Past
Productions
Bill W. and Dr. Bob
Second Chance Players performed six sold-out shows of Bill W. and Dr. Bob at Cox Playhouse in Plano, Texas, Feb. 16–25, 2024.
This critically acclaimed play performed Off-Broadway in 2007, telling the amazing story of the two men who pioneered Alcoholics Anonymous, and of their wives.
During the roaring twenties, New York stockbroker Bill Wilson rides high on money, fame, and booze. In 1929, both he and the market crash and he becomes a hopeless drunk. Across the country, Dr. Bob Smith is a surgeon in Akron, Ohio, and a pillar of the community. He has been a secret drunk for 30 years, often going into the operating room hungover and high on sedatives. His family has tried everything to no avail.
Through an astonishing series of events involving doctors, ministers, the Oxford Group evangelical movement, and Henrietta Sieberling, a scion of the Goodyear Rubber fortune, Bill and Bob meet on Mother's Day of 1935. The two men form a relationship that keeps each sober. Fired up, they seek out a third drunk to see if their program will work for others.
Richly textured with the ragtime and jazz of the era, Bill W. and Dr. Bob tells a magnificent American success story with warmth and humor.
Next to Normal
Second Chance Players performed Next to Normal at the Black Box Theater in Frisco, Texas, over two weeks in October 2024.
Next to Normal is a moving exploration of a suburban family and mental illness, loss, and grief. At its center is Diana Goodman, a housewife and mother living with worsening bipolar disorder and haunted by the past.
When this intimate musical debuted on Broadway in 2010, it was nominated for 11 Tony Awards and won three: Best Original Score, Best Orchestration, and Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. It is also one of only ten musicals in history to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, a prestigious honor for this groundbreaking production.
A ground-breaking and intimate portrait of a modern family, Next to Normal invites audiences to face "our deepest vulnerabilities whilst celebrating our capacity to endure." (Michael Longhurst)
The Laramie Project : The 25th Anniversary Production
Second Chance Players performed The Laramie Project at Horizon Universal Unitarian Church in Carrollton Texas, across two weekends in November of 2025.
The Laramie Project is a powerful play that recounts the events surrounding the murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay man, in 1998. It highlights personal and community responses to hate, violence, and the quest for understanding and acceptance. The play is a modern alternative to traditional theater, using the words of people they have previously interviewed as the dialogue. It was created by Moisés Kaufman and the Tectonic Theater Project, who spent a year and a half collecting testimonies from Laramie’s inhabitants. The play's structure reflects a Greek chorus that echoes the sentiments of the community, creating a rhythmic exploration of thoughts. It allows the audience to see the human side of such a tragedy and stimulate thoughtful dialogue on homophobia, morality, and the nature of hate.