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Blackfriars Repertory Theatre will showcase its 20th anniversary with a new production of N. Richard Nash’s “The Rainmaker,” in a co-production with The Storm Theatre Co. at the Sheen Center for Thought & Culture in lower Manhattan.
The new staging of the classic play runs from Friday, April 27, to Sunday, May 20. Performances will be held Thursdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Saturdays at 2 p.m. There will be a Sunday matinee on May 20 at 2 p.m. The Sheen Center is located at 18 Bleecker St.
Blackfriars Repertory Theatre, an apostolate of the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph, was founded in 1998 as a revival of Blackfriars Theatre (1940-1972). The Storm Theatre, founded in 1997, is an off-Broadway company committed to producing theatre to awaken the truths of humanity.
In “The Rainmaker,” a charismatic stranger brings hope to a drought-stricken town and a lonely spinster through a romantic fable of love, longing, hope and fulfillment set in the American West of the 1930s.
The play is produced by Blackfriars Repertory Theatre founder Father Peter John Cameron, O.P. (editor-in-chief of Magnificat USA) and directed by Peter Dobbins, a cofounding member and producing artistic director of The Storm Theatre since its inception.
Last spring, Father Cameron produced, and Dobbins directed, the Blackfriars Repertory Theatre and Storm Theatre co-production of “Death Comes For the War Poets” at the Sheen Center. That production marked the playwright debut of renowned Catholic author Joseph Pearce.
In the original Broadway production of “The Rainmaker,” which opened Oct. 28, 1954 at the Cort Theatre, Geraldine Page originated the role of Lizzie Curry and Darren McGavin originated Bill Starbuck. Both actors received their start at the original Blackfriars Theatre.
Tickets: $25. Information: (212) 925-2812, sheencenter.org and at the Sheen Center box office.
