Theatre Programs

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  Alice in Wonderland, May 12-13, 1995

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Alice in Wonderland adapted by Brainerd Duffield and directed by Zachery Anderson.

  Synopsis: Alice plunges down the rabbit hole and becomes involved in that madcap and deliciously satiric series of adventures immortalized by Lewis Carroll.

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  Stages, April 21-22, 1995

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Stages: four stories about love, heartache and all of the stage in between.

  Synopsis: The Man in a Cas by Wendy Wassterstein -- Varinka is a free spirit in love with the older Byelinkov, the most proper man in town. But his inhibitions and worries about how he and Varinka are perceived when she boldly rides a bicycle about town threatens to unravel their impending marriage.

  27 Wagons Full of Cotton ­by Tennessee Williams -- After Jake, a shady, middle-aged cotton gin owner, burns down rival Silva Vicarro's mill, Vicarro attempts to enact vengeance by seducing Flora, Jakes delicate young wife. A "Mississippi Delta comedy."

  Tell by Victor Bumbalo – Tell has become a place where sensuality, pain, remembrance, escapism, imagination, and the harsh reality of AIDS all intertwine. It is a place where remembering the past helps escape the pain of today.

  Sure Thing by David Ives -- Two people meet in a cafe and find their way through a conversational minefield as an offstage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes, and faux pas on the way to falling in love.

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Stages: four stories about love, heartache and all of the stage in between.

  Synopsis: The Man in a Cas by Wendy Wassterstein -- Varinka is a free spirit in love with the older Byelinkov, the most proper man in town. But his inhibitions and worries about how he and Varinka are perceived when she boldly rides a bicycle about town threatens to unravel their impending marriage.

  27 Wagons Full of Cotton ­by Tennessee Williams -- After Jake, a shady, middle-aged cotton gin owner, burns down rival Silva Vicarro's mill, Vicarro attempts to enact vengeance by seducing Flora, Jakes delicate young wife. A "Mississippi Delta comedy."

  Tell by Victor Bumbalo – Tell has become a place where sensuality, pain, remembrance, escapism, imagination, and the harsh reality of AIDS all intertwine. It is a place where remembering the past helps escape the pain of today.

  Sure Thing by David Ives -- Two people meet in a cafe and find their way through a conversational minefield as an offstage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes, and faux pas on the way to falling in love.

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  Marat/Sade, February 22-25, 1995

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade (Marat/Sade) Peter Weiss directed by Michael Shiller.

  Synopsis: In the Charenton Asylum in 1808, the Marquis de Sade stages a play about the murder of Jean-Paul Marat by Charlotte Corday, using his fellow inmates as actors. The director of the hospital, Monsieur Coulmier, supervises the performance, accompanied by his wife and daughter. Coulmier, who supports Napoleon's government, believes that the play will support his own bourgeois ideas, and denounce those of the French Revolution that Marat helped lead. His patients, however, have other ideas, and they make a habit of speaking lines he had attempted to suppress, or deviating entirely into personal opinion. The Marquis himself, meanwhile, subtly manipulates both the players and the audience to create an atmosphere of chaos and nihilism that ultimately brings on an orgy of destruction.

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  Waiting for the Moon to Rise, January 26-28, 1995

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Waiting for the Moon to Rise – a trilogy of women’s plays.

