Theater Offensive's
"Out On The Edge" Festival of Queer Theater
Returns October 18 - November 8

The Theater Offensive has announced the schedule of events and performances for their 17th Annual "Out On The Edge" Festival of Queer Theater.

Performances will include the following:

Plays At Work - Staged Readings. . .

Saturday, October 18, at 4 p.m.
Sunday, October 19, at 1 p.m.
Birds Do It"
A play at work by David Valdes Greenwood
Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts
Artist discussion following each performance.
If gay marriage is a hot issue, then Fernando & Aubrey really feel the burn! After 10 happy years together, a proposal may be the one thing that could tear them apart. Add a sexy coworker, a husband-scorched mom, and an ex-gay penguin to fan the flames! This timely romantic comedy probes the distinction between gay marriage and my marriage.

Saturday, October 18, at 8 p.m.
Sunday, October 19, at 4 p.m.
"Blue Fire On The Water"
A play at work by Artist in Residence Renita Martin
A National Performance / Network Creation Fund Project.
Calderwood Pavilion at the Boston Center for the Arts
Artist discussion following each performance.
As Katrina floods Jo’s home, the aging New Orleans jazz stalwart is also inundated by his stolen dreams, his lost loves and his tightly bound secrets. Jo rejects one rescuer after another, committed to stick with the comfort of his main squeeze––his beloved piano named “Red.” As the muddy waters rise, can truth float to the surface? The Boston Herald says (playwright Martin has) “Poetic lyricism with great storytelling”.

Mainstage Performances . . .

October 22-26
"Nut / Cracked"
Starring David Parker and The Bang Group
Roberts Studio in the Calderwood Pavilion in the Boston Center for the Arts Moderated artist discussion on Saturday, October 25, following 2 p.m. matinee.
Back for the whole family to see, after selling out in 2007! Exquisite dancing, yes, but this is no saccharine-dripped chestnut! Whether you love or hate the original, audiences get swept up in this irreverent Tchaikovsky dance extravaganza. With new twists for 2008

October 28-November 2
"Varla Jean Merman Loves A Foreign Tongue"
Starring Jeffrey Roberson with Mark Cortale
Includes “Varla’s Dirty Shorts” film festival of her Greatest flicks!
Roberts Studio in the Calderwood Pavilion in the Boston Center for the Arts
Varla has charmed sold-out houses with her stunningly great voice and spectacularly bad taste, from Provincetown to Sydney (that’s in Austra…lia). Now, after conquering the rest of the world, the purported love-child of Ethel Merman and Ernest Borgnine, tries to lick Boston! According to the Los Angeles Times, (Varla is) “An indisputable force of nature...the dazzling force of a cyclone touching down in a sequin factory.”

October 31 – November 2
New England Premiere!
"Miss America"
Split Britches - starring Peggy Shaw and Lois Weaver
Roberts Studio in the Calderwood Pavilion in the Boston Center for the Arts
The legendary, Obie-award winning playwright/performers return to Boston with their most timely show ever. Peggy and Lois expose what we have lost as America still clings to desperate triumphalism. A beautiful and heady twister of the American Dream, or what’s left of it.

November 5 - 8
New England Premiere!
"Wake The F**k Up America
Starring The Kinsey Sicks
Roberts Studio in the Calderwood Pavilion in the Boston Center for the Arts
TV’s “America's Most Talented” a cappella drag queens finally storm Boston! This critically acclaimed ensemble serves it up a sassy, hysterical, perfectly harmonized satire of TV Morning News. The San Francisco Chronicle raves “gut-busting parodies and raucous shtick…astonishing!" Best way to celebrate an election victory? Hilarious queer performance with a political twist!

Tickets will go on sale at a date to be announced.

-- OnStage Boston