Island City Stage Announces its 2015-16 Season

The fourth season for Island City Stage marks a new milestone for the award-winning South Florida theatre company.

Beginning in October of 2015, Island City Stage will be sharing the newly created Abyss Theatre at 2304 Dixie Highway in Wilton Manors. The new venue will eventually have 70 movie theatre-style seats and a stage with more height and depth than is currently available at Empire Stage.

“Empire Stage has been a welcoming home for us and we could not have grown as fast as we have without the support and partnership of its owner, David Gordon,” said Andy Rogow, Artistic Director of Island City Stage. “It’ll be hard to say goodbye. I know people appreciate that theatre’s intimacy. However, as our audiences have grown we’ve been selling out most of our performances, and there’s a need for us to move to a location with more seats and a larger stage. We will also have more ability to extend successful productions.”

The season will open November 12 with a bang, literally, with the play “Angry Fags” by Topher Payne. This explosive play, currently receiving a production at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre, is “an ucompromising Oscar Wilde-meets-Fight Club fantasia” about how good ideas go bad, with fascinating forays into American politics, bomb building and pistachios. The play follows Bennet, a speechwriter for Georgia’s only gay congresswoman and his roommate Cooper as their fear and frustration turn to rage after the killing of Bennet’s ex. They come to the conclusion that “acceptance” as second class citizens isn’t enough and they quickly morph into a gay Thelma and Louise, wreaking havoc with unintended consequences.

In January, Associate Artistic Director Michael Leeds will direct the world premiere of his comic mystery “Who Killed Joan Crawford?” On a dark stormy night, five men arrive at a cabin for a soap star’s surprise birthday party. Each guest has been asked to dress as the birthday boy’s favorite actress, Joan Crawford, in one of her signature roles – and the results aren’t pretty. As they wait for the star, the five “Joans” begin drinking and dishing, dark secrets emerge and soon there’s one fewer Joan. … Who Killed Joan Crawford?!

April brings the area premiere of the Off-Broadway hit “The Submisssion” by Jeff Talbott. Danny, a young, gay plawright has just had his complex drama about an African American family chosen to be in the nation’s preeminent play festival. Trouble is, he used the pen name of a black female. So he hires Emilie, a black actress to stand in for him. What starts as a terrible idea becomes worse as he drags Emilie, his boyfriend and his best friend down a long and dirty path of truth, lies, revelation and betrayal. It’s a fierce,intelligent comic-drama about race and gender.

The season finishes with the world premiere of Michael Aman’s “Feeding the Bear”, a warm comic drama about a gay, single teacher with body dysmorphia who has become the caregiver for his once-disapproving father, now suffering from Alzheimer’s. His mess of a divorced sister and a hilarious TV chef in drag join him in his journey to understanding himself and his father. Aman’s play “Poz” was nominated this year for a South Florida Carbonell award as Best New Work.

For more information, call the box office at 954-519-2533 or visit the Island City Stage website at islandcitystage.org.