff,” “Boogie Wonderland,” “Go West,” “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” and “I Love The Nightlife”. Wildly fresh and funny, this extravaganza features an array of colorful characters and is a journey to the heart of FABULOUS!

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  • The Royale

    By Marco Ramirez, Directed by John Wicks & Buffie Main

    Inspired by the life and story of boxer Jack Johnson, The Royale by Marco Ramirez is the story of a Black prizefighter navigating life in the United States in the early 20th century.

    Jay “The Sport” Jackson is handsome, tough, headstrong, cocky, and undeniably the best Black heavyweight boxer during the end of the first decade of the 20th century. Jay grapples with the repercussions of crossing the color barrier after procuring a fight with Bixby, a white boxer, and the heavyweight champion of the world. As he prepares for his historic fight, he endeavors to conquer the label of merely a “Black boxer” and wrestles with the stigmas of living as a Black man during a racially volatile early 20th-century social ecosystem. He confronts violent, fiscal, political, and personal limitations as the reality and weight of racial tension in America becomes more transparent.

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2019-20 Season

Feisty and Fearless

Join Alley Rep for a feisty season of groundbreaking work featuring three stories about defying convention and daring to live completely as who we are and who we want to be. Three plays – raw and ripe with humor and humanity – that fearlessly reflect our world and invite us together to laugh, live and, above all else, to play fiercely.

  • Bernhardt/Hamlet

    By Theresa Rebeck, Directed by Buffie Main

    In 1899, the legendary international stage celebrity Sarah Bernhardt sets out to tackle her most ambitious role yet: Hamlet. Ms. Bernhardt’s decision to assume the title role of Shakespeare’s Hamlet left critics and patriarchs aghast and indignant. Laced with forbidden romance and backstage gossip, Theresa Rebeck’s new play is a behind-the-scenes look at Bernhardt’s most daring role, set against the lavish Shakespearean production that could make or break Bernhardt’s career.

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  • La Cage aux Folles

    By Harvey Fierstein, Lyricists Jerry Herman, Based on the Play by Jean Poiret, Directed by Buffie Main & Joe Golden, Music Director Chad Spears

    What happens when the son of a middle-aged gay couple brings home the daughter of an arch-conservative politician — and her parents — for dinner? Musical comedy ensues!

    In this beloved, award-winning musical, Georges and Albin enjoy a charmed life on the French Riviera as proprietor and star of a glitzy drag club. When their son gets engaged to the daughter of a politician, the limits of love, family, and mascara are put to the test. In the spirit of joy, love, and a lot of laughter during the holiday season, Alley Rep. continues its Christmas Extravaganza tradition of bringing audiences a show you won’t forget!

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  • A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Gynecologic Oncology Unit at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City

    By Halley Feiffer, Directed by Buffie Main

    Sparks fly when struggling stand-up Karla meets super-nerd Don after their mothers are assigned to the same room in the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. A wickedly funny tale of finding love—and lust—in the strangest of places and how sometimes a stranger is our best hope for admitting to painful life experiences. Conversations full of defensiveness and despair reveal vulnerability neither thought to be possible. Together, this unlikely duo must negotiate some of life’s biggest challenges and the raw exposed nerves of when the role of parent and child is switched.

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Indecent - raining on two women on a stage

2018-19 Season

Courage Compassion Humanity

Alley Repertory theater presents a season of unexpected perspectives that raise poignant and timely questions about, faith, judgment, and love.

Moving and vibrant, each play tackles truth, courage, and what it really means to risk it all for what we believe.

  • The Cake

    By Bekah Brunstetter, Directed by Buffie Main

    Jen lives in New York but has always dreamed of getting married in her small North Carolina hometown, so she heads down south with her partner to ask Della, her late mother’s best friend, to do the honors of making the wedding cake at her bakery. ​Della’s cakes are legendary, even earning her a spot as a contestant on the “Great American Baking Show.” She is overjoyed at Jen’s request, until she realizes there’s not just one bride, but two, forcing her to re-examine some of her deeply-held beliefs, as well as her own marriage.

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  • Jodi Sings Judy

    Directed by Jason Haskins & Nick Garcia, Music director Kati Sheldon

    Jodi Eichelberger and Tod Dunnigan lead Boise’s most talented singers and dancers as they reimagine Judy Garland’s one and only televised Christmas Special. Judy invites the TV cameras into her home for this 1963 Christmas TV special, to share the holiday with her family and her good friends as they all informally drop by. Young Joe and Lorna adorably sing off-key songs, a 17-year old Liza Minnelli is at her best singing and dancing to that classic dance jazz number “Steam Heat”, and Judy belts out her classic songs all under the guise of a warm, family affair. Combining mainstream Christmas rituals and the awkward banter between family on the holidays, this Alley Repertory Theater Christmas Extravaganza will pull on your nostalgic heartstrings and push your funny bone in a way that ONLY Alley Rep. can: by making this Christmas classic irreverent and bittersweet.

    Special Thanks to the Off Center Dancers (performing as The Dancing Santas): Lisa Whitwell, Teresa Vaugh, Carly Giacinto, April Hill, Linnaea Christiansen, Arianna Christiansen, Rachel Lyons, Lesley Thompson, Katie Ponozzo, Sam Buckmeir, and Hannah Matsen

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  • Indecent

    By Paula Vogel, Directed by Buffie Main & Traven Rice, Live music by Fleet Street Klezmer Band, Music director Chad Spears

    Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) tells the deeply moving story of the controversial 1923 Broadway debut of Jewish playwright Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance – a play about a forbidden romance that enchanted and outraged audiences. Inspired by true events of censorship and persecution, Indecent is the ultimate love-letter to theater, as the play uses joyous song and dance to revel in one of the most fascinating scandals in theater history. Spanning continents and decades, Indecent charts the journey of a drama upheld as a groundbreaking piece of Jewish literature by some, and an act of obscenity by others.

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2017-18 Season

THE AGE of WOMEN

Celebrate The Age of Women with three shows at Visual Arts Collective in October, December, and March that unpack the strong, unconventional, and subtle beauty of women.

  • Bull in a China Shop

    By Bryna Turner, Directed by Jason Haskins & Liberty Leeds Klautsch

    Bull in a China Shop by Bryna Turner is a vibrant comedy about two fierce women who blazed a new trail for women’s education at the height of the suffrage movement. Inspired by the real letters of Mary Woolley and Jeanette Marks, Bull in a China Shop gallops through forty years at Mount Holyoke College, following the women as they navigate their ambitions, idealism, and feminine power with equal parts comedic punch and dramatic heft. The triumphant debut of playwright Bryna Turner, this utterly un-stuffy history lesson reminds us that when we work to change the world, it changes us right back. Bull in a China Shop premiered at LCT3 in New York City in February 2017 and was chosen as a critic’s pick by The New York Times.

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  • Golden Girls Christmas Extravaganza

    Directed by Joe Golden & Justin Ness, Piano Anthony Mulparry

    The Golden Girls Christmas Extravaganza returns to Visual Arts Collective November 24 through December 16. Starring Minerva Jayne as Blanche and Jodi Eichelberger as Dorothy, the show features parodies of two classic episodes bookended by commercials written by the Fool Squad and live musicians. For those who want a picture with their favorite ‘80s TV heroine, Brunch with the Golden Girls will be on December 10.

    At each show, an Idaho musician will play a Christmas song from “Ida Ho Ho: A Celebration of the Holidays with Idaho Artists” benefitting The Woman’s and Children’s Alliance. The CD has become a yearly top seller at The Record Exchange, with some of Idaho’s best artists contributing their time and talent.

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  • Women of a Certain Age

    By Richard Nelson, Directed by Buffie Main

    Women of a Certain Age invites you to spend an evening around the kitchen table with one extraordinary, imperfect American family as they celebrate connection and creativity, struggle to move forward together, and wait for the world to change.

    While the rest of the world awaits the results of the presidential election on November 8, 2016, the Gabriel family sits with Patricia, the family matriarch, preparing a meal from the past and considering the future of their country, town, and home. This family of women, ages 55 to 85, pay tribute to the difficult year behind them, and compare notes on the search for empathy and authenticity at a time when the game seems rigged and the rules are forever changing.

    Women of a Certain Age is the last play in the trilogy The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family from Tony winning writer and director Richard Nelson (The Apple Family Plays, James Joyce’s The Dead.)

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2016-17 Season

Kill the Darlings

Call it celebrity culture or just old-fashioned idolatry, but when we lavish more attention on characters and avatars than flesh-and-blood human beings, something essential is lost.

A twisted political satire. Princesses with incredible pipes sing away the stereotypes. And inspiration taken from the idiosyncrasies of the real life Barbra Streisand. Three comedic plays confronting the idols of politics, mythology, and pop in hopes of rediscovering our shared humanity.

