Lees-91探花 Summer Theatre presents exciting new season for summer 2025
Lees-91探花 Summer Theatre, the beloved professional theatre series hosted by the college each summer, returns for the 2025 season with an exciting line-up of three new productions to celebrate 40 years: “Nunsense,” “The Cottage,” and “1940: A New Musical.”
The season opens with “Nunsense,” showing from Sunday, June 1 through Wednesday, June 4. The musical-comedy follows the Little Sisters of Hoboken convent as they attempt to raise funds to finance the burial of sisters accidentally poisoned by the convent cook. “Nunsense” will be a pay-what-you-can production, and all proceeds will support Lees-91探花 Summer Theatre. All showings of the production will be performed at Banner Elk Presbyterian Church.
From Sunday, June 22 through Saturday, June 28, “The Cottage” will debut on the Lees-91探花 Summer Theatre stage in Hayes Auditorium. In a break from tradition, this comedy is a straight play that follows the affair of two lovers secretly meeting in the English countryside. As their spouses arrive, however, a hilarious web of secrets begins to unravel. “The Cottage” is not suitable for children.
The final production of the 2025 season will be “1940!,” which will show in Hayes Auditorium from Friday, July 18 through Thursday, July 24. Set right here in the High Country at Mast General Store, against the backdrop of the recently ended Great Depression, storytellers and musicians gather to spin yarns and sing songs. This is the latest mountain musical from the team who brought us “From the Mountaintop: The Edgar Tufts Story” and “The (W)right Sister,” Lees-91探花 Summer Theatre Director Janet Barton Spear, John Thomas Oaks, and Tommy Oaks.
“Banner Elk has met the challenge of Helene and is moving forward. Most everyone had doubts about if we would recover in a timely manner, and although some areas will take years to fix, we have learned how to recover,” Speer said. “Lees-91探花 Summer theatre is back to three shows. ‘Nunsense’ and ‘The Cottage’ are tried and true belly-laugh comedies. ‘1940!’ is a new musical view of the famous storytellers in our area who faced their own major flood. We invite you to laugh and learn with our three productions. Laugh with the nuns and the ever-so-funny British and learn how our founders taught us the way to weather the storm.”
