Dogfight

“You’re the ugly one. Not me.”

When Eddie sees how his actions have hurt her, he begins his attempt to set things right, knowing that Rose’s strength represents something deeper: a true passion and innate understanding of humanity. When he returns from Vietnam, broken and lost, he hears her voice amidst the cacophony of PTSD pain. Her compassion allows him finally to mourn the loss of his friends when she welcomes him Home.

The Boys Next Door

“You see, the problem is that they never change. I change, my life changes, my crises change. But they stay the same. Arnold is Arnold and Norman is
Norman and Lucien is Lucien and keys are keys and doughnuts
are doughnuts.”

Despite his worries about how the men will fare without him, Jack understands that his life leads in a different direction. He will miss them, but they will always have someone. An entertaining, thoughtful, and sometimes difficult play to watch, The Boys Next Door afforded our theatre students the opportunity to explore personal issues and challenges in a way that helped them learn to develop their empathy for others.

Cabaret

Though a closeted homosexual, Cliff begins a relationship with cabaret singer Sally Bowles, believing he can make himself “normal” by living the lie of a heterosexual romance. When Sally becomes pregnant, they behave like a happy expectant father and mother. However, as the Nazis rise to power and begin to assert their cultural and political influence, the couple must ultimately face the truth about themselves and their prospects as parents. Following a midnight trip to the abortionist, Sally returns to the cabaret; Cliff returns to America, but not without first allowing himself to embrace his sexuality in the arms of the mysterious Emcee.

The 39 Steps

“There’s a man in Scotland. Only a matter of days, perhaps hours, before the secret is out of the country! I tell you these men will stop at nothing. They act quickly. Quickly! QUICKLY!”

In The 39 Steps, a man with a boring life meets a woman with a thick accent who says she’s a spy. When he takes her home, she is murdered. Soon, a mysterious organization called “The 39 Steps” is hot on the man’s trail in a nationwide manhunt that climaxes in a death-defying finale! A riotous blend of virtuoso performances and wildly inventive stagecraft, The 39 Steps amounts to an unforgettable evening of pure pleasure!

Kiss Me, Kate

“Brush up your Shakespeare. Start quoting him now. Brush up your Shakespeare, and the women you will wow. If she then wants an ‘all-by-herself’ night, let her rest every ‘leventh or Twelf’ Night. Brush up your Shakespeare and they’ll all kow-tow.”

In Shakespeare’s original play, Petruchio (the man) “tames the shrew,” his wife Katherine. He teaches her to obey her husband and show reverence to him. In the backstage story of Kiss Me, Kate, the Hollywood actress Lilli Vanessi (the woman) tames the man! Fred Graham allows himself to reveal his emotional vulnerability in his heart-breaking reprise of “So in Love.” In the Finale, the combination of the two stories reveals the theme of this great musical. All relationships involve conflict and compromise, but as Shakespeare wrote in The Taming of the Shrew, “where two raging fires meet together, they do consume the thing that feeds their fury.”

Guys and Dolls JR

Book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows
Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser

Directed and designed by Patrick Barry

February 24 & 25, 2016

One of the greatest musical comedies of all time, Guys and Dolls has delighted audiences since 1950 with its mixture of low-brow content and high-brow personality. In this specially adapted one-hour version, gambler Sky Masterson woos a mission doll named Sarah Brown in order to win a bet with a humorously shady gambler named Nathan Detroit. Although he’s a world-traveling, sophisticated gambler, Sky surprises himself by falling in love with the mission doll. When she feels ambivalent about her attachment to a man of the streets, Sarah Brown teams up with “world-famous fiancee” Miss Adelaide. Together they hatch a plan to “marry the man today and change his ways…tomorrow.” The cast and technicians were all students in grades six, seven, and eight. They learned a lot and had a great time performing in a specially constructed thrust stage.

The Glass Menagerie

“The play is memory. Being a memory play, it is dimly lighted. It is sentimental. It is not realistic.”

In keeping with the ideas expressed by Tom Wingfield as the Narrator of the play, our production design reflected a minimalist approach. It featured a “fire escape” not unlike a confessional in a church. When the play began and Tom’s memories came to life, the spare, suggestive furniture was uncovered. The portieres parted. And Amanda’s stern, maternal attention to her precious children could be heard in her admonitions about how to eat properly. A haunting drama about familial ties and personal passions, The Glass Menagerie remains of the great “quiet” plays in American theatre. Quiet, but powerful.