  • The Totalitarians

    By Peter Sinn Nachtrieb, Directed by Justin Ness

    Charismatic former roller derby champion, Penny, has been gaffing her way through a half-baked campaign for state office when a nonsensically awe-inspiring speech catapults her into the spotlight. For Penny’s speechwriter and campaign mastermind, Francine, a victory would resurrect her stalled career. For Francine’s physician husband, Jeffrey, it would thwart his own campaign to have sex and start a family already. As whispers of murder, conspiracy, and revolution begin to swirl, this sometimes-farcical, sometimes-satirical dark comedy threatens to spin out of control. With savage hilarity and scathing timeliness, THE TOTALITARIANS is an arrow to America’s corrupt political heart that grazes the funny bone along the way.

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  • Disenchanted!

    Music & Lyrics by Dennis T. Giacino, Directed by Buffie Main & Weston Wells Olson, Music Director Thomas Newby

    When women are still girls, we tell them about Beauty and her beast, Snow White and her poisoned apple, and the unlucky Princess who had to kiss an amphibian. Through these animated royal role models, The Princess Complex is born: propping up lovesick soprano songbirds with pencil-thin waists at the expense of representing the diversity and vibrancy of real women. Fortunately, Alley Repertory Theater prescribes the cure. This Holiday Season, the princesses themselves will gather at Visual Arts Collective to dismantle The Princess Complex once and for all. In DISENCHANTED!, ten charmingly flawed heroines from the tales of Grimm, Perrault, and history reclaim their identities from their ditzy Disney counterparts through comedy and song. Brassy, bawdy, and painfully funny, this hit off-Broadway musical invites us to poke fun at the foibles of fairy tales and celebrate ourselves for who we really are. After all, it is Christmas.

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  • Buyer & Cellar

    By Jonathan Tolins, Directed by Buffie Main

    In the real-life book My Passion for Design, Barbra Streisand describes the recreations of early 19th Century shops that occupy a quaint indoor mall in her basement. That’s right, a cobblestoned street underlies the Funny Lady’s three-acre Malibu estate, filled with antiques, costumes, and china, but entirely devoid of People. This is where BUYER & CELLAR departs from reality. Ex-Disneyland Cast Member Alex More is hired work the shops in Babs’s basement. Alex, who considers all things Streisand to be part of his “gay birthright,” quickly finds himself spending more and more time with the persnickety prima donna. When Alex’s boyfriend accuses him of being deluded by a starlet who is equally out-of-touch and Nuts, Alex is forced to decide What Matters Most, being Partners or Simply Streisand. Bold, bright, and only a bit batty, BUYER & CELLAR has charmed audiences and critics since its off-Broadway premiere in 2013.

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2015-16 Season

Leap

LEAP: this is not a dress rehearsal.

A season of award-winning contemporary works that tackle those breathless moments in life when everything changes, when we take a LEAP into the unknown. Along with the addition of a sidesplitting holiday variety show, LEAP is sure to delight and scandalize Treasure Valley audiences.

  • Rapture, Blister, Burn

    By Gina Gionfriddo, Directed by Buffie Main

    Catherine and Gwen were close friends all throughout grad school yet chose polar opposite paths upon graduation.  Catherine became a career-oriented academic with two published books and notoriety to match while Gwen followed the path of building a family and a home.  Years later, after limited communication over the years, both women are unfulfilled and covet the other’s life.  When Catherine returns home to be closer to her ailing mother, a dangerous game of musical chairs commences.  The prize? Gwen’s husband.  Both women will soon struggle to find that balance between a satisfied career and fulfilling personal life.

    Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Rapture, Blister, Burn is a witty comedy that takes an unflinching look at gender politics and how feminist ideals have changed between the 20th and 21st Century.

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  • Golden Girls Christmas Extravaganza

    Directed by Buffie Main & Justin Ness, Pianist Tess Worstell

    Only one thing comes close to being as awesome as the original cast of “The Golden Girls”, and that is Dorothy, Blanche, Rose, and Sophia impersonated by Boise’s drag queens. The GOLDEN GIRLS CHRISTMAS EXTRAVAGANZA will treat you to live reenactments of classic scenes, holiday sing-alongs, dancing, and more (plus convenient access to the Visual Arts Collective’s full-service bar). Merry, bright, and white-haired, these die-hard dames will be the perfect antidote to holiday stress and generalized Grinch-iness. Hailed as “The Nutcracker” of drag shows by this press release, this San Francisco tradition is sure to become a Boise holiday favorite.

