Caldwell Theatre Company

Regional professional theater serving South Florida

One of Florida's four State Theaters

Vibrant, creative, successful not-for-profit cultural institution, celebrating its 27th season

A cultural jewel

Richard Greenberg's TAKE ME OUT features 11 actors in a dynamic and enchanting new play about great athletes coming to terms with winning and losing -- on the field and off.

Baseball is so thoroughly American, part of the popular culture alongside hot dogs, Rock and Roll, Coke and Spring days. Baseball produced almost as many heroes as wars and Ted Williams and Warren Spahn, became sports and war heroes. Next to the National Anthem, baseball's unofficial theme song, the nostalgic “Take Me Out To The Ball Game,” is arguably one of our favorites, a tune most of know from childhood. Written in 1908 by Jack Norworth, “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” is still in our heads after all these years. The lyrics take us back to Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson and Hank Aaron and the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants before they sneaked out of New York for the west coast.

Baseball is personal, our only spectator competition that truly crosses age, gender, geography and race. So is Richard Greenberg's Tony Award-winning TAKE ME OUT. Baseball divides family loyalties as it does to the team in TAKE ME OUT as well. There's no room for apathy in the sport, nor in this stunning play. Spectators are as equally invested in the game as are the players because baseball is the thrill of the unexpected and that “come from behind” moment when our favorite player pulls it out for his team. You root for the hero in TAKE ME OUT as you root for your favorite all-star pitcher.

A disclosure about his sexuality by an enormously popular superstar in TAKE ME OUT shocks his teammates and ultimately leads to a tragedy. Racism and intolerance are major themes of this poetic baseball drama, as the once hailed hero of his team suddenly faces ostracism and bias.

The New York Times described this fabulous play as “ an enchanting and enchanted take on baseball . . . Both passionately personal and lyrically analytical . . . [ Take Me Out is] an unconditional, all-American epiphany that, in these days of fretful ambivalence, is something to cherish.”

Just as in real life baseball, great players who don't always turn out to be who we thought they were may disappoint, but they're still our superstars. They fall and we ache. And however they may have fallen short as heroes, they have earned their spot in the limelight. These heroes are imbued with the power we as fans give them, and they give us what we want in return.

Baseball has changed as our nation has evolved. Outlandish contracts. Ridiculous ticket prices. Bad behavior. Steroid-tainted records (and the controversy over whether some newly set record-breakers should have an asterisk like that assigned to the record of a clean cut kid named Roger Maris). But it remains a game of nine men depending on each other to put it together for the team, and their race, age or sexuality is irrelevant.

Caldwell's Florida premiere of TAKE ME OUT offers the unexpected-a theatrical change up followed by a sizzling fast ball - and is the not to be missed entertainment fix of the summer. Like the home plate umpire, Greenberg tells us to “play ball!” This game is not on an infield diamond and grass outfield but on an intimate stage, one of America's finest, and this ballgame is the game of life and the stakes are survival.

"...theater's equivalent of a bases-loaded home run" – Christine Dolen, Miami Herald
"Director Michael Hall and his Caldwell team load the bases early and hit a grand slam" Jack Zink, Sun-Sentinel
“An engaging, entertaining and ultimately profound drama” Charles Passy, The Palm Beach Post
"...often funny, often confrontational and always fascinating" -- Skip Sheffield, Boca Raton NewsWinner, Best Play, New York Drama Critics' Circle, Outer Critics Circle, Drama Desk, and Lucille Lortel Awards.

Caldwell Theatre Company is located at 7873 N. Federal Highway, in the Levitz Plaza, Boca Raton, FL 33487. For more information, call the box office at (561) 241-7432 or visit www.caldwelltheatre.com.

Many of the images on this page are the property of Caldwell Theatre Company, to whom we express our thanks for their use.

