Marshall University's Theatre Department always offers up a tremendous season - and this year is no different. Here's the rundown of five shows, starting with a terrific musical:
- PETER AND THE STARCATCHER
A PLAY BY RICK ELICE
MUSIC BY WAYNE BARKER
October 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12 and 13 at 7:30 p.m.
In the Francis-Booth Experimental Theatre of The Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center
Tony‐winning Peter and the Starcatcher upends the century‐old story of how a miserable orphan comes to be The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up (a.k.a. Peter Pan). A wildly theatrical adaptation of Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson’s best‐selling novels, the play was conceived for the stage by directors, Roger Rees and Alex Timbers, and written by Rick Elice, with music by Wayne Barker. From marauding pirates and jungle tyrants to unwilling comrades and unlikely heroes, Peter and the Starcatcher playfully explores the depths of greed and despair… and the bonds of friendship, duty and love.
- MR. MERGENTHWIRKER’S LOBBLIES
A RADIO PLAY BY NELSON BOND
October 20 at 7:30 p.m.
In the Francis-Booth Experimental Theatre of The Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center
The story of Mr. Mergenthwirker, a reporter for a small town newspaper who is assisted by a group of invisible pixies who appear and speak only to him. The pixies aid the pure‐of‐heart Mergenthwirker and help him to solve a series of murders in a three‐act whodunit.
- CRIMES OF THE HEART
BY BETH HENLEY
November 14, 15, 16 and 17 at 7:30 p.m.
In the Playhouse of the Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center
The scene is Hazlehurst, Mississippi, where the three Magrath sisters have gathered to await news of the family patriarch, their grandfather, who is living out his last hours in the local hospital. Lenny, the oldest sister, is unmarried at 30 and facing diminishing marital prospects; Meg, the middle sister, who quickly outgrew Hazlehurst, is back after a failed singing career on the West Coast; while Babe, the youngest, is out on bail after having shot her husband in the stomach. Their troubles, grave and yet, somehow, hilarious, are highlighted by their priggish cousin, Chick, and by the awkward young lawyer who tries to keep Babe out of jail while helpless not to fall in love with her. In the end the play is the story of how its young characters escape the past to seize the future - but the telling is so true and touching and consistently hilarious that it will linger in the mind long after the curtain has descended.
- IN THE WAKE
BY LISA KRON
February 13, 14, 15 16, 20, 21, 22 and 23 at 7:30 p.m.
In the Francis-Booth Experimental Theatre of The Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center
It’s Thanksgiving of 2000 and the presidential election still has not been decided. Ellen insists that her friends and family don’t understand how bad the situation really is. But no one - not her loving partner, Danny, nor the passionate Amy, nor the brutally pragmatic and world‐weary Judy - can make Ellen see the blind spot at the center of her own politics and emotional life. A funny, passionate, and ultimately searing new play that illuminates assumptions that lie at the heart of the American character - and the blind spots that mask us from ourselves.
- TARTUFFE
BY MOLIERE
TRANSLATED BY RICHARD WILBUR
April 24, 25, 26 and 27 at 7:30 p.m.
In the Playhouse of the Joan C. Edwards Performing Arts Center
The story takes place in the home of the wealthy Orgon, where Tartuffe - a fraud and a pious impostor - 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. He nearly gets away with it, but an emissary from King Louis XIV arrives in time to recover the property, free Monsieur Orgon, and haul Tartuffe off to jail. And so his duplicity is finally exposed and punished. But not before the author 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.
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