John Contini will direct Win Wells’ award-winning play Gertrude Stein and a Companion at Bluff City Theater from March 18th-26th, 2016. Gertrude Stein and a Companion won Best Play when it debuted at the Edinburgh Festival and went on to win numerous awards before being made into a TV movie in 1989.
Recently nominated as Outstanding Director for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf at the St. Louis Actors’ Studio in 2015, this is Contini’s directing debut for Bluff City Theater. After starring in BCT’s 2015 productions of The Heiress and Lionel Bart’s Oliver! he now adds directing to his credits with Bluff City Theater.
From their salon in Paris, Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas presided over a parade of the most influential writers, artists and intellectuals of the Avant-Garde era, including Hemingway, Greene, Matisse and Picasso. At heart a love story, the play explores the complicated relationship between two of America’s most iconic women of letters that lasted for more than 60 years. Stein has passed away and through a series of imagined conversations and flashbacks, they examine their life together.
Laura Ackerman appears as Gertrude Stein and Susie Wall as Alice B. Toklas.
Audiences who love great performances and great plays owe it to themselves to make a trip to Historic Downtown Hannibal. Located in a restored 1911 Neo-Classical bank, Bluff City Theater has created an intimate 90-seat theater where every performance is up close and personal. Individual tickets are just $25 and a 4-ticket Flex Pass, good for any combination of 4 tickets to the 2016 Season is available for $89. Tickets can be purchased at www.eventshannibal.com or call the box office at 573-719-3226 Monday to Saturday 10 a.m.-4 p.m.