By The Water – Spreckels Performing Arts Center

Sat, March 24, 2018, 8:00 pm
3/17, 3/23, 3/24, 3/30, 3/31, 4/6, 4/7 8:00pm, 3/18, 3/25, 4/8 2pm, 4/5 7:30pm

Spreckels Production Asks How a Neighborhood Recovers from Disaster Rebuild or relocate?
By the Water explores this timely question….

It’s 2012 and the unprecedented destruction of Hurricane Sandy includes a small, close-knit community on the coast of Staten Island. By the Water, coming March 16 to Spreckels Performing Arts Center, opens on what’s left of the Murphy house, seven blocks from the ocean and built by Marty Murphy’s grandfather. It has been destroyed.

Although in their sixties, the Murphys are determined to rebuild. But their neighbors, including their best friends Phil and Andrea, are helping organize the town to solicit a government buy-out so they can start over somewhere else. The Murphys have to stop them.

By the Water, by Sharyn Rothstein, explores what it means to love a community—and what other motivations either bind us to a place or free us to move on. Marty and Mary have raised their two sons in a town they deeply love, and now they have reached the age when life is supposed to get easier. Many Sonoma County theater lovers will empathize with them as they struggle to face the future.

Like the October fires in Sonoma County, Sandy brought enormous change to a region. After crawling up the Atlantic from the Caribbean, the hurricane curved west on October 29 and moved ashore near Brigantine, New Jersey, just to the northeast of Atlantic City. When it was finished, it had become the deadliest and most destructive storm of the 2012 Atlantic hurricane season—at the time, the second-costliest hurricane in U.S. history.

A hit off-Broadway in 2014, the Spreckels production of By the Water is directed by Carl Jordan. The cast includes Mary Gannon Graham as Mary and Mike Pavone as Marty. The other actors are Madeleine Ashe, Katie Kelley, Clark Miller, Jared Wright, and Mark Bradbury.

What: By the Water by Sharyn Rothstein

When: March 16–April 8 (no performance Sunday, April 1). Fridays and Saturdays, 8 p.m. Sundays, 2 p.m, Thursday (4/5) 7:30 p.m.

Where: Bette Condiotti Experimental Theatre at Spreckels Performing Arts Center, 5409 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park.

Box Office: (707) 588-3400. Hours: Wed–Fri, noon to 5 p.m., and one hour before show. Online: Go to www.spreckelsonline.com

View on Website Add to Google Calendar

Spreckels Performing Arts Center

5409 Snyder Lane - Rohnert Park