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  • Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike

    By Christopher Durang, Directed by Justin Ness

    After spending most of their adult lives caring for their now deceased parents, middle-aged Vanya and Sonia have never had jobs and still live in their childhood home. When their movie star sister Masha breezes into town with her hot young boyfriend Spike, suspicions rise that she intends to sell the family home and pull the plug on financially supporting her brother and sister. Now the family must fight to reconcile their differences and find new optimism from over the hill. Winner of the 2013 Tony award for Best Play, VANYA and SONIA and MASHA and SPIKE is a tongue-in-cheek take on Chekhovian futility with a heart-warming finish. Though the character names and setting come from his work, no familiarity with Chekhov is needed to enjoy this expertly crafted comedy.

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  • Sex with Strangers

    By Laura Eason, Directed by Buffie Main

    Approaching 40, Olivia is a brilliant university professor hiding away at a writer’s retreat in rural Michigan. After a crushing failure to launch many years prior, she has no intention of allowing her writing to see the light of day again, let alone a critic’s red pen. That is, until millennial bad-boy blogger Ethan blows in from a snowstorm with half a million Twitter followers and industry connections as temping as his 20-something sex drive. Their mutual attraction takes over as she longs for a second chance as a writer and he seeks to shed his cheap online persona for something real. What they find is a labyrinth of attraction, ambition, and alternate identities as the line between life offline and life online starts to blur. Premiered at Chicago’s acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 2011.

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2013-14 Season

Absolute Pleasure

Alley Underground presents 40 years of absolute pleasure with Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show. And Alley Rep mainstage brings back a favorite from our first season in remounting The Little Dog Laughed.

  • The Rocky Horror Show

    Book, music, and lyrics by Richard O'Brien, Directed by Sarah Gardner & Aaron M. Kiefer, Live music by The Green Zoo

    Brad and Janet are a simple engaged couple whose lives get turned upside down by Frank ‘n Furter and his household of strange Transylvanians on a stormy night. Join this outstanding cast, featuring live music from The Green Zoo, as Alley Rep helps the Treasure Valley in doing 40 years of the time warp!

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  • The Little Dog Laughed

    By Douglas Carter Beane, Directed by Aaron M. Kiefer & Jason Haskins

    Ripped from Idaho and national headlines, this Tony Award nominee for Best Play by Douglas Carter Beane is a fast-paced and hilarious ride on the roller coaster journey one celebrity goes on when he decides to explore his sexuality. A young, hot, almost famous stud is about to win the role of a lifetime and, if he keeps his sexuality under wraps, will elevate him to super stardom. Add to that equation a male escort looking for love, his “girlfriend” looking for a home, and a scheming talent agent out to make the deal of a lifetime and a funny, sexy, nontraditional love story emerges. Join Alley Repertory Theater as we celebrate our five year anniversary by revisiting a fantastic piece of theater and the first play ever produced by the company: The Little Dog Laughed.

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2012-13 Season

Underground

A season bookended by two Alley Underground productions, with an Alley Rep mainstage show between.

  • Levi Middlebrooks: Back 2 Boyzee

    Written by Jason Haskins & Evan Sesek, Original Music by Josh Belville, Original Music by Ryan Morthland & Steve Baldassarre, Original Music by Aaron M. Kiefer, Film by Trevor Campbell

    Alley Underground presents a new, immersive experience of a comeback concert from former boy band member Levi Middlebrooks. Kinect4 was a popular boy band in the 90s, with such hits as “I Won’t Let You Go” and “Leave U”, which hit #17 on the Billboard Pop Charts in 1998. However, as their popularity waned, Levi took the predictable path down years of drug and alcohol abuse until his ultimate breakdown was immortalized on YouTube. Through years of rehab, Levi has found two sources of redemption — Christianity and his new girlfriend, Cassie. Now, after honing his craft, Levi is extremely excited to kick off his big comeback tour at the Visual Arts Collective in Garden City, Idaho where he promises to play some of his old Kinect4 hits before launching his career as a big name in Christian Rock.

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  • Breadcrumbs

    By Jennifer Haley, Directed by Buffie Main

    A reclusive fiction writer diagnosed with dementia must depend upon a troubled young caretaker to complete her autobiography. In a symbiotic battle of wills, they delve into the dark woods of the past, unearthing a tragedy that shatters their notions of language, loneliness, and essential self.

