The Oswego Players are bringing classic productions to the Frances Marion Brown Stage this year. The 2025 season features new plays, Shakespeare, a farce, a classic favorite Radio Dramas for October and Christmas magic as The Oswego Players Proudly announce its 87th season.
Since its founding in 1938, the Players have carried on a tradition of producing a full slate of productions yearly. For the 2025 season, we are going back to basics with the four mainstage shows. In addition to the four mainstage shows, we are producing a dinner theater, 2024 Prize Winners of the Don McCann Memorial One Act Playwriting Contest and three-night radio theater spectacular in October.
The Oswego Players 87th season kicks off in January with a second helping of “Chef’s Kiss” held on at Canale’s Restaurant on Oswego’s west side. The dates for Chef’ Kiss Second Helping are January 25th and 26th and tickets are available on the Canale’s website. The show features hilarious one act comedies by notable local authors. The two shows on the menu are “Cool Table” by Nick Gentile and “Broken Hipsters” by Juliet Aires Giglio & Keith Giglio. Last year’s “Chef Kiss” had the distinction of selling-out in just over 24 hours, leaving many in the community clamoring for a “second helping”.
In March, we open the season at the Frances Marion Brown Theater with this year’s iteration of the Don McCann Playwriting Showcase. The four prize winners were chosen from a group of 90 plays last fall. The four prize winning short plays of 2024 which will all be presented this year are: “Like Clockwork” by Andrada Angileri, directed by Angella Bandla “Maybe Tomorrow” by Brian Leahy Doyle, directed by Norman Berlin III, Birthright” by Lydia Merritt and “A Matter of Measurements” by Michael Brumm, both directed by Stephaine Johnson. Angella Bandla and Stephaine Johnson are new directors for the Players this season. The performances will run on March 7th and 8th at 7:30 pm and March 9th at 2:00 pm. All three performances are pay-what-you-wish with all of the proceeds going towards the Don McCann Memorial Playwriting Contest fund.
On April 25th, 26th, 27th and May 2nd, 3rd and 4th, the Oswego Players will produce something they have never done before, Shakespeare. Director Norman Berlin III will be directing one act 80-minute version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare. The Shakespearean comedy is set in Athans around the marriage of King Theseus and Queen Hippolyta. The play consists of several subplots; conflicts between four lovers, a group of six amateur actors rehearsing a play and the Faires who both groups meet in the forest who manipulate the lives of the humans they encounter. Director Berlin will also be reprising the sellout smash hit of last season “The Arkansaw Bear”. “The Arkansaw Bear” is moving 45-minute fantasy and drama dealing with loss and letting go. The play blends realism and fantasy, pathos and humor. It is delightfully theatrical, with music, magic and dance, and enthusiastically applauded by children’s audiences and family audiences
July will see the return of director Tom Briggs to the France Marion Brown stage. He is directing the hilarious “Clue: On Stage” by Jonathan Lynn and Sandy Rustin. Based on the iconic 1985 Paramount movie which was inspired by the classic Hasbro board game, Clue is a hilarious farce-meets-murder mystery. The tale begins at a remote mansion, where six mysterious guests assemble for an unusual dinner party where murder and blackmail are on the menu. When their host turns up dead, they all become suspects. Led by Wadsworth – the butler, Miss Scarlet, Professor Plum, Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock and Colonel Mustard race to find the killer as the body count stacks up. Clue is the comedy whodunit that will leave both cult-fans and newcomers in stitches as they try to figure out…WHO did it, WHERE, and with WHAT! The dates of Clue are July 11th, through July 20th.
Our fall production of our 87th season will be “Blithe Spirit “by Noel Coward, directed by Troy Pepper. Director Pepper has directed Blithe Spirit before in 2005 as his Players directional debut. Now he is revising the comic play 20 years later. The play concerns the socialite and novelist Charles Condomine, who invites the eccentric medium and clairvoyant Madame Arcati to his house to conduct a séance, hoping to gather material for his next book. The scheme backfires when he is haunted by the ghost of his willful and temperamental first wife, Elvira, after the séance. Elvira makes continual attempts to disrupt Charles’s marriage to his second wife, Ruth, who cannot see or hear the ghost. The production will run weekends, September 5th through September 14th.
In October, the Oswego Players will present a special three show event “Foretold Tales: An Anthology of Terror”. This three-day event of radio theater will be directed by William Edward White. The three dates of this special event production are October 24th, 25th, and 26th. Every performance will have different radio dramas apart of it.
To wrap things up nicely, complete with holiday bow, the Players will present the modern holiday classic “Best Christmas Pageant Ever” by Barbara Robinson and directed by Jennifer Hitchcock. In this hilarious Christmas classic, a couple struggling to put on a church Christmas pageant is faced with casting the Herdman kids – probably the most inventively awful kids in history. You won’t believe the mayhem – and the fun – when the Herdman’s collide head-on with the story of Christmas! This delightful show is adapted from the bestselling Young Adult book, has become a holiday staple for theater groups across the United States. The crowd-pleasing comedy features plenty of great roles for children and adults, a few favorite Christmas Carols, and lots of laughs. Just in time for Christmas, this family production will run weekends from December 5th through December 14th.
“87 years is an accomplishment for an all-volunteer, non-for-profit organization to exist and the Oswego Players Inc is committed to carrying their tradition of excellent productions by local talent far into the future.” Oswego Player’s current president Tammy Thompson commented when announcing the 2025 season.