  Synopsis: Am I Blue by Beth Henley and directed by Jen Brooks -- Am I Blue, the first play of well-known author Beth Henley, is a brief one-act that opens on a rainy street in the French Quarter of New Orleans. John Polk, a young college student, is having a drink at a dingy bar when he meets Ashbee, a small and feisty 16-year-old girl dressed a bit maturely for her age. She’s hiding in the bar to steal their ashtrays, and sees herself somewhat as Robin Hood, stealing objects from establishments she doesn’t like to gift to poorer residents and street-dwellers in this part of town. Though her presence is clearly irksome to John Polk, who is trying his best to stay drunk, Ashbee charms and cajoles her way into begrudging conversation with him. Her keen observance of the characters that come through her neighborhood means she can easily figure out that John Polk is here waiting for an appointment with a prostitute at a brothel close by. When the waitress, Hilda, realizes that both are underage, she kicks them out of the bar, and Ashbee encourages them to visit her home while he waits for his appointment at the brothel. Her father is out of town, she explains, and her mother and sister live in Atlanta. Once they arrive at her run-down apartment, it’s clear that Ashbee exists outside adult authority. She makes John Polk feel at home in her unusual, independent way, and shows him how she carves out personal space for herself in a wild world around them. Ashbee, who has needed to grow up too fast, is anxious to be validated by someone who admires her true qualities, and John Polk needs a friend with whom his naivete won’t make him feel ashamed. As John Polk waffles over whether to show up at the brothel and Ashbee encourages him to be true to himself, an unmistakable bond is formed that allows each character to confront some of the less simple parts of their longing for connection. Am I Blue, both sweet and yearning, wrestles with coming of age, especially in terms of human sexuality, and reflects on what it means to grow up with agency, on your own terms, instead of at the hands of the narrative society expects of you.

  How It Hangs by Grace McKeaney and directed by Erin Schloo – An infectious comedy set in Wyoming that explores the friendship of four women each seeking a different way to reconcile with the past and rediscover the joy of life’s celebration.

  Calm Down Mother by Megan Terry and directed by Natalie Anne Diem -- Three women undergo transformations, beginning with a girl who approaches two Jewish women in a store who are more interested in their allergies than in serving her. Suddenly the women change: the one who has been the backbone of the family is stoned and lamenting the inevitable loss of the mother who upheld the family when father turned alcoholic. Next, the women are arguing in a cathouse, and then they devolve into plain people talking about female problems.

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  Picnic, November 10-12, 1994

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Picnic by William Inge and directed by George Fosgate.

  Synopsis: On a sweltering Labor Day morning, the women of a quiet neighborhood on the wrong side of the tracks are preparing for the annual picnic. Watchful mother Flo Owens has hopes that her beautiful daughter Madge will get a proposal from Alan, the local millionaire’s son. Younger sister Millie, the “smart one”, yearns to grow up and leave her small town behind. Good-natured Mrs. Potts is happy to get a break from taking care of her aged mother. And spinster schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney cheerfully keeps her boyfriend Howard at arms’ length. This seemingly placid feminine environment is disrupted when Hal Carter, a muscular and charming young drifter who happens to be a former fraternity brother of Alan’s, hops off the freight train, and straight into Mrs. Potts’ hospitable home. Hearts are broken and lives are changed in the following twenty-four hours, as Hal’s lively, dangerous, masculine energy wakes up the sleepy community. A small Kansas town in the 1950s is the setting for William Inge’s bittersweet melodrama Picnic, which explores themes of sexuality, repression, rites of passage, and disappointment.

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  The San of Youth, How Quickly & The Dressing Room, February 24-26, 1994

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of The Sand of Youth, How Quickly and The Dressing Room by Shimizu Kunio.

  Synopsis: The Dressing Room (Gakuya) is a play that takes place backstage. In the play there are four actresses who are getting ready for a production of The Seagull, a play by Anton Chekhov. However, during the play it is learned that everything is not just what it seems. The play has theme of memory not being perfect and memory lasting beyond the body and into death.

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  Mother Courage and Her Children, November 18-20, 1993

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Mother Courage and Her Children by Bertolt Brecht and directed by Michael A. Shiller.

