Welcome from the Chair

Headshot of Delia Neil

A look back on our 2022/23 Season!

We have a wonderful opening to our season with a week-long residency by the Actors from the London Stage! The company will perform Shakespeare’s Macbeth for three performances in the Black Box Theater, September 29-October 1. The company will also be in classes throughout the CoA+A as well as in the English Department.

The Department of Theatre 2022-23 production season features an interesting array of offerings, including site-specific work in the University’s Cone Center and a touring children’s show, as well as a site-specific lab project based on Shakespeare’s As You Like It.

The second production of our season this fall will be These Shining Lives by Melanie Marnic, directed by Professor Robin Witt. Melanie Marnich’s play chronicles the life of Catherine Donohue and her co-workers at the Radium Dial Company in the 1920s. The freedom of being the first wave of women earning a living wage gave way to the horror of abuse at the hands of a corporation determined to keep their wrongdoing secret. Catherine’s court case, as she lay on her deathbed, paved the way for companies to be held responsible for workplace safety. This work of documentary fiction reaches across the last century to speak directly to today’s issues surrounding workers’ rights. November 17-20, Black Box Theater

Senior Lecturer Jay Morong will direct a workshop production of The Antipodes by Annie Baker. With their phones switched off, a group of people are sitting around a conference table telling stories about telling stories. As their individual tales get darker and darker (and perhaps the apocalypse is happening outside?), Annie Baker’s play asks, when a world is in crisis, what is the power of the stories we tell, and those that are left unsaid. November 30-December 3, Cone Center 210

In the spring of 2023, Visiting Assistant Professor Ron McClelland will be directing Sweat by Lynn Nottage. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, Lynn Nottage’s tour-de-force is about the collision of race, class, and friendship in the early aughts. A group of small-town friends in the Pennsylvania Rust Belt have spent their lives on the local factory floor, and off hours sharing secrets, laughs and tears, at the local bar. But when lay-offs come in the Great Recession, life-long trust is the first victim, as they are pitted against each other in a heart-breaking fight for their livelihoods. March 16-19, 2023, Belk Theater

In April 2023, we will hit the road with a Theatre for Young Audiences project, A Hatful of DragonsSometimes the simplest thing, like finding a quiet place, is the most difficult. This is especially true when searching for silence smack dab in the middle of a playground filled with pandas, dragons, music and fun. Imagined straight from the vibrant pages of Vikram Madan’s poetry book to a playground theatre near you.  Perfect for the 8 and under crowd and their families. This project is being created by Associate Professor of Theatre Education, Dr. Beth Murray and a number of student writers. April 16-18, locations TBA.
 

Last but not least, Robinson Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare Studies Dr. Andrew Hartley and Assistant Professor Laura Waringer will foray into Shakespeare’s As You Like It, creating a site specific theatrical experience not to be missed. April 2023, Van Landginham Glen, Botanical Garden.

Come and celebrate our students' unique talents with us! We welcome you to explore where theatre can take you!

With appreciation,

Delia Neil, Interim Chair of the Department of Theatre


past performances

2022-2023

This year, the Department of Theatre presented Melanie Marnich's These Shining Lives, Annie Baker's The Antipodes, Lynn Nottage's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Sweat, and As You Like It based roughly on Shakespeare's "As You Like It"

students performing in the gardensstudents at a tablestudents at a tablestudents at a table

2021-2022

This year, the Department of Theatre presented Georgina Escobar's Migrant X, Gather –  a series of short plays by students and alumni, Charly Evon Simpson's Jump, and the musical Pippin

male student in circus performancegroup of students reaching with jazz hands on a black stagea student with a mask and elaborate head piecea group of four students in different posestwo students looking at each other on a bridge

2019-2020

This year, the Department of Theatre presented Far AwayEverybody, and Detroit '67.

Two students sitting on the floor in war clothes on stageMale student standing in a white tuxedo with a sparkling blue background two students hugging and looking into the audience

2018-2019

This year, the Department of Theatre presented a Circus Arts showcase, Archipelago, Twelfth NightThe Servant of Two Masters, and Blues for an Alabama Sky.

students in circus posesa student staring off into the distancestudents on a boat propa female student hanging from an aerial hoopTwo students looking at each other

2017-2018

This year, the Department of Theatre presented Baltimore, Women of Trachis​, The Long Christmas Ride Home, and The Wiz.

a woman talking loudly with a man behind her two students on stage, one holding a dollthree students singing

2016-2017

This year, the Department of Theatre presented The Aliens​, She Kills MonstersThe Children's Hour, and Trikster's Tales.

a student dressed in a purple wig with flowers all over her dressa set with two colonial chairs and a large chandelier student juggling against a colorful background outside

2015-2016

This year, the Department of Theatre presented The Plays of Constance Congdon, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of DenmarkHamletmachine, and 36-in-6: A Celebration - As We Like It

man holding sword in the air triumphantly group of students standing and smiling4 characters standing on stage with serious expressionswomen talking to a man and pointing to the audience

2014-2015

  • Project 24/7
  • The Merry Wives
  • Dead Man's Cell Phone
  • The Merry Widow
  • Beyond the Purple Flower: An Evening of African-American Short Plays
  • Actors from the London Stage present Macbeth
  • The Life of That Little Scoundrel Named Lazarillo

2013-2014

  • New Works Festival
  • Actors from the London Stage present Othello
  • Love the Doctor
  • 4:48 Psychosis
  • Spring Awakening
  • Devising Shakespeare: The Shrew Project

2012-2013

  • How I Learned to Drive
  • Seagull
  • Cirque de Légume presents Cirque de Légume
  • romeo.juliet
  • Mamá Goose

2011-2012

2010-2011