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  • Voice from the Boise Hole II

    Written & Devised by Aaron M. Kiefer, Evan Sesek, & Jason Haskins, Directed by Aaron M. Kiefer

    Local playwrights Jason Haskins and Evan Sesek tackle the City of Trees again with a talented group of local actors. In this funny and provocative monologue play based on the people of Boise, you will run into several characters including the mystic woman who has cursed “The Hole”, a politician with an all-too-honest off-camera persona, a man seeking to create a Citadel-like utopia in Northern Idaho opposite the last passionate Occupy Boise protestor, and an Iraq War vet turned parking garage security guard. Seven actors will play over fourteen characters in this brand new installment exploring, poking fun at, and honoring the City of Boise in the year of its 150th birthday. As a special birthday present, the show will be Pay-What-You-Want every night AND there will be a raffle every night of awesome, local stuff!

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2011-12 Season

Spark

Alley Rep’s new series exploring the power of electricity and invention.

  • The Farnsworth Invention

    By Aaron Sorkin, Directed by Buffie Main

    A fast-paced play about two visionaries racing to create the most transformative invention of the 20th Century. The story sizzles with corporate espionage, family tragedy, financial disaster, and the thrill of discovery

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  • Voices from the Boise Hole

    By Evan Sesek, By Jason Haskins, Directed by Liberty Leeds Klautsch

    Alley Underground lights a new and unusual spark with a locally written show inspired by and dedicated to the people of Boise. Written by local playwrights Jason Haskins and Evan Sesek, and featuring live performances by ATOMIC MAMA and other local acts, this unique event promises laughter and provocative dialogue as four local, versatile actors play over 16 characters. From the ex-Bronco football player reliving his glory years to the friendly Library! security guard, the downtown Bro making a YouTube video to the kid who just made his first “Black friend”, these Voices From The Boise Hole will unearth the challenges and triumphs, the oddities and crippling banalities, of dwelling in what many call the “most livable” city in America — Boise, Idaho.

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  • Head

    By Oliver Russell Stoddard, Directed by Julia Bennett, Assistant director Kim Sherman-Labrum

    Alley New Works presents the world premiere of HEAD, a timely and affecting play about the consequences of a beheading in modern day Iraq. Stoddard has been working on the play for more than six years after he was inspired by a National Public Radio story about honor killings in Iraq. It has evolved into a story of two men–an Iraqi and the beheaded American contractor who haunts him. With the aid of a self-help group in the afterlife (including such famous behead-ees as Marie Antoinette, Goliath, and Mary Queen of Scots), Tommy, the headless American, is on a quest to reunite with his body, and Ahmed, the Iraqi who filmed his beheading, is the key to this reunion. It’s a riveting journey with dark comedy and drama exploring the clashes of worlds–both cultural and spiritual.

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  • In the Next Room (or the Vibrator Play)

    By Sarah Ruhl, Directed by Buffie Main

    Described as “insightful, fresh and funny” by The New York Times, Alley Repertory’s upcoming production of In the Next Room (or the vibrator play) is a beguiling play about love, longing, science and invention. Set during the dawn of the electrical age, a new medical device is developed to pacify “intense” women, but it produces a shockingly different result. While Dr. Givings innocently wonders about the success of this extraordinary device, his wife, Catherine, remains a bystander in her husband’s world– listening at the door from the next room and longing for connection.

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2010-11 Season

  • The Last of the Boys

    By Steven Dietz, Directed by Buffie Main

    The play follows two soldiers, Jeeter and Ben, 30 years after their lives were changed forever on a road outside Dak To in 1967. When they come together in a remote trailer for one last hurrah, they find they’re still haunted by the specter of America’s longest war, and their friendship might be its latest casualty.

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  • The Good Body

    By Eve Ensler, Directed by Buffie Main

    Written in 2004, The Good Body is a four-woman play that follows a similar format as Ensler’s Obie Award winning The Vagina Monologues, but with more personal interaction between characters. Rather than presenting the difficult topic of women’s body issues in the powerful, singular platform of a series of provocative monologues, The Good Body draws its strength through a more intimate, personal discussion between women and the bodies they struggle to inhabit. As Ensler says of the play, “The Good Body began with me and my particular obsession with my ‘imperfect’ stomach.”

    Through the careful development of a seemingly superficial premise, Ensler delivers a thoughtful, personal, and self-reflective work that may have begun with Ensler’s stomach, but kaleidoscopes out into colorful, funny, and difficult dialogue between Ensler and women from Los Angeles to Afghanistan, facing their own bodily demons in ways that vary from drastic surgery to sneaking ice cream, and ends with a quiet invitation to acknowledge and embrace “the good body” in us all.

