The Cocktail Hour

Mike Genovese & Ellen Crawford

2014 – 2015 Season

The Cocktail Hour brings real life couple Ellen Crawford and husband Mike Genovese from NBC’s E.R. back to TPT to play another long-married couple. In 2011-12 they appeared as Norman and Ethel Thayer in On Golden Pond with actress Beth Hylton playing their stage daughter Chelsea. Beth returned once again to join them as their on-stage daughter in The Cocktail Hour, and she is now considered their honorary real-life daughter.

 

  • The Cocktail Hour – A. R. Gurney
  • I Married an Alien! – Susan Poulin
  • A Christmas Carol – adapted by Christopher Schario
  • Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike – Christopher Durang
  • Outside Mullingar – John Patrick Shanley
  • The Sunshine Boys – Neil Simon
  • Bodyology – Slim Goodbody

2014 – 2015 Gallery

23-24 Season Photos

2023 – 24 Season

We had a great lineup of shows in 2023-24. From the World Premiere of “Paint Night” by Carey Crim to the American Premiere of “Lunenburg” by Canada’s most prolific playwright, Norm Foster. We were excited to bring back our unique version of A Christmas Carol for the first time since the pandemic and welcomed over 3,600 students and educators to Student Matiness for “A Christmas Carol” and “Cinderella”.

2022 – 2023 Season

Our 2022-23 Season ran from September 2022 - May 2023. Finally returning to our four-show subscription series, we produced a full season of shows and a family-friendly musical. Over 2,900 students, educators and families attended our production of Polkadots: The Cool...
Craig Bockhorn, Joych Cohen, Allison Briner Dardenne, Douglas Rees in Middletown

2021 – 2022 Season

A lot has changed in our world since we all sat together in the theatre. Thank you for your patience and support as we resume producing under these new conditions.

2020-21 30th Season - Loading . . .

2020 – 2021 Season

You’re probably wondering what’s happening at the theatre and when you’ll be able to see a play again. And the truth is, we are still figuring that out. Our ability to produce live on stage will depend upon the cost of meeting CDC guidelines, gaining permission from...

2019 – 2020 Season

“Women in Jeopardy” and “Sexy Laundry” get our season off to a terrific start and we break our previous box office set by “Ripcord” with the hit “Sexy Laundry.”

2018 – 2019 Season

It’s a season for partnerships as Janet is reunited with old friend and scene partner, Paul Schoeffler, for A Doll’s House, Part 2 and we co-produce Grease with Maine State Music Theatre.

2017-2018 Season

Costumer designer Anne Collins designs and builds by herself four stunning period costumes for The Revolutionists.

2016 – 2017 Season

Playwright John Cariani joins us to rehearse Last Gas and offers final tweaks to the soon to be published script.

2015 – 2016 Season

Two-time Tony Award winning actress, Judith Ivey, directs the runaway box office smash, The Ladies Foursome.

2013-2014 Season

In Moonlight and Magnolias the three characters were trapped in a room until they finished writing the script for Gone with the Wind with nothing to eat but . . .

2012-2013 Season

Janet directs The Hound of the Baskervilles and “silly” becomes her plan of action.

2011-2012 Season

Joel Leffert stars as the artist Mark Rothko in Red. He returns as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol the next season, and in Outside Mullingar in 2015.

2010-2011 Season

Producing the Off-Broadway hit, Animals out of Paper, we needed to fill our set with the highest level of origami possible, as two of the characters were an origami prodigy and his teacher.

2009-2010 Season

For Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde we went on a hunt for “scientific equipment” to fill Dr. Jekyll’s lab.

2008-2009 Season

Preparing for Secrets of a Soccer Mom, we went in search of an artificial grass lawn to put onstage.

2007-2008 Season

We perform Almost, Maine, the first of three productions of Maine playwright John Cariani’s plays that we will produce. John flies in to see it and quickly becomes our friend.

2006-2007 Season

The entire first act of Enchanted April was played in front of a curtain painted to look like the black and white newspaper ad. What was behind it?

2005-2006 Season

Deathtrap was set in the study of a mystery writer and the set required a wall filled with unusual weapons that he collected.

2004-2005 Season

After the final preview of The Woman in Black, we didn’t think the show was scary enough, so the next day we went back into rehearsal and added several new tricks.

2003-2004 Season

The 1950’s Cold War spoof Red Herring had one of our all-time favorite jokes: “How do you make a stiff drink? Feed him salty snacks.” . . .

2002-2003 Season

We opened our season with Art. One day during a design meeting we were discussing the various shades of gray the set might be. “Like the gray in Bart’s shirt” said someone at the table.

2001-2002 Season

When 9/11 happens we realize an actress we hired for the upcoming show Blithe Spirit lives in the World Trade Center neighborhood. It took us almost a week to locate her and find out she was okay.

2000-2001 Season

We open with The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (abridged). The Portland Phoenix Reader’s Poll votes The Public Theatre “Best Theatre Company”.

1999-2000 Season

Dracula sells like wildfire. Multiple audience members showed up in capes and fangs. Are they really vampires? Who knows?

1998-1999 Season

In June, Ellen Crawford, Nurse Lydia Wright on the NBC hit E.R., returns to perform The Belle of Amherst, a one-woman show about American poet Emily Dickinson.

1997-1998 Season

That summer we audition David Harbour for the role of Evans in Terra Nova.

1996-1997 Season

Talented thirteen-year-old local actor Seth Schlotterbeck is cast as the younger brother in “Lost in Yonkers.”

1995-1996 Season

Janet discovers she is pregnant the day before rehearsals begin for the opening show of the season “Dancing at Lughnasa.”

1994-1995 Season

During a TV interview, the host of the show publicly laughs when we tell him the theatre has gone Equity, scoffing at the feasibility of a professional theatre surviving in Lewiston.

1993-1994 Season

Christopher is hired as the Artistic Director. He pays his own way from New York to Maine to interview for the job and becomes the only full-time paid staff position along with a part-time technical director who designs, and builds sets and lights for every show.