CENTERstage Productions presents
The Dumb Waiter by Harold Pinter and Nine by Jane Shepard
Directed by Lisa Lynds
September 11-13, 2026
Friday at 7:30 PM
Saturday at 7:30 PM
Sunday at 2:30 PM
Tickets $15
What choice do we have when life hands us one raw deal after another through no fault of our own? Can we be forever stripped of that small luxury?
In Pinter’s The Dumb Waiter, Gus and Ben are on the job, waiting and listening. Into the waiting silence rattles the dumb waiter with extraordinary demands for dishes they cannot supply: but who is operating the dumb waiter in an empty house? Pinter‘s absurdist, menacing comedy of horrors never lets the tension let up as Gus and Ben await their fate, whatever that might be.
Nine by Jane Shepard features two women held in a life-threatening situation and the mind games they play to keep one another alive. Held in a room and chained apart, their only currency is words, and balance of power is everything when a single word becomes the hanging point between life and death.
Two one-acts that work together to expose how quickly lives collapse under pressure. A sharp look at confinement, blame, and the brutality of circumstance.