About This Show
Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Paula Vogel’s, The Baltimore Waltz completes PTC’s summer season 2005. Fresh from a year featuring only her works at the Signature Theatre Company that featured: The Oldest Profession; The Baltimore Waltz; and Hot ‘n’ Throbbing, Ms. Vogel continues to be one of America’s foremost playwrights. Celebrated stars of stage and screen performed her works at Signature, including: David Marshall Grant; Katherine Helmond; Kristen Johnston; Priscilla Lopez; Joyce Van Patten; and Jeremy Webb.
The Baltimore Waltz won the Obie Award in 1992 for Best Play and is perhaps one of the most personal plays in her repertoire. This breakthrough comedy/drama is a tribute to her brother Carl who died of AIDS in 1988 but as Miss Vogel puts it, this play is not about AIDS, but about something much more universal: “I don’t actually think this is a play about AIDS–It’s a play about processing grief. It’s about the love between brothers and sisters. People, who are grieving when they come to see the play, tell me that it’s a way to get in touch with their joy. And there’s a lot of joy in grief, there’s a lot of celebration to grief, there’s a lot of comedy in grief” (Paul Vogel, POZ Magazine, 1998).
The story follows Anna, an unmarried schoolteacher, who is diagnosed with ATD, Acquired Toilet Disease, a fatal new malady with a high risk factor for elementary school teachers. She and her brother Carl take flight to Europe, where Anna decides she wants to drown herself in the sensuality of food and sex, while Carl becomes involved in a wild Third Mannish espionage scheme to find a cure for his sister on the Continent. Something is not quite right with the scenario, and the largest hint is dropped when Anna shows slides of their trip to Europe where each frame looks exactly like Baltimore. Carl’s quest for a cure ends and the play takes a sharp turn that challenges audiences everywhere with a dramatic dose of reality in this tale of love and grief.
“…a crazy-quilt patchwork of hyperventilating language, erotic jokes, movie kitsch and medical nightmare…that spins before the audience in Viennese waltz time, replete with a dizzying fall.” — New York Times.
“…an immensely likable winning comedy-drama…” — Hollywood Reporter
Box Office Hours: 11am – 8pm
Group Sales Number: 508-487-9793
Appropriate For All Ages