If the test of a fine theater company is the quality of its season, then Stageworks stands out above the rest this year for consistently giving us intelligent, provocative plays — fluffy crowd-pleasers be damned. The 2002-03 Stageworks season began with Jane Martin's fascinating Talking With …, in which we met a fanatically religious snake handler, a neophyte sadomasochist, a baton twirler who bleeds for Jesus, and a woman giving birth to a dragon. Next, in association with Gorilla Theatre, was Neil LaBute's disturbing The Shape of Things, wherein an unscrupulous art student takes as her raw material an unsuspecting young man, and turns him into a piece of living sculpture. Next, Stageworks exhibited its commitment to local writers by producing Ray Zacek's entertaining Desperadoes, about a group of odd characters (among them a shaman/dope dealer, a touchy policeman and a haunted proprietor) at the seedy Desert Aire Motel. This was followed by a New York hit, Charles Busch's The Tale of the Allergist's Wife, about a depressed intellectual and the visitor who tries to change her life. Finally, Stageworks brought us Tony Kushner's amazing Angels in America, about the AIDS crisis, gay life, and the possibility of redemption. What a season!
This article appears in Sep 25 – Oct 1, 2003.