It’s Summer. It’s Baseball. Time for Seven New Plays On America’s Favorite Pastime
Hoboken’s Mile Square Theatre Presents the 9th Annual 7th Inning Stretch
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It’s a summer tradition, just like baseball: Mile Square Theatre in Hoboken, New Jersey, will present 7th Inning Stretch, its annual festival of seven original 10-minute plays on the theme of baseball. The ninth-annual production takes place Friday and Saturday, June 17 and 18 at 8pm, and Sunday, June 19 at 2pm, at the Monroe Theatrespace at 720 Monroe Street in Hoboken, NJ. Tickets are $25, and $15 for students and seniors. The June 18 performance includes the Triple Play Party, a post performance reception with food and drink supplied by Hoboken’s best restaurants. Tickets are $50.
Both comedies and dramas are on deck for this year’s world premieres. Each ten-minute play is a full staging of the original work, adding up to 70 minutes of fast-moving theatre and proof that baseball is a rich theme.
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Seven playwrights from around the country were selected to pen a play on America’s favorite pastime. Playwrights in the past have included Pulitzer finalists, winners of a Tony or Kennedy Center award, and those whose works have been staged in such celebrated venues as the Guthrie Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse, and Oregon Shakespeare Festival as well as on Broadway and off-Broadway.
This year's playwrights include: Jenny Lyn Bader, Brian Dykstra, Michael Jon Garces,Alex Gherardi, Matthew Lawler, Raymond McAnally, Candido Tirado
7th Inning Stretch has been a bona fide hit since its first at bat in 2003. Then, Mile Square Theatre artistic director Chris O’Connor was searching for a way to kick off the fledgling theatre company. Unable to mount a major production, O’Connor conceived a festival of original 10-minute plays as a fundraiser. He didn’t look far for a central theme: Hoboken, birthplace of Frank Sinatra and baseball.
Though there remains some dispute elsewhere as to whether Hoboken hosted the first organized baseball game, one thing is certain: Hoboken can claim this theatrical and playful ode to baseball that is - season after season - an exhilarating night out at the theatre for all.