  Synopsis: Mother Courage and Her Children, follows one mother -- Mother Courage -- and her three children -- Eilif, Swiss Cheese, and Kattrin -- as they struggle to survive the Thirty Years War that ravaged Europe in the early 17th century. As a canteen woman, Mother Courage attempts to make a profit off the war by selling goods to soldiers. The very war that Mother Courage seeks to use to her advantage, however, ends up depriving her life of all its worth. At the end of the play Mother Courage is left bereft and alone to make her way in the world, moving forward the only way she knows how: following an army regiment, pulling her wagon behind her, and hawking her wares. Created in 1939 by Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children, is considered one of the most powerful anti-war plays in existence, and was written in just over a month near the beginning of World War II to protest the rise of Fascist Germany.

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  A Midsummers Night's Dream, 1992/93

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of A Midsummers Night's Dream by William Shakespeare, directed by Raymond Lammers.

  Synopsis: Four Athenians run away to the forest only to have Puck the fairy make both of the boys fall in love with the same girl. The four run through the forest pursuing each other while Puck helps his master play a trick on the fairy queen. In the end, Puck reverses the magic, and the two couples reconcile and marry.

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  Lovers, November 14-17, 1990

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota Morris production of Lovers by Brian Friel and directed by Raymond J. Lammers.

  Synopsis: Lovers consists of two parts: Winners and Losers. In Winners, two commentators speak without emotion about the life and death of young Mag and Joe, who are destined to be married in three weeks due to Mag’s pregnancy. The two young people are bursting with life, enthusiasm, and hope. Mag and Joe truly care for each other, and though their youth often leads to heated arguments, they soon dissipate through vows of love and carefree joking. Their youthful passion, however, threatens to overwhelm them and cut short their futures.

  Losers, on the other hand, tells the story of an older couple, Andy and Hanna, who are trapped in Hanna’s home by her invalid mother, Mrs. Wilson, who demands every moment of Hanna’s time. Before Andy and Hanna are married, Mrs. Wilson rings for Hanna whenever there is silence downstairs. After their marriage, she rings for her daughter whenever they speak, thereby effectively ruining the couple’s relationship before it begins and after it has commenced.

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  Torch Song Trilogy, April 25-28, 1990

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Torch Song Trilogy by Harvey Fierstein and directed by Raine Hokan.

  Synopsis: Torch Song Trilogy is a collection of three plays by Harvey Fierstein rendered in three acts: International Stud, Fugue in a Nursery, and Widows and Children First! The story centers on Arnold Beckoff, a Jewish homosexual, drag queen, and torch singer who lives in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The four-hour play begins with a soliloquy in which he explains his cynical disillusionment with love.

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  King Patch and Mr. Simpkins, 1990/91

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of King Patch and Mr. Simkins by Alan Cullen, directed by Melissa Nyman.

  Synopsis: An unemployed jester, down on his luck, recklessly releases a jinn from captivity, who grants him a wish. Against the advice of his companion, a distinguished English sheepdog named Mr. Simpkins, he wishes to be a king. But this proves complicated, as he first has to pass the Test, and he finds his kingdom impoverished and endangered and protected only by two bumbling baronets who are constantly on the verge of killing each other for love of the Lady Fenella. Bewitched unintentionally by Basil the Wuthering Beast, King Patch begins to turn into a rabbit, then falls into the clutches of Drusilla the Hag of the Crag, who needs a rabbit and a dog for the sinister supporters of her coat of arms. It takes the Yale, "an absurd figure with spots and serrated horns curving opposite ways, and inconsequential tufts of hair, like a goat gone wrong," to rescue King Patch and Mr. Simpkins, foil Drusilla, find Lady Fenella's true knight and restore the kingdom to prosperity.

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  Scrooge, December 14-17, 1989

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota Morris production of Scrooge by Leslie Bricusse and directed by Christi Madison.

  Synopsis: A musical adaptation of the 1970 musical film Scrooge, based off of Dickens' 1843 novella A Christmas Carol.

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  Of Mice & Men, February 1-4, 1989

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production Of Mice & Men by John Steinbeck and directed by Dan Perdue.

