Moonbox’s Eleventh season to kick-off in October 2021!

BOSTON, MA – Moonbox Productions, winner of numerous IRNE and Elliot Norton Awards, is thrilled to announce its theatrical line up for the 2021-2022 season. In October, Moonbox kicks-off its season with Richard O’Brien’s hilarious cult classic, The Rocky Horror Show, followed in December by the Tony nominated comedy-drama rock musical, Passing Strange, by singer-songwriter and performance artist, Stew. In February, Moonbox debuts two original works performed in repertory, The Good Deli by Kevin Cirone and Jonathan by Mary ElizaBeth Peters, and in June, Moonbox closes its season with its 1st Annual Boston New Works Festival. The festival will feature nine original plays by local playwrights performed on five different stages throughout the course of one weekend.

Back by popular demand, Moonbox Productions will perform Richard O’Brien’s legendary cult classic, The Rocky Horror Show, at a pop-up theater in Harvard Square. Directed by David Lucey, and Music Directed by Mindy Cimini, The Rocky Horror Show opens on October 16th will run through October 31st at a soon-to-be-revealed Pop-Up theater in Cambridge.

A humorous tribute to the science fiction and horror B movies of the late 1940s through to the early 1970s, The Rocky Horror Show tells the story of Brad Majors and his fiancée, Janet Weiss, who get caught in a thunderstorm with a flat-tire and are forced to seek help at the castle of Dr. Frank ’N’ Furter, a transvestite scientist with a manic genius and insatiable libido. Brad, Janet, and Frank’ N’ Furter’s cohorts are swept up into the scientist’s latest experiment, a Frankenstein-style monster in the form of an artificially made, fully grown, physically perfect muscle man named Rocky Horror, complete “with blond hair and a tan”. The night’s misadventures will cause Brad and Janet to question everything they’ve known about themselves, each other, love, and lust. With an irresistible rock ’n’ roll score, The Rocky Horror Show is a hilarious, wild ride, that no audience will soon forget.

In December, Moonbox Productions continues its season with the production of the comedy-drama rock musical, Passing Strange. Opening on December 11th and running through January 1st at the Boston Center for the Arts Roberts Theater, Passing Strange is Directed by Arthur Gomez, and Music Directed by David Coleman. From singer-songwriter and performance artist Stew, Passing Strange is a daring musical that takes you on a journey across boundaries of place, identity, and theatrical convention. Stew brings us the story of a young bohemian who charts a course for “the real” through sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll. Loaded with soulful lyrics and overflowing with passion, the show takes us from black middle-class America to Amsterdam, Berlin and beyond on a journey towards personal and artistic authenticity. Passing Strange isn’t your typical rock show, musical or biography. It examines the intersection of life and art, inspiration and creation, race, and class. While it doesn’t offer easy answers, its willingness to confront hard questions over an electrifying hard-rock score, makes this production one hell of a ride.

In February, as a preview to its 1st Annual Boston New Works Festival to be held in June, Moonbox will debut two original plays by two local playwrights and Moonbox Alumni. The Good Deli by Kevin Cirone, Directed by Allison Olivia Choat and Jonathan by Mary ElizaBeth Peters. Performed in repertory, the plays will open at the Boston Center for the Arts Roberts Theatre on February 23rd and run through March 5th.

In The Good Deli, Julia is working as a comedian in Boston when she receives a frantic summons from her stepmom – her estranged father is on his deathbed. She rushes to his side, only to find him seemingly the same wise-ass curmudgeon he always was – only now he’s obsessed with the Italian deli the family visited when Julia was a child. When her father’s health takes another turn for the worse, Julia and her brother Max set out on a quest to find the deli and give their father the sandwich of his dreams. Fighting the desire to flee her family with the help of a former priest, Julia embarks on a road trip with her family, trying to reconnect with her father while they search for the memory of a mysterious deli that may not even exist.

In Jonathan, a young man with autism named Jonathan is working at a big-box store the week before Christmas – but as the holiday season heats up, his personal aspirations are at odds with the reality of how he is treated. Will Jonathan push to keep his job, or give up? Will his employer help him succeed, or get rid of him? Jonathan confronts what we really believe in America: about adults with disabilities, about employment, and about the creature comforts of a retail economy.

In June, Moonbox will close out is season by hosting its 1st Annual Boston New Works Festival. In the past year, Moonbox Productions pivoted from normal operations to launch this new initiative dedicated to cultivating new works by local artists. In response to its request for proposals in the fall of 2020, Moonbox received sixty-five submissions from local playwrights. From these sixty-five proposals, a diverse panel of judges chose nine original theatrical pieces. Throughout this coming year, the selected submissions will be part of an extensive workshop process that will culminate in staged productions at the festival June 24-26th, 2022, at the Boston Center for the Arts. The plays include Cursetown by David Beardsley, Late by Kathleen Cahill and Michael Wartofsky, Queens by Kai Clifton, Sister School by David Coleman, Rocky Relationships by Catherine Giorgetti, For the Fish by Surrey Houlker, Affinity Lunch Minutes by Nick Malakhow, Silt by Gabby Simone Preston, and The Prince and the Painter by Rebecca Wright and Kelvyn Koning.

Throughout the 2021-2022 season, Moonbox will also continue its support of local non-profits by partnering with a different non-profit organization for each show, giving them greater visibility and helping them to increase the reach and impact of their work.

“A year without live theater – did that just happen?” asks Producer Sharman Altshuler. “It’s been a long, hard road, but for all the difficulties, there have been some silver linings – and a renewed appreciation for each other, for community, and for the living arts are certainly among them. The Rocky Horror Show, a raucous celebration of life if there ever was one, feels just right for kicking off the season. Then in November, our COVID-cancelled production of Passing Strange finally bursts onto the scene in a welcome return to the Calderwood Pavilion. And then comes the New Year and it’s New Works all the way!! Two BRAND NEW, full productions in February by LOCAL playwrights Kevin Cirone and MaryElizabeth Peters will be featured at the Roberts, and then we wrap up in June with the First Annual Boston New Works Festival – showcasing 9 BRAND NEW, LOCALLY GROWN pieces by 11 LOCAL artists! — Proving once and for all that Boston is a THEATER TOWN! It will be great to see everyone again and be back live on stage! Thank you, Dr. Fauci – See you at the lab!” said Altshuler.