Andy’s Summer Playhouse’s “Summer of Rebellion” continues this weekend with “URL vs. IRL.”
“URL vs. IRL” is Andy’s second original teen production this summer. As a part of the “Summer of Rebellion,” the shows were created to explore a more mature look into technology, adolescence, and what it means to create relationships digitally and organically.
Directed by Jonathan David Martin and written by Martin with Derek Christiansen, Anna’le Hornak and the teen ensemble, the play explores what is more real, the lives that we lead in “the real world” or “the online world.”
Combining the use of high-tech gaming technology and low-tech theatricality, “URL vs. IRL” will follow a group of teenage characters as their lives intersect and collide online and off.
“For every adult that’s wondered what it’s like for a generation that has always had the internet at their fingertips, “URL vs. IRL” explores teen online lives in a way that [adults have] never seen before,” says Martin. “It’s a show created by the experts on this subject, namely the teen actors themselves. I think the story we’re telling, and the surprising way we’re telling it, will blow audiences away.”
“URL vs. IRL” runs July 25 through 27, at 7:30 p.m. at Andy’s Summer Playhouse. All performances are to be followed by talkbacks with the children.
General admission tickets for each show are $16 for adults and $8 for youth/seniors aged 18 and under and 65 and up, and may be purchased online at www.andyssummerplayhouse.org, at the Andy’s Summer Playhouse box office, or via phone at ( 603) 654-2613.
The last show this summer, as always with Andy’s season closer, is a musical, “The Resisters.” Artistic director Jared Mezzocchi, who was himself as “Andy’s Kid” in the 1990s, is directing.
“The Resisters” is about an all-girls high school that starts a football team, wanting to join the rest of the New England Prep School League. The musical is written and directed by Mezzocchi with music and lyrics by Duncan Pelletier.
When a group of girls want to shake things up in their high school by creating a new sports team, they are met with a series of unexpected setbacks. What’s the big deal with an all-girls high school wanting to join the rest of the New England prep school league in a sport that has been around since the American Civil War?
Join this group of rule-bending, form-smashing, heart-crushing girls as they line up against their All-American, Undefeated, “Nothing-Has-Ever-Been-In-Their-Way” team of boys. Yes, this gang of female bandits has started a football team, named “The Resisters.” Eleven men on a field, they say? Hut hut, HIKE!
“The Resisters” opens Aug. 8 and runs through Aug. 17.
Additionally, there will be a number of week-long workshops offered throughout the summer, focusing on subjects from playwriting to film to Shakespeare’s text to devising new work.
The workshops will culminate in an evening performance on Aug.12, dubbed “The Academy,” showcasing the work created by the kids.
Since 1971 Andy’s Summer Playhouse has been an innovative summer youth theater located in Southern New Hampshire, producing original works ever summer, performed by local artists ages 8 to 18 with direction and mentoring by professional artists from all over the country.