  Synopsis: Based on the classic novella written by John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men tells the tale of two great friends and their struggle to live the American dream. George and Lennie have been traveling together from ranch to ranch for years, working hard to make ends meet and save enough for a place of their own. The two are polar opposites: George is intelligent, quick and small, while Lennie is slow-minded, childlike, and giant. Though they are different, they care deeply about each other. They have been dreaming for years to save enough for a little land of their own, and when they are both hired to a new job they believe that they may finally achieve their goal. But trouble begins to brew when one of the bosses’ wife becomes too interested in the infatuated Lennie…Tragic yet beautiful, Of Mice and Men is an extremely popular play that has become a staple of American theatre.

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  Six Short Plays, February 22-25, 1989

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Six Short Plays consisting of:

  This Property is Condemned by Tennessee Williams; Before Breakfast by Eugene O’Neill; Playgoers by Arthur Wing Pinero; Susugigawa (The Washing Bucket) by Kyogen; The Lesson by Eugene Ionesco; Augustus by Jean Anouilh and Jean Aurenche. All directed by Raymond J.Lammers.

  Synopsis: This Property is Condemned -- Willie, a 13-year old girl from Mississippi, is world-weary before her time. She dropped out of school years ago, her family died, and now she lives alone in their condemned boarding house and dreams of becoming a whore. One day as she walks on the railroad tracks, she meets 16-year-old Tom.

  Before Breakfast -- A woman, while preparing breakfast for her husband (heard off-stage), complains of her struggles to make ends meet. The husband, once considered a desirable catch, has steadily degenerated until he is no longer good for anything. When his wife has said everything hateful and bitter that is in her, she subsides into silence. A moment later we know that the desperate man in the next room has just cut his throat.

  Playgoers -- Satire is a genre of literature where vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings in humans and their institutions are held up to ridicule with the intent of shaming individuals, corporations, government, or society itself into reform. While satire is generally meant to be humorous, its greater purpose is generally constructive social criticism.

  Susugigawa (The Washing Bucket) -- Susugigawa is a pivotal play in post–World War II kyōgen. An adaptation of the medieval French farce Le Cuvier and virtually indistinguishable from traditional plays, its success marked the beginning of the "kyōgen boom." This introduction traces the many permutations of the play, from its first shingeki (modern Japanese theatre) adaption to recent bilingual and English-language kyōgen productions.

  The Lesson -- An elderly professor and his young female student experience what must certainly be the most remarkable and bizarre lesson in the history of pedagogy. It ends with murder.

  Augustus -- Humulus is silent. But a doctor managed to give him the opportunity to say "a word" a day. Humulus made a big decision: save his words, for thirty days, in order to be able to make a statement to the one he loves, even if he does not send the traditional wishes to the Duchess, his grandmother to have his blessing and to inherit his fortune, for the new year. When the big day arrives (that of the declaration), the thirty words are said: "Would you like to repeat, please," asks the beloved. Because, a little hard of hearing, she did not hear anything and takes out an acoustic horn from her bag! So he loses both.

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  Private Lives, 1988

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Private Lives by Noel Coward and directed by Laura A. Lehner.

  Synopsis: In Private Lives, passion, laughter, romance, anger, and love set the stage for a battle of the sexes as divorced couple, Amanda and Elyot, find themselves unwittingly thrown together in Coward’s classic comedy of manners. Unknowingly booking adjoining rooms while on honeymoon with their respective spouses, Victor and Sybil, Amanda and Elyot are forced to face their true feelings for each other. Realizing they have made a pair of mistaken marriages, the divorcees attempt to escape their mismatched partners. With haste, and under the cover of darkness, they flee their honeymoon hotel and unsuspecting spouses in search of privacy at Amanda’s secluded Paris flat. Despite their passion for each other, Amanda and Elyot begin to bicker violently, just as they had done during their marriage. It is clear that the couple cannot live with each other, but cannot live without each other either. When they are discovered several days later by their jilted spouses, all four lovers must finally acknowledge just who is really suited to whom. Fast-paced, witty, and passionate, Noel Coward’s comedy is a delightful romp.

