hi!
Unfortunately, following the splash of our first production -- WIPEOUT -- we've had to postpone THE COTTAGE due to injury.
We'll bring this hilarious farce to you again soon. Stay tuned for details.
A CHRISTMAS CAROL returns once again as the perfect family tradition in WNY. And we're bringing the workshop production of the fresh-off-the-presses A KIDMAN CAROL to the cabaret for an off-beat adult holiday treat.
If you're from out of town, haven't been to see a show here in a while, never got off the couch since lockdown ended, or if you're one of our loyal subscribers... I know you're going to love this show and our season.
Stop me and say hi when you're in the lobby! I'd love to meet you.
Chris J Handley
Executive Artistic Director
R Eric Thomas
R. Eric Thomas is the national bestselling author of Here For It, or How to Save Your Soul in America, a Read with Jenna book club pick featured on Today and “a laugh-out-loud memoir strongly recommended for everyone” (Library Journal). Hailed as “infused with all the joy of the best teen movies” by Buzzfeed, his YA novel, Kings of B’more, was also featured on Today and was named a 2023 Stonewall Honor Book by the American Library Association. His biography of Rep. Maxine Waters, Reclaiming Her Time, co-authored with Helena Andrews-Dyer, makes “the case that political biographies shine bright when they have as much panache as their subject” (Washington Post). His latest book of essays, Congratulations, The Best is Over, will be released in August 2023.
He is also a television writer (AppleTV+’s Dickinson, FX’s Better Things), a playwright, and the long-running host of The Moth in Philadelphia. For four years he was a Senior Staff Writer for Elle.com where he wrote “Eric Reads the News“, a daily current events and culture column. For his playwriting, he won the Barrymore Award for Best New Play, the Dramatists Guild Lanford Wilson Award, and the Lambda Literary Award.
He has been published multiple times in The New York Times, TIME, Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Magazine, and others. He has been heard on Pop Culture Happy Hour, It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders, Jen Hatmaker’s For the Love, and other podcasts.
His play, TIME IS ON OUR SIDE, was commissioned by Simpatico Theater Project and developed with PlayPenn. It was the recipient of two 2016 Barrymore Awards, including Best New Play, and was named one of six finalists for the Harold and Mimi Steinberg American Theater Critics Association New Play Award. Of the play, The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote, “it’s a superbly crafted two-hour mystery… Thomas creates an entire world with seeming room for all of humanity’s hopes and dreams, foibles and longings.”
The world premiere of MRS. HARRISON was produced by Azuka Theatre, won the Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Drama and was nominated for 3 Barrymore Awards, including Best New Play. About it the Philadelphia Inquirer raved “Every once in a (great) while, a new work in Philadelphia premieres with such power and promise that it demands to be seen by a much wider audience. That play is Mrs. Harrison at Azuka Theatre. That playwright is R. Eric Thomas.”
Other plays include NIGHTBIRD (Austin Playhouse; development: Interact Theater Company/NNPN Commission), THE FOLKS AT HOME (Baltimore Center Stage), SAFE SPACE (Single Carrot Theater; 2020 Lambda Literary Award finalist), BACKING TRACK (commission: Arden Theatre Company), MERLAND (commission: Baltimore Center Stage), THE EVER PRESENT (commission: Theatre Exile), CRYING ON TELEVISION (Everyman Theatre; development: Ingram New Works Fellowship), INFINITY JONES NEEDS SOME SPACE! (development: Act II Theatre), HUMAN RESOURCES (City Theatre Summer Shorts, 2015, Finalist: 2015 City Theatre National Award for Short Playwriting, published: City Theatre Anthology 2015).
Eric is an alumnus of The Foundry, a Philadelphia playwrights lab and InterAct Theatre Company’s Core Playwrights program, and a current member of Azuka’s New Pages. He was a 2017 Lambda Literary Fellow and a 2018-2019 Ingram New Works Fellow.