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Revised - August 25, 2011
Eureka College Announces Theater Season
2011-2012
The Eureka College Theater Department has announced its productions for the 2011-2012 academic year.
First up will be the Olio Township Cemetery Walk featuring Eureka College students as prominent figures from Eureka history. The walk will be from 2-4 p.m. Sept. 18 at the cemetery at 1015 S. Main St. Donations to the Woodford County Historical Society will be accepted.
George Bernard Shaw’s comedy “Arms and the Man” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4-8 and 2 p.m. Oct. 9 in Pritchard Theatre. Set during the Serbo-Bulgarian War of 1885-1886, the play explores the implications of war, war protestors and conscientious objectors. The action revolves around a young woman named Raina, who is engaged to a war hero. But after a mercenary soldier from the opposing army bursts through her window, she ends up harboring him so that he won’t be killed. Although she thinks the soldier is a coward, since he carries chocolates instead of pistol cartridges, her experiences with him force her to confront the implications of war.
The play employs irony in its title, which is taken from the opening lines of the epic poem “The Aeneid,” written in 19 B.C. and which glorifies war. The comedy of the play comes from its contrasting characters, surprising opinions, mistaken identities, unexpected turns of events, irony, satire and wit. It premiered in London in 1894.
Assistant professor of theater Marty Lynch will direct.
The comedy “Dead Man’s Cell Phone” by Sarah Ruhl will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 15-19 and 2 p.m. Nov. 20 in Pritchard Theatre. The play begins with an incessantly ringing cell phone in a quiet café, a stranger at the next table who has had enough of it and answers it, and a dead man with a lot of loose ends. The play revolves around a woman forced to confront her own assumptions about morality, redemption and the need to connect in a technologically obsessed world. It explores how we memorialize the dead and how that remembering changes us.
Ruhl is a recipient of a MacArthur "Genius" Grant. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for her 2005 play “The Clean House” and for her 2010 play “In the Next Room, or the vibrator play.”
The guest director is Rhys Lovell of Normal, who has acted and directed locally and in Chicago.
Capping the season will be the children’s musical “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” at 7:30 p.m. April 17-21 in Pritchard Theatre. The play is a musical adaptation of Judith Viorst’s award-winning1972 children’s book of the same name. The lyrics and book are by Viorst and music is by Shelly Markham. The play centers on a young boy whose day includes a number of mishaps and disappointments, like having a cavity in his tooth and not getting the tennis shoes that he wants, which compel him to want to move to Australia.
“Alexander's struggles with life's daily dramas will not only entertain but educate young audiences as they identify with Alexander and the obstacles he encounters, encouraging them to share their feelings and to realize that bad days happen – even in Australia,” said associate professor of theater Holly Rocke, who will direct. The play premiered at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in1998. It was adapted into a television special for HBO.
Tickets for the productions cost $7 for adults and $5 for students.
For reservations >
or call the box office at (309) 467-6363.
-30-
Contact:
Michele Lehman
Media Relations Coordinator
mlehman@eureka.edu
(309) 467-6318
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