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  She Stoops to Conquer, 1988

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith and directed by Raymond Lammers.

  Synopsis: One of the eighteenth-century’s most enduring comedies, She Stoops to Conquer takes a comedic, often farcical, look at the behavior and marital expectations of the upper classes in England at this time. The play centers around the desire of Hardcastle, a wealthy landowner in the country, for his daughter, Kate Hardcastle, to marry the well-educated Charles Marlow. Together with Marlow’s father, Sir Charles Marlow, they arrange for the younger Marlow to visit the Hardcastle’s house and court Kate. However Kate is less than impressed when she finds out that, despite his otherwise strong, respectable character, Charles is extremely shy and reserved around ladies. She therefore vows to herself that she could never marry him. Before Charles and his friend, George Hastings, can arrive at the house, they are waylaid by Mr. Hardcastle’s stepson at the local alehouse. A mischievous joker, Tony Lumpkin persuades them that the Hardcastle’s house is, in fact, the local inn. Thus, when Marlow and Hastings arrive, Marlow treats the Hardcastle family with impudence and disrespect, falsely believing them to be servants there. In order to get to the bottom of his true character, Kate disguises herself as a maid and comedy ensues as Marlow makes love to the “maid” and disregards her father. Meanwhile, George Hastings is thrilled to find his true love, Constance Neville, living at the Hardcastle’s house. Through the scheming of Mrs. Hardcastle, she is due to marry Tony, despite their mutual dislike of each other. Finding a way to get out of his marriage, Tony helps Constance to retrieve her inheritance and gets his mother out of the way, dumping her in a local horsepond! Finally, as Marlow’s father arrives, all is put to right and Charles Marlow is mortified by his behavior. Forgiven by all, the two couples find happiness with each other, and Tony successfully gains his rightful inheritance without an unwanted engagement.

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  A Toby Show, May 16-17, 1986

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of A Toby Show by Aurand Harris and directed by Raymond J. Lammers.

  A Toby Show brings back to the stage an American folk character of Toby, a country bumpkin who through naiveté, honesty and homespun humor outwits the city slickers. Toby is a great role for an energetic actor. The play is a colorful segment of American drama. This farce melodrama recreates traditional situations and stock characters through jokes and stage business. Starring in Cinderella, Toby enacts a comic variation of the fairy godmother. With music and specialty numbers, the production excitingly evokes the joy of experiencing an authentic example of American folk theatre, fitting for children of all ages.

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  Waiting for Godot, April 16-19, 1986

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and directed by Timothy J. Goodmanson.

  Synopsis: The NY World-Telegram describes: "GODOT cannot be compared to any other theater work, because its purpose is so different. Two dilapidated bums fill their days as painlessly as they can. They wait for Godot, a personage who will explain their interminable insignificance, or put an end to it. They are resourceful, with quarrels and their dependence on each other, as children are. They pass the time 'which would have passed anyway.' A brutal man of means comes by, leading a weakling slave who does his bidding like a mechanical doll. Later on he comes back, blind, and his slave is mute, but the relationship is unchanged. Every day a child comes from the unknown Godot, and evasively puts the big arrival off until tomorrow…It is a tragic view. Yet, in performance, most of it is brilliant, bitter comedy…It is a portrait of the dogged resilience of a man's spirit in the face of little hope."

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  True West, February 12-15, 1986

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of True West by Sam Shepard and directed by Gregory Beech.

  Synopsis: True West is a character study that examines the relationship between Austin, a screenwriter, and his older brother Lee. It is set in the kitchen of their mother's home 40 miles east of Los Angeles. Austin is house-sitting while their mother is in Alaska, and there he is confronted by his brother, who proceeds to bully his way into staying at the house and using Austin's car. In addition, the screenplay which Austin is pitching to his connection in Hollywood somehow gets taken over by the pushy con-man tactics of Lee, and the brothers find themselves forced to cooperate in the creation of a story that will make or break both their lives. In the process, the conflict between the brothers creates a heated situation in which their roles as successful family man and nomadic drifter are somehow reversed, and each man finds himself admitting that he had somehow always wished he were in the other's shoes.

