Welcome to Pear Roots!

Our mission is to provide students from all backgrounds the enriching experience of live theatre and insight on how to begin cultivating a career in the arts!

Contact The Pear’s Education Director Meaghan Anderson (meaghan@thepear.org) to book today.
Download our Pear Roots 2023/24 Season brochure.

The Program

Our Pear Roots student outreach, education and immersion program is open to classes or groups of students and educators, and now offers:

• Discounted tickets.

• Transportation funding.

• Dynamic student study guides.

• Exclusive matinee performance(s).

• A post-show discussion with members of the cast and crew.

What to Expect

Before each show, all students will be given a study guide to connect the art on stage, to the work in the classroom. After each show, The Pear will host a talkback with the cast, offering a wonderful opportunity for students to ask questions, gain additional insight and engage in conversation with the artists.

Ticket Costs

Student tickets are $10 each. Admittance is free for chaperones. We ask that you have one chaperone for every ten students. Reduced price or Free tickets are available to Title 1 Schools - please email for details.

Reserving Seats

Student matinee tickets will go on sale eight weeks before the performance. If your school would like to attend multiple matinees, please place an order for each show when the ticket request window opens. Email our Education Director Meaghan Anderson at meaghan@thepear.org with all ticket orders.

Transportation

Some transportation funding is available based on need. Please email our Education Director for support and to learn more about funds.

The Productions

Noises Off by Michael Frayn

About the show: Six neurotic actors, two overworked stage managers, an explosive director and an elusive plate of sardines are the perfect recipe for on and offstage hilarity - and uproarious disaster - in Michael Frayn’s classic farce Noises Off.

Director Lloyd Dallas and his cast of the sex-fueled screwball comedy Nothing On have a lot on their plate: a prop of sardines nobody knows what to do with, memorizing lines, missed cues, quick costume changes, door slamming - not to mention rampant offstage gossip, affairs, rivalries and secrets that lead to mounting mainstage mayhem. Can they get their act together before the final curtain call? Don’t count on it.

Lauded as “the funniest farce ever written” by The New York Post and originally nominated for Best Play at the 1984 Tony Awards®, be prepared for Noises Off like you’ve never seen it before as The Pear uses its intimate space in new and innovative ways! Due to the sometimes immersive nature of this production, LIMITED SEATING is available.

Opening: Friday, September 8th at 8:00 pm.
Closing: Sunday, October 1st at 2:00 pm.

William Shakespeare’s The Land of the Dead by John Heimbuch

About the show: London, 1599. After the opening of his newest play, Henry V at the Globe Playhouse, William Shakespeare must once again defend his work while the actors strut and fret - and an excess of bile plagues the populace outside. When the company’s costumer is bitten by a plague-ridden madman, and the Queen and her men arrive seeking safety, life in the playhouse takes a turn for the worse.

As the affliction spreads through London, the Globe is placed in quarantine and the survivors within must fight for their lives. Can they escape? Is there a cure? Is artistic integrity ever worth dying for? William Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead is a true and accurate account of the Elizabethan zombie plague.

Opening: Friday, November 17 at 8:00 pm.
Closing: Saturday, December 9 at 2:00 pm.

For Peter Pan on her 70th Birthday by Sarah Ruhl

About the show: When Ann thinks of her father, she immediately remembers playing Peter Pan in her hometown theater in Iowa, and the flowers he delivered after her performance. Her memory is jogged by the fact that she and her four siblings are in their father’s hospital room during his final moments. His death sparks a conversational wake that includes everything from arguments over politics to when each sibling realized that they grew up.

For Peter Pan On Her 70th Birthday is a loving look at a family’s view of death, life and the allure of never growing up.

“A work that is equal parts dark and light, recalling the ebullient excitement of youth, but also confronting the hard fact of mortality… Ruhl’s imagination is among the most adventurous at play today in the theater.” – The New York Times

Opening: Friday, February 9 at 8:00 pm.
Closing: Sunday, March 3 at 2:00 pm.

The Chinese Lady by Lloyd Suh

About the shows:

Afong Moy is fourteen years old when she’s brought to the United States from Guangzhou Province in 1834. Allegedly the first Chinese woman to set foot on U.S. soil, she has been put on display for the American public as “The Chinese Lady.” For the next half-century, she performs for curious white people, showing them how she eats, what she wears, and the highlight of the event: how she walks with bound feet. Soon her celebrated sideshow comes to define and challenge her very sense of identity.

Inspired by the true story of Afong Moy’s life, The Chinese Lady is a dark, poetic, yet whimsical portrait of America through the eyes of a young Chinese woman.

Opening: Saturday, April 20 at 8:00 pm.
Closing: Sunday, May 12 at 2:00 pm.