Hilberry Theatre announces 'Young Professionals Fridays' series

Posted: Oct. 1, 2012 at 8:02 a.m.

DETROIT - The Hilberry Theatre announces the inaugural "Young Professionals Fridays" series with social mixers geared toward the Metro Detroit young professionals community. The evenings will include casual preshow gatherings and dinner at Bronx Bar, a performance at the Hilberry Theatre, and postshow drinks at 3rd Street Bar with Hilberry Company members. Both bars are only three blocks from the Hilberry Theatre for an easy and safe night out with peers. Performances and events will be on six Friday evenings throughout the season (October through May). For the low price of $90, "Young Professionals Fridays" subscribers will enjoy the affordable group subscription rate on top of an evening of quality live entertainment and social mingling and networking.

The 50th Hilberry season kicks off with the world's longest running play, Agatha Christie's murder mystery "The Mousetrap," which has seduced London audiences for 60 years.

Next up in the season is William Shakespeare's powerful tragedy "Othello," featuring Detroit-native Edmund Alyn Jones. The rapid ascent of the powerful Othello and his breathtaking whirlwind marriage to the beautiful Desdemona is thrilling to watch, but it fractures the jealous Iago who vows revenge.

The award-winning play "Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)" follows. Can "Othello" and "Romeo & Juliet" be comedies? Absolutely! All it takes is a mousy professor, played by Detroit favorite Vanessa Sawson, suffering from unrequited love, trying to prove Shakespeare had prepared different, comic endings for two of his most famous plays.

As a special treat, Hilberry audiences will have the chance to see Lisa D'Amour's new play, "Detroit," before its worldwide release. D'Amour's brutal, hilarious play made its London premiere this summer at the National Theatre, and is currently premiering in New York City at Playwright Horizons. This January at the Hilberry Theatre, audiences will experience the exclusive Detroit premiere.

Next is the Russian comedy "Marriage" by Nikolai Gogol. One bride, four men, two matchmakers and one family are seduced into a calamitous conundrum, and it is anybody's guess whether the bride will make it to the altar.

The 50th Hilberry Season concludes with "The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade," or simply, "Marat/Sade" by Peter Weiss. This fact-based play-within-a-play is total theater. Philosophically problematic, it engages the eye, the ear, and the mind with every imaginable dramatic device, technique, and stage picture.

The "Young Professionals Fridays" dates for the 2012-13 season are as follows: "The Mousetrap" - Oct. 5; "Othello" - Nov. 30; "Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)" - Jan. 18, 2013; "Detroit" - Feb. 1; "Marriage" - March 8; "Marat/Sade" - May 10.

For more information about "Young Professionals Fridays," call the Hilberry Theatre Box Office at 313-577-2972, visit the website at www.hilberry.com, or stop by the Hilberry Theatre Box Office at 4743 Cass Avenue on the corner of Hancock in Detroit. To receive the special rate for the Young Professionals Fridays series, mention code 0SC8 and ask for Series F.

About the Hilberry Theatre Company
The Hilberry Theatre Company is the nation's only professional theater company staffed by graduate students and runs on a rotating repertory schedule. Each academic year, approximately 40 graduate students receive assistantships to work for the Hilberry Theatre and study for advanced degrees from Wayne State University. The company performs an annual season of six plays, including high school matinees for nearly 6,000 students. In its 50-year history, four Hilberry productions have been selected to appear at the American College Theatre Festival.