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  Godspell, November 20-23, 1985

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Godspell by John Michael Tebelak and Stephen Schwartz and directed by Karen Wiese.

  Synopsis: Based on the Gospel according to Matthew, Godspell is the first musical theatre offering from composer Stephen Schwartz who went on to write such well-known hits as Wicked, Pippin, and Children of Eden. The show features a comedic troupe of eccentric players who team up with Jesus to teach his lessons in a new age through parables, games, and tomfoolery.

  Godspell also features the international hit, “Day by Day”, as well as an eclectic blend of songs ranging from pop to vaudeville, as Jesus’ life is played out onstage. Even after the haunting crucifixion, Jesus’ message of kindness, tolerance and love lives vibrantly on.

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  J.B., April 24-27, 1985

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of J.B. by Archibald McLeish directed by Licia Swanson.

  Synopsis: A fresh and exalting morality that has great stature. It is one of the memorable works of the century as verse, as drama and as spiritual inquiry...We are deep in the unanswered problems of man's relationship to God in an era of cruel injustices. J.B. is Mr. MacLeish's counterpart of the immortal Job. The glory of the play is that, as in the Book of Job, J.B. does not curse God. When he is reunited with his wife, two humbled but valiant people accept the universe, agree to begin life all over again, expecting no justice but unswerving in their devotion to God... In every respect, it is theatre on its highest level.-The New York Times

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  Ubu Rex, February 27-28 & March 1-2, 1985

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Ubu Rex by Alfred Jarry and directed by George Fosgate.

  Synopsis: Ubu Rex, David Copelin's translation of the world's first absurdist play, Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi, unmasks the savagery just below the surface of "normal" human behavior. The play's premiere in Paris in 1896 caused a riot. Set in "Poland – that is to say, nowhere", the play satirizes governments, philosophies, Shakespeare, and the greed and vanity of ordinary human beings. It is also very funny.

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  Scrooge, December 19-22, 1984

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Scrooge adapted by Leslie Bricusse and directed by George c. Fosgate.

  Synopsis: This timeless musical follows the plot of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, in which the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of a Christmas Eve night, after being visited by the ghost of his former partner Jacob Marley and the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future.

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  Mixed Doubles, July 5-8;19-21 1984

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of Mixed Doubles by Fred Carmichael and directed by George C. Fosgate.

  Synopsis: Two interwoven one acts, Love Means Never Having to Say You're Forty and Leonard, these plays feature flexible casting since three characters appear in both plays. In the first, a separated middle aged couple are in the connecting suites of a Mexican motelto have a fling. Their accidental confrontation makes them realize the importance of their years together. In the farcical second act, a golden age couple, unmarried because of tax benefits, is in one suite and a group of inept heroin smugglers is in the other.

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  As You Like It, February 22-25, 1984

  Theatre Arts Discipline

  University of Minnesota, Morris production of As You Like It by William Shakespeare and directed by Raymond Lammers.

  Synopsis: In one of Shakespeare’s most beloved romantic pastoral comedies, we follow the young heroine Rosalind from the court of her vindictive uncle, Duke Frederick, into the Eden-like Forest of Arden, where her banished father is living in exile. In order to avoid running into trouble, Rosalind disguises herself as a young man, “Ganymede,” and, accompanied by her faithful cousin Celia and the court clown, Touchstone, makes her way into the woods. She soon encounters the young, handsome Orlando, who is also fleeing from Duke Frederick’s court, and who is sick with love for Rosalind. Still disguised as Ganymede, Rosalind tests Orlando’s feelings for her and teaches him about the nature of true love; by the end of the play, four love matches have been made in the forest. As You Like It is an entertaining and touching exploration of life, death, love, family and the bonds that tie us together.