Fall 2011
The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare
directed by Jeremy Garrett
September 29 - October 8, Westhoff Theatre.
A Venetian merchant named Antonio, willing to sacrifice anything for a dear friend, agrees to offer his own flesh as collateral in a deal with his bitter rival Shylock, a Jewish money lender. When the loan comes due, it falls to a young heiress named Portia, disguised as a male lawyer, to plead for Antonio's life. Using the bustling pre-Depression era as a backdrop, our production of this classic Shakespearean story challenges prejudices and fears about religion, gender, ethnicity, and sexuality.
The Women of Lockerbie by Deborah Brevoort
directed by Emily Gill
September 30 - October 8, Center for the Performing Arts.
"A mother from New Jersey roams the hills of Lockerbie Scotland, looking for her son’s remains, which were lost in the crash of Pan Am flight103. She meets the Women of Lockerbie, who are fighting the U.S. Government to obtain the clothing of the victims found in the plane’s wreckage. The women, determined to convert an act of hatred into an act of love, want to wash the clothes of the dead and return them to the victims' families. The Women of Lockerbie is loosely inspired by a true story, although the characters and situations in the play are purely fictional. Written in the structure of a Greek tragedy, it is a poetic drama about the triumph of love over hate" (synopsis from DeborahBrevoort.com).
Electra by Euripedes
directed by Sonja Moser
October 13 - 22, Centennial West 207 Studio Theater.
In this work by the most psychological — and thus most modern — of the Greek tragic playwrights, a daughter laments the death of her father and conspires with her brother to bring down his killers — their own mother and her lover.
The Marriage of Bette and Boo by Christopher Durang
directed by Christopher Dea
November 3 - 12, Westhoff Theatre.
Told in 33 swift scenes, The Marriage of Bette and Boo mixes comedy with life's pain as Durang tracks the decline of a marriage. As one character puts it, "I don't think God punishes people for specific things. I think he punishes them in general for no reason."
A Flea in Her Ear by Georges Feydeau
directed by Don LaCasse
November 4 - 12, Center for the Performing Arts.
"Nothing would be sillier than trying to summarize a Feydeau farce, with its nonstop amorous entanglements, unconsummated infidelities, mistaken identities, and breathless chases," wrote critic John Simon. Written in 1907 and set in turn-of-the-century Paris, A Flea in Her Ear springs from a wife's doubts about her husband's fidelity and her scheme to entrap him.
Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov
directed by Sandi Zielinski
December 1 - 4, Heartland Theatre.
Olga, Maria and Irina are stuck in a provincial town, yearning for love, success and the cultured life of Moscow. Instead they must confront spinsterhood, a loveless marriage, a slain lover and their brother Andrei's mounting debts. Chekhov imbued this turn-of-the-century play with anger, humor and a keen awareness of the emerging cracks in the fabric of class privilege. This special production at Heartland Theatre (located at Lincoln and Beech Streets in Normal) features the School of Theatre's third-year M.F.A. Acting students. (Tickets will be available through the Heartland Theatre Box Office.)
Fall Dance Theatre
artistic director Sara Semonis
December 8 - 10, Center for the Performing Arts.
Spring 2012
Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl
directed by Brandon Ray
February 17 - 25, Center for the Performing Arts.
Hailed by The New Yorker's John Lahr as "extraordinary," "bold," and "inventive," and called "a new American classic" by Time Magazine, this intimate epic occurs at the timely intersection of politics and religion. Ruhl dramatizes three different communities of players rehearsing their annual staging of the Passion: 1575 Northern England, just before Queen Elizabeth outlaws the ritual; 1934 Oberammergau, Bavaria, as Hitler is rising to power; and Spearfish, South Dakota, from the time of Vietnam through Reagan's presidency. In each period, the players grapple with the transformative nature of art, and politics are never far in the background.
(from the Samuel French, Inc., publication Passion Play)
Cloud 9 by Caryl Churchill
directed by Jeremy Garrett
February 23 - March 3, Westhoff Theatre.
This two-act play, set in nineteenth-century British colonial Africa and then in London in the late 1970s, challenges notions of gender and sexuality by casting them in the light of oppressive Victorian values. Critic Frank Rich wrote in the New York Times, "Miss Churchill has found a theatrical method that is easily as dizzying as her theme. Not only does she examine a cornucopia of sexual permutations — from heterosexual adultery right up to bisexual incest — but she does so with a wild array of dramatic styles and tricks....Miss Churchill, as you might gather is one deft writer."
Picnic by William Inge
directed by Lori Adams
March 29 - April 7, Centennial West 207 Studio Theater.
Inge won the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for this story of a "jerkwater" Kansas town where the Labor Day picnic provides the locals with a chance to kick up their heels and gives a bad-boy drifter the opportunity to stir up two sisters' repressed longings.
La Boheme by Giacomo Puccini
directed by Connie de Veer
March 30 - April 7, Center for the Performing Arts.
This 1896 opera in four acts explores the bohemian milieu of Paris in the 1840s, the love between the sickly seamstress Mimi and the poet Rodolfo, and the timeless question faced by artists everywhere — should we party or pay the rent?
Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
directed by Christopher Dea
April 5 - 14, Westhoff Theatre.
Caesar meets an untimely end on the Ides of March and Mark Antony wows the crowd at his funeral: "When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept / Ambition should be made of sterner stuff." But Brutus is the pivotal character in Shakespeare's play, "the noblest Roman of them all," who must slay a friend to save his country.
Spring Dance Theatre
artistic director Sara Semonis
May 3 - 5, Center for the Performing Arts.
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