September 4 - October 5, 2003

Book & Lyrics by L. Arthur Rose & Douglas Furber
Music by Noel Gay
Co-produced with Allegro Theatre Company
Directed by Lee Sankowich
Choreographed by Richard Gibbs
Musical Direction by David Lohman

Marin Theatre Company presents the Tony Award-winning musical Me and My Girl to begin the 03-04 season. This old-fashioned musical delight is the story of a 1930s cockney lad who inherits a fortune and must prove himself to be "an English Gentlemen" before he can get his hands on the money. Colorful, silly and upbeat, the musical also has plenty of signature British wit to boot.

Recipient of three Tony Awards and five Drama Desk Awards, Me and My Girl is a razzle-dazzle musical with a bright, infectious score - songs include "The Lambeth Walk", "Leaning On a Lamppost", and "Me and My Girl". Charming and witty, Me and My Girl tells the story of a Cockney lad who inherits the title and fortunes of the Earl of Hareford.

November 6 - December 7, 2003

Written by Craig Wright
Directed by Danny Scheie

Filled with sensitivity and humor, The Pavilion is for all who have been to a high school reunion and wondered about the "what ifs". The Pavilion is performed by only three actors, although there are nineteen characters featured in the play. Called by one critic a, "comic, cosmic lyrical look at the joys and disappointments of growing up," the play has already enraptured audiences at several theatres around the country.

For all those who have attended a high school reunion or ever wondered "what if" things had turned out differently, MTC is proud to present The Pavilion, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated comedy/drama written by Craig Wright.

The setting is at a dance hall in small-town Minnesota. Voted the "cutest senior couple", Kari and Peter meet up again at their twentieth reunion. The play is loaded with humor, anger, and regrets as the characters try to confront a life-defining moment.

John Flanagan and Deborah Taylor play the couple, with Joan Mankin, a renowned Bay Area actress/clown, adding plenty of charm by portraying 14 different classmates and the narrator. Playwright Craig Wright is the Emmy-nominated lead writer for the hit HBO series Six Feet Under.

January 8 - February 15, 2004

Written by Deborah Zoe Laufer
Directed by Lee Sankowich

This is the West Coast Premiere of The Last Schwartz, a poignant comedy starring the popular husband and wife team Michael Tucker and Jill Eikenberry.

The Schwartz household was brought up to believe that nothing is more sacred than family. But for the one-year anniversary of the father's death, a family gathering turns into a free-for-all where nothing remains sacred and the long-held family secrets are unearthed. Tucker plays the role of Herb, one of four Schwartz siblings, who acts as if anything can be bought and sold. Eikenberry plays his wife Bonnie, who converted to Judaism upon her marriage and desperately wants to have a child.

The remaining siblings include: Norma, the tradition-bound daughter who cherishes everything and anything in the home as part of the family legacy; Gene, preoccupied with his production career, directing music videos and TV commercials; and Simon, the autistic younger brother, an astronomer who spends most of the play gazing through a telescope at seemingly nothing, since he's going blind. To round out the family dynamics is Kia, Gene's date, a free-spirited wanna-be starlet whose curiosity of things Jewish and apparent naivete manages to unleash a torrent of Schwartz family secrets and emotions.

Both touching and funny, this play explores the sanctity of marriage and family and asks the question: who will be the last Schwartz?

March 11 - April 11, 2004

Written by Israel Horovitz
Directed by Amy Glazer

An American writer arrives in Paris to claim his inheritance, an apartment he finds has a lifelong occupant. That's the springboard for Horovitz's eloquent, funny, brilliantly-paced plunge into parent-child relationships. Horovitz has called this play his "Valentine to Paris", a city where his work is immensely popular.

In this provocative play, American writer Mathias Gold arrives in Paris intent on financing a new life with the sale of his recently inherited apartment. He soon discovers that his father has bequeathed the apartment complete with tenants - a very French, very determined 90+ year-old Mathilde and her equally headstrong daughter. As the threesome work to resolve their issues, Mathias finds that their three lives are interwoven in ways he never imagined. The outstanding cast features Bay Area favorites: real-life mother and daughter Joy and Nancy Carlin and Anthony Fusco.

May 13 - June 13, 2004

Written by Alan Ayckbourn

To close the season, MTC Artistic Director Lee Sankowich has chosen the English time-traveling and suspense thriller Communicating Doors, written by English playwright Alan Ayckbourn. In this six actor play, the characters move through the room of a swank hotel suite, with the adjoining room doors ("communicating doors") providing the time travel vehicle, transforming them back and forth through a forty-year period. When the play begins in the future, two murders have occurred. In the present and past, three women work together to prevent these murders from taking place. Part West End drawing-room comedy and part time-travel thriller, the audiences will be sitting on the edge of their seats and will have to hold on tight for this roller coaster of a play.

"I've been wanting to bring Communicating Doors to MTC for quite some time and this provided the perfect opportunity," said Sankowich. "I felt it was one of the most literate and audience friendly plays I have read in years. Ayckbourn, in his renowned comic tradition, puts a spin on this play, which delighted audiences in New York, London and elsewhere. It is my belief that Bay Area audiences will enjoy it tremendously, also."