THE CALDWELL'S 2004 - 2005 SEASON:
November 7 – December 19, 2004, A Comedy/Drama by Paul Osborn Mornings At Seven This charming family portrait of four Gibb sisters living side by side is set in a small Midwestern town in 1938. Having known way too many intimacies about each other through the years, their lives take a sudden detour with the appearance of a spinster friend, Myrtle, who has been seeing Ida Gibb’s son, Homer, for years. When Homer cannot bring himself to propose, Myrtle takes matters in her own hands and the sisters’ lives are never quite the same from that point forward. Three time Tony Award-winner, which garnered 10 nominations during its three Broadway runs, The New York Post said Morning’s At Seven is “Absolutely entrancing...See this lovely play.”	December 31, 2004 – February 13, 2005, A New Comedy by Marie Jones Stones In His Pockets This recent Broadway hit tells the whimsically droll story of a small Irish community turned inside out and upside down when a major Hollywood film crew sets up shop in County Kerry. A former video rental store owner (with a screenplay in his back pocket) and a neighbor portray 13 roles between them, including a glamorous movie star, a flirtatious production assistant and the only surviving extra from The Quiet Man, the 1952 movie that starred John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara. Indifferent to the community ethos, the Hollywood swells dangle dreams that are dashed by reality and tragedy. Written with exquisite beauty by the recipient of the John Hewitt Award for Outstanding Contribution to Culture, Tradition and the Arts in Northern Ireland, Stones In His Pockets debuted at the Lyric Theatre in Belfast in April 1999; received The Laurence Olivier and The Evening Standard Award for Best Comedy and took Broadway by storm, winning a Drama Desk Special Award and a Special Achievement Award from the Outer Critics Circle.	February 20 – April 3, 2005, A Comedy/Drama by Donald Margulies The Loman Family Picnic This riot of a black comedy about a Jewish family living in a Coney Island high rise moves between fantasy and reality as a mother struggles to keep her family together. Husband Herbie – an unhappy lighting fixture salesman and spendthrift – is thinking about flying the coop. Overwhelmed wife Doris puts on a façade of domestic harmony while clearly suffering an emotional meltdown. Son Stewie looks forward to his bar mitzvah – not for its spiritual passage but for the gelt – while youngest son Mitchell writes a musical version of Death of a Salesman, scenes of which are staged. Will Herbie steal the bar mitzvah money? Will he come home to Doris and the boys? When – and if – Herbie returns home is dealt with ironically by the interpretation of four possible endings. Expertly written by the author of Collected Stories and Sight Unseen, The Loman Family Picnic is a must-see portrayal of one family’s search for the American dream.
April 10 – May 22, 2005, T.B.A. A wide variety of plays are under consideration, including Florida premieres.

Some Caldwell history from the Company's webpage:

The Caldwell is the most acclaimed regional theater in South Florida -- winner of 65 Carbonell Awards from the South Florida Critics' Association. Caldwell Theatre Company is a fully professional, 305-seat regional theater located in north Boca Raton. Since its inception in 1975, the Caldwell has remained true to its goal of producing a wide variety of productions each season, including the latest Broadway and Off-Broadway hits; classics and revivals; and new and original plays and musicals. A resident theater, not a road show house, the Caldwell produces its own plays, using its own full-time professional and artistic staff.

During the past 24 years, the Caldwell has won 65 Carbonell Awards (South Florida's version of the Tony), awarded by the South Florida Entertainment Writers Association. Caldwell has won Best Play Carbonell Awards for its productions of The Hasty Heart, Candida, The Middle Ages, Mass Appeal, Bent, Other People’s Money, Falsettoland, Papa, Little Shop of Horrors, and Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.
Critically acclaimed productions of classics include Shaw's Candida, Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, Arthur Miller's The Price and Lillian Hellman's The Little Foxes. As well, the Caldwell has brought serious contemporary theater to South Florida in recent years with productions of Bent in 1985 and 1990, Falsettoland in 1992, Someone Who'll Watch Over Me in 1993, and Love! Valour! Compassion! in 1996. Caldwell productions of new or original plays often lead to New York productions. Papa starring Len Cariou, which played at the Caldwell in 1994, opened Off-Broadway at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre in May 1996; and the musical Cowgirls, originated by the Caldwell in 1994, was recently on stage at New York City's Minetta Lane Theatre. Caldwell also uses its popular Playsearch series to discover new works. Mainstage productions of The King's Mare, Don't Tell the Tsar, and the upcoming Out of Season were all discoverd through Playsearch.

Caldwell Theatre Company's ongoing projects include a Theater For Schools program, which brings thousands of students to see full-scale theater productions, free of charge; various classes and outreach programs; and a capital campaign to build a permanent home for the company.