THREE DIFFERENT PLAYS
Theme: The American Family
JUNE 23 - JULY 19, 2026
Three different award-winning and thought-provoking plays, all taking place in the historic Firehouse Arts and Events Center.
3 PLAYS, 6 NIGHTS A WEEK, FOR 4 WEEKS
Bellingham TheatreWorks, in partnership with The Firehouse Arts and Events Center and The Historic Fairhaven Association, presents three plays in repertory.
The state of the modern American family is put under a microscope in this trio of iconic plays. Tense, dramatic, hilarious at times, disturbing at others, these plays show how families respond to extreme events and pressures, drawing closer together, confronting trauma, flying apart. How much of your own family life will you see reflected in these stories?
We are pleased to be the only theatre in the Pacific Northwest that offers a summer repertory season.
We also invite the audience to stay and participate in the post-show discussions with community organizations that are addressing issues raised by these plays.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT:
Our company works with many students and educators, parents and children, as well as guest artists from far beyond Bellingham Bay, all working together to bring these three plays to life.
Brighton Beach Memoirs
by Neil Simon
(1984)
1
A comic memoir told through the eyes of 15-year-old Eugene, exploring the life of a struggling Jewish family in 1937. This semi-autobiographical play was written by Neil Simon who began writing his memoirs when he was 15! In typical Simon comic fashion, Eugene dreams about baseball and girls while learning about family, relationships, and an impending war.
POST SHOW COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
July 12th “Brighton Beach Memoirs” Facilitator: Emily Weiner
Emily Weiner has lived in Bellingham, WA since 1990, although she still feels like a New Yorker. Dance and theatre have been central to her life since starting modern dance lessons at age 4. She studied and performed modern dance (including in Bellingham with Dance Gallery), dances of India, and tap. In NYC, she was in the original 1972 cast of Jonathan Ned Katz’s play, Coming Out! She earned a B.S. in Journalism/Communications from State University of NY Empire State University. She works as a freelance grant writer, after several careers in journalism, fundraising, and teaching. In NYC in the 1970s, she was a leader in the Lesbian/Gay movement, and in the 1980s in the Women’s Caucus of the NY Times and The Newspaper Guild. In Bellingham in the 1990s she was one of the “Nine Mothers” who created the “Joining Hands Against Hate” campaign. She’s happiest gardening, hosting her children and grandchildren, reading physical books, writing, doing qigong, riding a bicycle, or organizing programs for her synagogue, Congregation Beth Israel.
2
Fairview
by Jackie Sibblies Drury
(2019)
This 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning comedy follows a middle class African American family as they prepare for a birthday dinner for their grandmother, an event watched by four white people. The mother wants the party to be perfect, her sister can’t be bothered, the father doesn’t seem to listen, her brother is missing, her daughter is a teenager! The first act hilarity quicky turns into a gripping examination of family and white supremacy.
POST SHOW COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
July 5th: “Fairview,” Facilitator: Theodore (Ted) Pratt, Jr.
Ted served as the as Associate Vice President of Student Affairs/ Dean of Students in at WWU for 32 years, retiring in 2019. Born in Detroit Michigan in 1957, Ted moved to Tacoma Washington in the early 70's. He attended Mt. Tahoma High School and went on to receive a BFA from Western Washington University, where he was a theatre major and minored in psychology. Seven years later, while working in the insurance industry, he was invited back to WWU to help increase its diverse student population. While at WWU had received a master’s degree in Student Personal Administration. From there, Ted started a doctorate program in leadership at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.
3
Appropriate
by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
(2014)
Every estranged member of the Lafayette clan has descended upon the crumbling Arkansas homestead to settle the accounts of the newly dead patriarch. As the three adult children sort through a lifetime of their father’s hoarded mementos and junk, they collide over clutter, debt and a disturbing discovery hiding among their father’s possessions. This 2024 Tony Award winning play uses biting humor to explore a bruising family gathering.
POST SHOW COMMUNITY DISCUSSION
June 28th: “Appropriate” Facilitator: Bill Watson
Bill is the co-chair and head of the acting program of the Theatre Department at University of Wisconsin Milwaukee where he’s directed many productions including Hair, As You Like It, 7 Guitars, Ruined, Our Town, Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Hot L Baltimore, Hamlet, The Rivals, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, and Pericles among many others. He has also directed The Boys Next Door and Two Rooms for the Marquette University Theatre department and acted professionally for the The Milwaukee Rep (West Side Story), Milwaukee’s Chamber Theatre (Deathtrap, Picnic); and, for In Tandem Theatre (The Chosen, Equus), and First Stage (Esperanza Rising). In 2013 Bill and his partners Nancy Smith-Watson and Jim Tasse, co-founded Feast of Crispian: Shakespeare with Veterans, an organization that uses acting processes and Shakespeare text to aid American service veterans with re-integration, substance/alcohol abuse and PTS issues. To date they have served over 1200 veterans, produced the first National Veterans Theatre Festival at the Milwaukee Rep in 2019 and produced many all Veteran productions of Shakespeare and originally devised theatre pieces in various venues throughout Southeast Wisconsin.
SHOW GALLERIES
Coming soon…
MEET THE DIRECTORS
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