The 4th Annual Getting Our Acts Together

Edward Albee's The Sandbox is the featured one-act from the Homestake Opera House for the 4th Annual Getting Our Acts Together. Moving to the spring for the first time, this annual one-act festival features talent from throughout the Northern Black Hills with one-act plays presented not only by the Homestake Opera House, but the Matthews Opera House (Spearfish, Suspect to Change), the Belle Fourche Community Theatre (Atomic Lobsters From the Center of the Earth), and the Sturgis Community Theatre (Doctor, Doctor). Four shows, from four theatres, for one fantastically low price!

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Edward Albee's The Sandbox will feature the talents of ... (Young Man), ... (Mommy), ... (Daddy), ... (Grandma), and Jacque Bratcher (Musician). Both poignant and humorous, The Sandbox is a beautiful example of Theatre of the Absurd - a diverse movement featuring the works of not only Edward Albee, but Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Eugene Ionesco. Growing out of post-World War II American and European theatre, Theatre of the Absurd sought to speak to what many were experiencing as the futility of the human experience. Often focused on individuals trying to live normally in the midst of ridiculous circumstances (as in The Sandbox), the absurd is used as a means to drive the action allowing the audience not only to laugh, but (at its best), contemplate their own lives, considering what aspects of their lives are absurd as well. And so, Edward Albee's The Sandbox invites us to look at the seeming futility of our time as we examine the dignity and value of life, the ways we respond to loss and love, and how we close ourselves off to what matters ... and all of this with a wink and a smile.

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Atomic Lobsters From the Center of the Earth (by Derek Olson): Enjoy this throwback to classic 50's 'B' movie science fiction! At a remote research base located in Antarctica there are tremors and mysterious disappearances that have caused the base military and scientific personnel to call in the greatest mind in the world! Can he discover the cause behind these catastrophes before it's too late.

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Doctor, Doctor (by Bob Naquin): If you thought looming cuts to Medicare were scary, wait until you see the inner workings of Dr. Fatpacker’s medical office. Dr. Fatpacker dipenses medicine to one zany patient after the other while his under-paid receptionist, Jenny Flecks, gives her own medical opinion to anyone who might want to listen. The ongoing matter of her impending raise has to eventually be referred to a higher authority. Not only are the characters’ names jokes in themselves, but the whole play will leave you in stitches.

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Suspect to Change (by Will Humble) This comedy of errors involves love, friendship, misunderstanding, misplaced pride and mistaken identity.