Season
| Summer Season 2010 |
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Mary Rippon Theatre:
King Lear
One of the most powerful dramas in Western literature, King Lear is both an intimate family drama and an explosive political epic. Beginning with a monarch’s division of his kingdom among his three daughters, Shakespeare’s tragedy examines the tempest in one man’s mind as his family disintegrates, his country is ripped apart by petty ambitions, and the very universe itself seems to unravel around him. Lear explores the most basic questions of human existence: love and duty, power and loss, good and evil.
The Taming of the Shrew
Our Town
First produced in 1938, the Pulitzer-Prize winning Our Town has become an American stage treasure. The play – Wilder’s best-known and most frequently performed work - reveals the ordinary lives of the people in the small town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire. Our Town defies most conventional theatrical genres - it is neither a comedy nor a tragedy, neither a romance nor a farce. It is, rather, a contemplative work and richly timeless commentary on nothing less than the tragicomedy of human existence.
University Theatre:
Measure For Measure
Measure for Measure is one of Shakespeare's most unpredictable and least classifiable dramas, revolving around a ghastly choice. A young man whose fiancé is pregnant is sentenced to death, for sexual relations outside of marriage. His sister pleads for his life with the all-powerful regent who rules the city. The regent offers her a deal, on one condition: that she sacrifice her virginity to save her brother. Highlighting the abuse of power and exploring moral issues surrounding resistance to injustice, Measure for Measure is a complex and wickedly stimulating play.
The Fantasticks
"Try to Remember" a time when The Fantasticks wasn't captivating audiences. A memorable score enlivens the heart of this passionate musical that charmed Off-Broadway for a record-breaking 42 years. A unique take on “boy meets the girl next door”, the story tells of Luisa and Matt, entering the bloom of their youth, as the world stands open to them, inviting them to explore. Their parents, scheming to encourage their children’s budding love by pretending to oppose it, build a wall between the teens, hiring the trickster El Gallo to thwart their romance. By moonlight, Matt and Luisa fall hard for each other. When finally the couple comes together in the light of day, they must decide between the comfort of illusion and the wisdom that only comes with experience. Can their romance survive the sunlight?
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