2007-2008 SEASON
(2008-2009 Season also posted here)
Our season brochure has been mailed. If you are not on our mailing list and would like one
please e-mail:
MUTheatreUpdate@missouri.edu
and request a copy or call 882-2021.
The brochure was also distributed with the Thursday, August 30th Columbia Daily Tribune.
Box Office opens September 4th, 3 P.M.
Life and Literature in Performance
Corner Playhouse
This series features student-authored adaptations of poetry, prose, ethnography, folktales, auto/biographical works, and performance art. The series will feature both graduate and undergraduate performance work, including: Milbre Burch’s spoken word performance, Sop Doll; Mary Barile’s adaptation of the life of writer Ward Dorrance; and Matt Saltzberg’s performance of actress Joan Crawford.
MU Visiting Playwrights Series
In Association with the Center for Literary Arts
Elaine Romero Residency
In cooperation with New Plays on Campus Program
Playwrights Center
Workshop Performance
"LIKE HEAVEN"
Thursday, September 27
McKee Gymnasium
8PM
Scroll to the bottom of this schedule for additional info about this event.
Jesse Hall Auditorium
WOLE SOYINKA
Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Wole Soyinka has been called
Africa’s finest writer. As a playwright, poet, and novelist his vision comes
to us through a stunning corpus that chronicles Africa’s political turmoil
and its struggle to reconcile tradition with modernization. The author of
more than seventeen plays, Soyinka has also published several collections of
poems, three novels, two memoirs, and several works of literary criticism.
He has held positions at Yale, Cornell, Cambridge, Harvard and Emory
University, among others. He is visiting MU as the
John William Proctor Distinguished Author.
Saturday Night
Book by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein
Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Rhynsburger Theatre
Saturday Night is the first musical comedy Stephen Sondheim ever wrote. Completed in 1955, it wasn’t produced until the late 1990s because the producer died and Sondheim began work on West Side Story. A ‘musical comedy of beguiling innocence with a thoroughly enchanting score,’ it is the 1929 tale of Gene Gorman, a Wall Street clerk from Brooklyn desperate to make it to the glamourous world of Manhattan. He crashes affairs at the Plaza dressed in rented tuxedos - believing he’s become Fred Astaire. He meets a girl he thinks is from the class that he aspires to...but things are not always what they seem.
The Crucible
by Arthur Miller
Rhynsburger Theatre
A timeless tale of truth on trial, The Crucible is a relentlessly suspenseful drama of collective evil and personal conscience. And at its center is a vastly moving story of guilt, love and redemption.
New Anatomies
by Timberlake Wertenbaker
Corner Playhouse
A portrayal of intrepid 19th Century explorer Isabelle Eberhardt. In the guise of a young man, she traveled throughout the Sahara and lived with Muslim tribesmen under her adopted name, Si Mahmoud. Eberhardt discovered a spiritual kinship with the Bedouin population of the Maghreb region of North Africa, the “Place of Sunset” in Arabic, and engendered a warm relationship with the native population which confounded and provoked its French governors at the sunset of their crumbling colonial empire.
Tango
by Slawomir Mrozek
Corner Playhouse
The most popular play by preeminent Polish playwright Slawomir Mrozek, Tango is an absurd, dark comedy about generational misunderstanding and the danger of blindly following ideals. When Arthur can no longer stand his family’s Bohemian lifestyle, he sets a plan into motion to seize control and steer his family back to normalcy. Arthur’s chosen path has both hilarious and dire consequences, however, as his family begins to chafe at the bit of Arthur’s iron-fisted rule.
Romeo and Juliet
by William Shakespeare
Rhynsburger Theatre
The World Theatre Workshop will present an exciting and innovative adaptation of this Shakespeare classic that explores the compelling history and rich cultural traditions of North Africa and the Middle East.
Art
by Yasmina Reza
Corner Playhouse
One $40,000 white canvas. Three lifelong friends. What happens when one of the trio purchases an expensive abstract painting? Reza’s biting dark comedy explores the eternal question of “What is art?” but moves beyond to highlight the passionate conflicts and rifts that may arise in the midst of such debates, peeling away the complex layers of both friendship and art.
