Severed Headshots: Sinister Scenes and Monologues
The 12th Annual First Years’ Production, directed by Andy Mitton ’01. An ensemble of newcomers to the Middlebury stage star in this evening of new works by the 2007 advanced playwriting class.
Thursday–Saturday, October 25–27, at 8 p.m. each evening, with a 10:00 p.m. performance on Friday only; Hepburn Zoo. Tickets: $1; on sale Oct. 9
A Number
Who are you when you discover one day that there are 20 or more of you—a “number” with the same DNA? This staged reading of Caryl Churchill’s play A Number is the story of a parent and his child(ren), directed by Cheryl Faraone, with Alexander Draper ’88 and Alec Strum ’08.
Sunday, November 4, at 7:30 p.m., in the Mahaney Center for the Arts, Room 232. Free
The Heidi Chronicles
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| Wendy Wasserstein |
The Middlebury College Theatre Program opens the 2007–2008 faculty production season with Wendy Wasserstein’s The Heidi Chronicles. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play, The Heidi Chronicles masterfully captures the evolving role of women over three decades.Title character Heidi Holland—feminist art historian and observer of the passing cultural scene—struggles with the era’s potential new definitions of self, friendship, and the elusive questions of identity. In this story of female independence in a male-dominated world, Wasserstein infuses A+ wit into a comical but rueful ride through the closing decades of the 20th century.
Wasserstein, the author of Uncommon Women and Others, Isn’t It Romantic?, The Sisters Rosensweig, among many other plays, screenplays, and books of essays, was also the founder of the Teen Theatre Project, which provides free tickets to Broadway shows for New York City teens (along with pizza and post-play discussions). She died in 2006 at the age of 55. In an appreciation of Wasserstein, Michael Feingold wrote in The Village Voice: “Not for her the easy oversimplifications of television writing, which comes in for merciless ridicule in what is probably her best play, The Heidi Chronicles. . . . Her project, insofar as a playwright has an overall project, was to dramatize the female life of America in her time without scanting its complexity, its pain, its inconveniences, or its lapse into the absurd. . . . She is a permanent part of our social, as well as our theatrical history.”
The Middlebury production, directed by Professor of Theatre and Women’s and Gender Studies Cheryl Faraone, includes an all-student cast: Lucy Faust ’09 as Heidi, Allison Corke ’08 as her chameleon-like friend Susan, and Rishabh Kashyap ’08 and Neil D’Astolfo ’07 as the important men in Heidi’s life. Rachel Ann Cole ’08, Natasha Chacon ’10, Rebecca Wear ’10, Cassidy Boyd ’10, Claire Graves ’09, Justine Katzenbach ’08, Maegan Mishico ’08, Stephanie Strohm ’08, Emily Kron ’09, and Ben Meader ’10 complete the company. The stage manager is Jacquie Antonson ’10, and assistant to the director is Dilanthi Ranaweera ’09. The set is designed by Hallie Zieselman, with lights by Mark Evancho and costumes by Jule Emerson.
This production is the culminating event in a “Wasserstein fortnight”: two weeks of films, talks, and play readings celebrating the playwright’s life and career. Visit www.middlebury.edu/arts for more details.
Thursday–Saturday, November 15–17, at 8 p.m. each evening, and a 2 p.m. matinee on Saturday only, in Wright Theatre. Tickets: $5/4/3; on sale Nov. 1
Behind-the-Scenes Lunch and Discussion: Tuesday, November 13, at 12:30 p.m., in Wright Theatre. Free
Death and the King’s Horseman
Esau Pritchett, François Clemmons, Alexander Draper ’88, and others from the College community perform a dramatic stage reading of the work by Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian playwright, poet, and novelist Wole Soyinka. The tragic drama tells the real-life story of Elesin, a Yoruba chief, who, upon the death of the king he serves, is himself expected to die. Elesin’s trip to the next world is postponed, though, when an English officer intervenes to save him, setting in motion a clash of values and cultures. Directed by Playwright in Residence Dana Yeaton and produced in coordination with the Middlebury College Museum of Art’s fall exhibit: Resonance from the Past: African Art from the New Orleans Museum of Art. Sponsored by the Department of Theatre and Dance, the Office of Institutional Diversity, Ross Commons, and the Middlebury College Museum of Art. Reception to follow.
Sunday, December 2, at 2 p.m., in the Mahaney Center for the Arts, Dance Theatre. Free