We've Moved!

NPT is the proud owner of a new web domain, and we've got a fancy website to celebrate!  Come over and check out our new home:

www.newplayers.org

There you will find all the latest info on our upcoming Festival shows, along with all kinds of other great things to dazzle the mind and eyes.

What are you waiting for?!

CARNAGE is a KO!

No split-decisions here. NPT's GOD OF CARNAGE is being hailed by audiences and critics alike as a unanimous winner! Read all about it below. 

Why can't they all just get along in GOD OF CARNAGE?

Margaret Quamme of The Columbus Dispatch says:

God of Carnage walks a tightrope between comedy and drama, and it takes a strong cast to maintain the balance between the two…the actors of New Players Theater are more than equal to the challenge.

Performed by a cast who clearly know their characters inside and out, it leaves prickly questions about marriage and parenthood after the laughter has died away.

Read the full review here.

Dwayne Steward of Queer Corner says:

It shows bravado and a keen eye for the the taste of a modern theatergoer, and NPT hit this one way out of the park.

Director Matt Hermes is astute and takes his time with Reza’s powder-keg of a script…he slowly builds the tension with tempered movements and by the end has the actors flailing about uncontrollably to accentuate their animal-like behavior.

Read the full review here.

Richard Ades of The Other Paper says:

It’s a Tony and Olivier Award-winning comedy-drama that relies on strong, ballsy performances, something the actors deliver in spades.

Read the full review here.

It's the hot ticket in town, so don't miss it! GOD OF CARNAGE continues today through Sunday, March 18th. For more information on the show, click here. Just want to buy tickets right now?  Go here.

Want a taste for the action? Check out our teaser:

Come for the clafouti...stay for the carnage.

Join New Players Theater for a hysterical evening of cultured combat. Yasmina Reza’s 2009 Broadway hit GOD OF CARNAGE will play the Columbus Performing Arts Center’s Van Fleet Theatre March 1st-18th.

Two affluent Brooklyn couples meet to discuss a violent incident between their 11 year-old sons. An attempt at civilized discourse releases the primal instincts of these one-percenters, leaving us to suspect where the boys learned their bad behavior in the first place. Does behaving well get you anywhere, or are we just playthings of the god of carnage?

NPT brings together four of the capitol city’s most celebrated actors -- Sonda Staley as Annette, Tim Browning as Michael, Jill Taylor Barnes as Veronica, and Nick Baldasare as Alan -- for the Columbus premiere of this Olivier, Tony, and Pulitzer-winning play. The production will feature direction by Matt Hermes, set and light design by Tracie Lynn Duncan, and costumes by Michelle Whited.

Tickets are $20. All performances are general seating. At the door, Friday night tickets are 2-for-1 and include admission to NPT’s Friday Epilogue, a public conversation about the play between the audience and the company. Sunday performances fall under NPT’s Pay-What-You-Will program.

To reserve tickets, you may:

> purchase online here

> call 614.874.NPTF or

> email newplayerstheater@gmail.com

GOD OF CARNAGE is part of NPT’s year-round Studio Season featuring intimate productions of significant and challenging contemporary plays.

Love is in the air!

New Players Theater is pleased to announce their annual Valentine's Day celebration of love and food: Mark Twain's The Diaries of Adam and Eve, staring NPT company members (and real-life sweethearts) Mark Mann and Danielle Mann.  Join NPT as they return to Clintonville's Café Bella, where last year Chef Vincent Withers and staff helped create a perfectly delicious and romantic Valentine’s evening, with a coursed gourmet dinner before the sold-out reading of A.R. Gurney's bittersweet Love Letters.

A word about the play from the publisher: “The Diaries--written near the end of Mark Twain's life and career--are perhaps his wisest, most personal works.  The wry humor we expect is matched by a heartbreaking tenderness found nowhere else in his writings.  And it was only in Eve that Twain ever wrote from a woman's viewpoint.  An afterword details Twain's fascination with Adam and the parallels between his own marriage and Adam and Eve as depicted in the Diaries.”

The Diaries of Adam and Eve is directed and adapted by company member Sonda Staley, based on EXTRACTS FROM ADAM’S DIARY (1904) and EVE’S DIARY (1906).  Twain’s own unique take on the Creation Story shows us that, as Shakespeare said, “the course of true love never did run smooth”.

The Manns are beloved veterans of the Columbus stage.  Most recently, Mark was recognized by the Other Paper as Best Male Performer 2011 for his turn as The Librarian in NPT’s Underneath the Lintel.  Perhaps more noteworthy is that he's married to the uber-talented and in-demand Danielle Mann, recently seen as Maria in Twelfth Night, the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet (NPT) and Charlotte in Falsettos (Available Light).

The Manns will perform Mark Twain's The Diaries of Adam and Eve as a staged reading on Valentine's Day, Feb. 14 at 7pm during dinner at Café Bella, 2593 N. High St. Tickets cost $40 and include both dinner and the show.  To make reservations, you can call 614-267-1998, or email newplayerstheater@gmail.com.  Come celebrate love with NPT!  The food is as delicious as this touching story of humanity’s very first lovers. Bring your wine, your kleenex, and someone you love!