Mizzou New Play Series
Corner Playhouse
Come to an evening of fiery new scripts by MU’s hottest new playwrights! One of the most exciting events of MU’s nationally acclaimed playwriting program, the Mizzou New Play Series brings together our top student writers in collaboration with our best actors and directors for an explosive conflation of original work that will dazzle and delight you with the shock of the new!
Romulus Linney Residency
April 14-17, 2008
Concert Reading of Romulus Linney Play
Corner Playhouse
Romulus Linney reads from his work
Corner Playhouse
For additional information please scroll to the bottom of this schedule.
Both events free and open to the public.
The Irish Rogue
adapted by Mary Barile
Rhynsburger Theatre
Roguery and Romance abound in this original adaptation of a 19th century classic comedy- set in New Orleans on the eve of the Louisiana purchase, with music and dance from the era. Who knew history could be such fun?
Tickets are now available online:
ticket leap.com
through the theatre box office
882-PLAY
ELAINE ROMERO participated in the Sundance Institute's Playwright's Retreat at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming. In over 20 productions, Elaine's plays Barrio Hollywood, ¡Curanderas! Serpents of the Clouds, Day of Our Dead, and If Susan Smith Could Talk have been produced and presented at such theatres as Actors Theatre of Louisville, the Women's Project and Productions, INTAR, Kitchen Dog Theatre, the Working Theatre, and the New Theatre. She has been published by Vintage Books, Samuel French, and Smith & Kraus (Women Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2000).
Playwright-in-Residence at the Arizona Theatre Company, Romero has been a Guest Artist at the Mark Taper Forum and South Coast Repertory. Her funders include the TCG/Pew National Theatre Artist in Residency Program, the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, and the Ford Foundation. She has worked on panels for the NEA/TCG Theatre Residency Program for Playwrights, the TCG/MetLife Extended Collaboration Grant, and the Gerbode Foundation. She acted as a Playwright-in-Residence as part of the Willliam Inge Theatre Festival in Kansas and has been invited to the Lanesboro Residency Program in Minnesota.
She holds her MFA from UC Davis. Through the National Association of Latino Independent Producers, Elaine recently received a scholarship to Los Angeles Film School, where she wrote and directed her short film, Fidelity. Her previous films have appeared at CineFestival, the 48-Hour Film Festival, and the Pacific Coast Film Festival.
ROMULUS LINNEY (Playwright) is the author of three novels, many short stories, and five anthologies of plays, staged throughout the United States and abroad. They include The Sorrows of Frederick, Holy Ghosts, Childe Byron, Heathen Valley, "2" and, most recently, an adaptation of Ernest L. Gaines's novel A Lesson Before Dying, which has been produced in New York and in numerous regional theatres, and an adaptation of Tim O'Brien's novel Going After Cacciato, which was commissioned by the Epic Repertory Theatre. He has won two Obie awards, one for sustained excellence in playwriting, two National Critics Awards, three DramaLogue Awards, and many fellowships, including grants from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations. Stories appear in many literary journals and in the anthologies Pushcart Prize; New Stories From The South; and Best Of The Year, 2001 and 2002. Mr. Linney is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science, the Ensemble Studio Theatre, and the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He is the Founding Playwright of Signature Theatre. He was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, which gave him both its Academy Award in Literature and its Award of Merit Medal for Drama. He has taught at many universities, including Columbia, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the Actors Studio Drama School at New School University. Mr. Linney lives in Germantown, New York and New York City.
Judith Sebesta, Producer
Corner Playhouse September 18-21
Lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert,
James M. Miller, Director
Rhynsburger Theatre October 7-12
Heather Carver, Producer/ Artistic Director
Corner Playhouse October 23-26
by Martin McDonagh
Judith Sebesta, Director
Rhynsburger Theatre November 13-16/18-20
by John Pielmeier
Matthew Saltzberg, Director
Corner Playhouse December 4-7
by William Inge
Ron Zank, Director
Corner Playhouse January 29-31/ Feb. 5-8
by Pearl Cleage
Clyde Ruffin, Director
Rhynsburger Theatre February 26-28/March 5-8
by Susan Glaspell
Cheryl Black, Director
Corner Playhouse March 17-19/ April 2-5
by William Shakespeare
Brett Johnson, Director
Rhynsburger Theatre April 23-25/ 30-May 3
Brochures will be sent out late summer. If you would like one e-mail
MUTheatreUpdate@missouri.edu or call 882-2021
