Building on their progressively-successful dance productions of the past four years, Mr. Andrey Stanev and Nantucket Ballroom are currently beginning rehearsals on “The Picture of Dorian Gray”, their most ambitious production to date, featuring well-known Nantucket residents and professional national ballroom dancing champions. This year’s production will feature veteran actor John Shea, of film, television and stage, who is himself no stranger to Nantucket’s rich history of stage productions that were transferred from Nantucket to Broadway.

Oscar Wilde’s 1891 philosophical novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is a study of contradiction and obsession, self-indulgence and manipulation, and ultimately, consequences.  As the naïve, young and handsome Dorian Gray becomes an ardent disciple of hedonistic Lord Henry Wotton, who counsels Dorian that beauty and sensual fulfillment are the only things worth pursuing in life, Dorian ultimately comes to question his own actions and who he actually is - the man he was or the man he has become.

In Nantucket Ballroom’s stunningly-adapted production, you will be a voyeur into Dorian’s world as he explores the universal questions of limits.  What are the lines between pleasure and obsession, morality and depravity and the consequences of frivolous, self-indulgent decisions. Is this the picture of one man or the essence of human nature?

This production is more than mesmerizing entertainment. It is provocative, thought-provoking, and timely. You will be talking about it the next day!