Theatre Connections
“Art is a nation’s most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves, and to others, the inner vision which guides us as a Nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish.” – President Lyndon Johnson, 1965
What is Theatre Connections?
Theatre Connections is the School of Theatre’s initiative to get involved in the campus and local communities, and to encourage students and residents to be socially and politically active through the arts.
For Spring 2012, Theatre Connections is focusing on the School of Theatre’s production of Passion Play by Sarah Ruhl, which will be presented February 17-25 in the Center for the Performing Arts, directed by Brandon Ray.
Passion Play
About the Play
Summary of the play on Samuel French Website:
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.
About our Production of Passion Play
Because the play has three very distinct time periods, it is important for us to research each specific era in terms of social, economic, religious, and political aspects. A breakdown of the research taken for this production can be found on the Research for the Production Page.
About the Playwright
SARAH RUHL has written numerous award-winning plays, including The Clean House (Susan Smith Blackburn Award, 2004, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Pen Award), Melancholy Play, Eurydice, Late: a cowboy song, Orlando, Demeter in the City (NAACP Image Award nomination) and Passion Play: a cycle in three parts (Fourth Forum Freedom Award, Kennedy Center). Her plays have been performed at Lincoln Center Theater, Second Stage Theatre, Goodman Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theater, Wilma Theater, Cornerstone Theater, Madison Repertory Theatre, Clubbed Thumb and the Piven Theatre Workshop, among other theatres across the country. Her plays have been translated into German, Polish, Korean, Russian and Spanish, and have been produced internationally in London, Canada, Germany, Latvia and Poland. Sarah received her MFA from Brown University and is originally from Chicago. She is the recipient of a Helen Merrill award, Whiting Writers' Award and a Macarthur Fellowship. She is a proud member of New Dramatists and 13P.
From Steppenwolf Theatre Company Website
Other plays By Sarah Ruhl: Eurydice, The Clean House, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, In the Next Room (of the Vibrator Play), Stage Kiss
Civic Engagement Project
Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play is about the reactions of three groups of actors as they perform the same Passion Play. The Passion Play itself doesn’t change over time—indeed, it’s timelessness and ritualized character make it significant to many people. However, the reactions to the play do change over time. In all of the play’s sections, the actors make personal decisions based on their specific historical and national context. Indeed, most people in Western culture know the story of Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection. For some Christians, the story serves as an important reminder or a guide for specific behaviors. For others, it might serve as a more general story of self-sacrifice. For many (those who aren’t Christians for instance), there might be another well-known cultural story (both from other faith traditions and from important secular traditions) that inspires beliefs and behaviors.
Sacrifice Quilt
There are many instances of sacrifice within Passion Play, so our civic engagement project for this production will be creating a “Sacrifice Quilt.”
During the ISU production of Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play, we will display this “Sacrifice Quilt.” Students will design memes that combine an easily recognizable image with an image/phrase/emblem from each student’s personal engagement with sacrifice. We will print these memes onto fabric squares; we’ll connect all of the squares into one large quilt. The quilt will speak more directly to the theme of sacrifice and how individual sacrifices might better enter the public imagination through the genre of memes and “demonstrate in any concrete way a positive effect on individual students' level of interest in or commitment to working on solutions to social/civic issues. Updates about the quilt will be available on Facebook.
Civic Engagement and the Arts