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2009-10 Season

Tell Me You Love Me

The collision of love and language, the shifting of perspectives, the erosion of intimacy and the temptation of self-deception: these are the themes that propel Alley Repertory Theater’s second season. In 2009, we take a provocative look at how connection and estrangement hinge on the ways in which people communicate. Three very different real-world landscapes present relationships that are at the mercy of the subjectivity of truth.

  • Love Person

    By Aditi Brennan Kapil, Directed by Buffie Main

    Love Person brings two couples and three cultures together to explore how language is both a portal and barrier to human connection. Through English, Sanskrit, American Sign Language (ASL) and projected e-mail, we witness how love transcends sexual orientation, physical attraction and social structure, and rests instead on the ways in which people communicate. Written by Aditi Brennan Kapil, Love Person has been nominated for the Blackburn Prize, the Steinberg Award and the Pulitzer Prize. This production is accessible to Deaf and Hearing audiences alike.

    This play was part of a co-production with East Indian Follies Theater Company

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  • Three Tall Women

    By Edward Albee, Directed by Tim Saunders

    In November 2009, Alley Rep will run a production of Three Tall Women, a Pulitzer Prize-winning, semi-autobiographical Edward Albee play.

    In the play, we meet three tall women navigating through the elusiveness of personality and its self-deceptions. Through a stingingly funny and often haunting, unsettling conversation in act one, we witness the collision of a young lawyer, a middle-aged caregiver and a rich, bitter older matron who have little patience for one another, and who talk in circles to make—or avoid—any kind of connection. In act two, their true identities are revealed, and the illusion of separateness takes a surprising, and illuminating, turn.

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  • Sex a.k.a. Wieners & Boobs

    By Joe Lo Truglio, By Michael Showalter, By David Wain, Directed by Nick Garcia

    In December, Alley Repertory Theater (through our Alley Underground arm) will stage SEX a.k.a. Wieners and Boobs, a silly, irreverent play co-written by writers/directors/performers Joe Lo Truglio, Michael Showalter, and David Wain, whose collective experience includes creating and/or working on the films Wet Hot American Summer, Role Models and The Ten; Comedy Central’s Stella and Michael and Michael Have Issues; and MTV’s The State.

    SEX follows the pitfalls of Jack Greenberg, the new sheriff of Teaneck, New Jersey. The corrupt town is run by Tad Theaterman, a crime boss armed with henchmen and a legion of hookers and gigolos. The Mayor and townsfolk fear Tad, but love the money the sinful brothels bring in! When Jack meets Hillary, a recent divorcee, it’s love at first sight, but there’s a showdown that’s closin’ in on our hero! Will Jack save Teaneck, get the girl, and defeat Tad? Or will the wieners and boobs prevail?!

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2008-09 Season

Alley Rep's inaugural season

In this, the inaugural season of Alley Repertory Theater, we will introduce you to people who have to make impossible choices, who only want to be who they are, not what everyone else wants them to be.  In those choices, they inevitably have an impact on others; we will show you scenes of war and chaos, conversations and contemplations, and moments of truth and quiet love.

  • The Little Dog Laughed

    By Douglas Carter Beane, Directed by Buffie Main

    Nominated for the 2007 Pulitzer for Drama, Douglas Carter Beane takes a playful look inside Hollywood where a rising young star, according to his agent, “suffers from a slight…recurring case of homosexuality.”  Enter the male sex work, the sex worker’s girlfriend, and the agent and the satire soars.  All the while, the young star fights to be who he wants to be and fights for his life.  Friendship, laughter and  family are discovered in a most astonishing way.

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  • The Burial at Thebes

    By Seamus Heaney, Directed by Traven Rice

    There are many translations of Antigone but few with the understated power and spare beauty of Irish Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney’s version.  He has given the play a new title, but remains faithful to the spirit of Antigone as he finds words to make this classic story of conflict between an inflexible autocrat and a young family rebel familiar to modern audiences.  Award winning, New York Director Traven Rice, reveals the raw, primal power of Greek prose making it impossible not to think of the ongoing war in Iraq.

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  • Reckless

    By Craig Lucas, Directed by Larry Dennis

    At home Christmas Eve, Rachel finds she must flee for her life from her housewife world of flocked trees and late night TV.  Out she goes through absurdist hoops of people, psychotherapists, and game show hosts.  In a chaos of choices that seem to be made for Rachel by the world around her, she receives a crash course in the loss of innocence.  Yet through goofy encounters and cold sobriety, she still manages to find the heart of a woman she never knew was hers.  

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