Theatre department launches new season

The Music and Theatre department has announced its 2009-10 season theme: Dreaming Global Justice. The entire college community is welcome to audition and freshmen have been known to get lead roles. Themes of the season will include gender rights, prison reform, a call for peace and treatment of political prisoners. Plays will include comedies, dramas and musicals that aim to entertain as well as enlighten.

The first production of the season, “The Smiles,” will be held Sept. 30. It is a courtroom drama written by Atlanta playwright Karla Jennings and directed by Iona Pendergast.

The following production, “Life is a Dream” by Spanish playwright Calderon, will be directed by Karen Berman and is set to open Nov. 18. The play is a reverse “Rapunzel” fable in which a prince is held in a tower prison only to be saved by love. The production will be accompanied by a Symposium Celebration of Spanish and Latin American Theatre and Culture in collaboration with the Modern Foreign Languages, Art and English, Speech and Journalism departments, as well as The Big Read. The production will be part of a special outreach to the surrounding local Spanish and Latin American communities.

The spring semester will include the well-known musical “RENT,” directed by Amy Pinney, with musical director Wendy Mullen, opening Feb. 24. Also in February, Sister Helen Prejean, the author of “Dead Man Walking,” will be on campus as a guest speaker during the International Human Rights Symposium. In March, the Music and Theatre department will bring in the famed hip-hop company of Rennie Harris. March will be capped off with the Arts & Letters Play directed by Pendergast.

Student capstones will include “Fat Pig,” by Neil LaBute and directed by Dani Pratt, and “The Beauty Queen of Leenane,” by Martin McDonagh and directed by Elisha Hodgins. The theater season concludes with The 24-Hour Plays in April, in which student writers, actors and directors have one day to write, rehearse and perform new plays.

For more information on GCSU theater productions, visit www.gcsu.edu/theatre or send an e-mail to karen.berman@gcsu.edu.

Tickets can also be purchased online at www.gcsutickets.com.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Aug 7 2009. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry