Previous Productions
Noises Off By Michael Frayn
During the first act, we are an audience to this production of a play within a play. The Nothing On cast is loveable, but mainly inept; however, we cheer for them under our breath and hope that they can pull it together and get the show on the road. For act two, we, the audience, are sitting backstage; the entire set has been turned 180 degrees. We can hear the actors performing out front, but what we see is the back side of the scenery flats, the stage manager trying to keep the action flowing and everybody happy, and the various antics of the actors offstage between their exits and entrances. Act three is a month later again, and the tour is reaching an end. We, the audience, are out front again, watching a performance of Nothing On that has reached the point of complete and hilarious deterioration. The business of performing the show has become subordinate to the business of solving personal problems.
Medea By Euripides
A classic Greek tale of deceit, lust and murder!
Euripides' Medea opens in a state of conflict. Jason has abandoned his wife, Medea, along with their two children. He hopes to advance his station by remarrying with Glauce, the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth, the Greek city where the play is set. All the events of play proceed out of this initial dilemma, and the involved parties become its central characters. Against the protests of the chorus, Medea murders her children and flees the scene in a dragon-pulled chariot provided by her grandfather, the Sun-God. Jason is left cursing his lot; his hope has been annihilated, and everything he values has been lost through the deaths that conclude the tragedy.
Moby Dick! The musical by Robert Longden and Hereward Kaye
A British cult spoof, and a Whale of a Tale!
In order to save their bankrupt school that's seen better days, the girls of St. Godley's Academy for Young Ladies decide to put on a musical version of Moby Dick. The highly comic, satirical romp through the age-old mariner's tale that ensues proves to be a world of endless, funny double entendres and wonderful, pastiche-y company numbers.
Jerry R. Ditter, formerly the Artistic Director of “Stages of Omaha” at the Millennium Theatre, will directed and choreographed the production. Music Direction was by Machelle Mitchell, Scenic Design by faculty member Carl Dumicich, Costume Design by faculty member Jennifer Pool, Lighting Design by student Michiela Marshall, and assistant choreography by student Lauren Koll.
Tartuffe by Jean Baptiste Moliere
A 17th century comic masterpiece of religious hypocrisy. The story takes place in the home of the wealthy Orgon, where Tratuffe - a fraud and pious imposter - has insinuated himself. He succeeds magnificently in winning the respect and devotion of the head of the house and then tries to marry his daughter and seduce his wife and scrounge the deed to the property.
Moliere has mercilessly examined the evil that men can commit in the guise of religious fervor and the dangers that imperil those who would believe only what they choose to believe despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary.
Marcus is Walking by Joan Ackermann
Written for the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the car, the play examines the emotional landscape we roam as we travel in our cars.
This contemporary comedy is a series of 11 vignettes - all taking place in a car! These humanistic "scenes from the road" are brought to life by 27 different characters ranging from a homeless woman seeking shelter, to a pair of lustful teenagers, to an eccentric family out for a Sunday drive, to an 11-year old Marcus in a ghost costume and his overhearing father on Halloween.
"Fahrenheit 451" by Ray Bradbury
Bradbury's primary theme in Fahrenheit 451 is the importance of independent thought and intellectual freedom.
He sees reading as a key method of cultivating intellectual curiosity. Books confront readers with a variety of conflicting opinions and ideas, forcing them to think for themselves.
Bradbury portrays an overdependence on technology as a threat to intellectual development. Montag's escape from the supposedly infallible Mechanical Hound shows that an active human mind is superior to even the best technology.
In Bradbury's novel, education's emphasis on technology leads to a culture where people understand how things are done but never bother to wonder why things are done. Such an education discourages people from developing their creative abilities, and as the narrative points out several times, those who cannot build, destroy. The result is a society where fanatical, destructive behavior, such as the firemen's book-burning, flourishes.
"You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" by Clark Gesner
This performance is a light-hearted musical, based on the comic strip of Charles M. Schultz, will feature the art of puppetry, with the design and training of puppetry skills of local professional artists.
A program note says that the time of the action is "an average day in the life of Charlie Brown." It really is just that, a day made up of little moments picked from all the days of Charlie Brown, from Valentine's Day to the baseball season, from wild optimism to utter despair, all mixed in with the lives of his friends (both human and non-human) and strung together on the string of a single day, from bright uncertain morning to hopeful starlit evening.
None of the cast is actually six years old. And they don't really look like Charles Schultz'"Peanuts" cartoon characters. But this doesn't seem to make that much difference once we are into the play, because what they are saying to each other is with the openness of that early childhood time, and the obvious fact is that they are all really quite fond of each other.
"Dirty Laundry"
The Theatre Department invites you to our first production of the 2006-2007 season. Dirty Laundry consists of two short female-written plays depicting conflict and attitudes between men and women - featuring Am I Blue by Beth Henley and Trifles by Susan Glaspell.
Am I Blue by Beth Henley
The play begins in a seedy New Orleans bar where John Polk Richards, a college freshman whose fraternity brothers have paid his way into a bordello as an eighteenth birthday present, is bolstering his courage with liquor. He is approached by Ashbe, a fey young creature who invites him to the littered apartment which she shares with her absent father.
As high strung and flaky as John Polk is nervous and tentative. Ashbe initiates him into her secret fantasy life as she tries to bridge the loneliness which infuses them both. She strings Cheerios to make a necklace and then nibbles at them; puts blue food coloring in John Polk's rum and Coke; lets him hear the sea in her favorite conch shell; and finally, invites him to make love to her - an offer which he politely declines. Sometimes wildly funny, sometimes gently affecting, the play is a wonderfully resourceful study of two young people, both unsure and apprehensive, whose unexpected encounter becomes, for both of them, a valuable lesson in coping with life - now and in the future.
Trifles by Susan Glaspell
Susan Glaspell's one-act play is based on actual events that occurred in Iowa at the turn of the century. From 1899-1901 Glaspell worked as a reporter for the Des Moines News, where she covered the murder trial of a farmer's wife, Margaret Hossack, in Indianola, Iowa. Hossack was accused of killing her husband, John, by striking him twice in the head with an ax while he slept.
Trifles is a murder mystery that explores gender relationships, power between the sexes, and the nature of truth. In the play, the farmer and his wife never actually appear; instead, the story focuses on the prosecutor, George Henderson, who has been called in to investigate the murder; Henry Peters, the local sheriff; Lewis Hale, a neighboring farmer who discovered Wright's body; and Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale, wives to the two local men.
While the men bluster and tramp around the farmhouse searching for clues, the women discover bits of evidence in the "trifles" of a farmer's wife - her baking, cleaning and sewing. Because the men virtually ignore the women's world, they remain blind to the truth before their eyes.