2011 - 2012 Season

spring 2012

On the Town

Music by Leonard Bernstein
Book and Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
March 14 – 17, 2012
HAROLD PRINCE THEATRE
ANNENBERG CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS

Directed by David A. Fox and Dr. Rosemary Malague
Musical Direction by Zachary Wiseley
Lighting Design by Peter Whinnery
Costume Design by Millie Hiibel
Scenic Design by Eric Baratta

On the Town is a classic American musical, composed by Leonard Bernstein, with libretto and lyrics by the famous writing team Betty Comden and Adolph Green. The setting is New York in World War II, when three young sailors hit the town for a day’s leave in the big city (the show’s most famous song is “New York, New York”). Over the course of the day, they encounter three young women, an anthropologist, a taxi driver, and an aspiring performer—and adventures ensue.

The musical is both exuberant and poignant, featuring six vibrant young people, eager to embrace life; their exciting day in New York is set against the backdrop of war—and their own uncertain futures.

Penn’s Theatre Arts Program is very pleased to produce this musical, which has not had a revival in Philadelphia for a great many years. The production was directed by faculty members David Fox and Rose Malague.

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992

Bruce Montgomery Theatre

A Workshop Production

February 16 and 17, 2012 at 7:30pm

Bruce Montgomery Theatre, Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts

Directed by Danielle Bainbridge

Faculty project advisor: Cary M. Mazer

Featuring a company of senior Theatre Arts majors.

A documentary theatre piece that critically evaluates American racial politics in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Anna Deveare Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 presents as many problems as it refuses to offer solutions. Originally researched, written and performed by Deveare Smith as a one woman show, Twilight is a series of candid interviews with LA residents in the aftermath of the events that shook this nation. The trial of the police officers responsible for beating Rodney King, a young African American man, was widely televised. The events surrounding King’s arrest and the subsequent trial sparked national debate about the nature of race, privilege and police brutality in America. Here Deveare Smith seamlessly represents the full spectrum of experiences, interviewing such diverse candidates as famed opera singer Jessye Norman, former Black Panther Party member and activist Elaine Brown, philosopher and critic Cornel West alongside a juror from the court case, the aunt of Rodney King and one of the police officers responsible for the attack on King. This piece is equal parts gripping, horrifying and empathetic as it grapples with an American landscape, irreparably changed by the controversial trial and the reverberations of the aftermath.

Group Project: Zombie Apocalypse

Theatre Arts Suite

Group Project: Zombie Apocalypse, a devised theatre piece by students of THAR250

directed by David O’Connor

A sextet of graduating Penn students think they are competing for an internship by participating in a Reality TV Gameshow, but find themselves competing to determine who is best prepared to survive the upcoming Zombie Apocalypse. You play the studio audience, and participate in determining who wins, and who is left behind.

Performances at:

Kings Court English College House

Game Room

Saturday, April 21 at 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m.

Sunday, April 22 at 12:00 noon

A Year of Games Project

Co- sponsored by:

Kings Court English College House

Theatre Arts Program

fall 2011

The Rover

Directed By: James Schlatter

Bruce Montgomery Theatre

Bruce Montgomery Theatre

November 16-19, 2011 at 7pm

In her brilliant, witty, and provocative play, Behn, England’s first professional female playwright, sets her young characters free--or rather turns them loose--at Carnivale to seek libertine pleasures, fantastic new identities, and, just possibly, true love. Capturing her own time, Restoration London, Behn speaks very much to ours, when the boundaries between the faces of reality and the masks of reality TV, between love and the games of seduction, and between who we are and who we pretend we are become dangerously blurred.

Cast List for THE ROVER

FLORINDA…………………………………ELYSSA EDELMAN

HELENA……………………………………MARISA BRAU

ANGELLICA……………………………….DEANNA SUPPLEE

BELVILLE………………………………….BEN LERNER

FREDERICK……………………………….JAY RODRIGUES

BLUNT………………………………………ADAM HAMILTON

WILLMORE………………………………..PETER MILLER

PEDRO……………………………………..JEFFREY JOHNSON

ANTONIO…………………………………..RAWSON FAUX

SPIRITS OF THE MASQUERADE:

RACHEL CATTO

ANNA PAN

ARIEL KOREN

DIRECTOR…………………………………DR. JAMES F. SCHLATTER

STAGE MANAGER……………………….NICOLE MCGARRY

LOOK/ALIVE

Directed By: Cary M. Mazer

Bruce Montgomery Theatre

A Penn Humanties Forum Co-Sponsored Event, presented as part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, 2011

September 15-17 7:30pm

Devised collaboratively by the company of six actors, director Cary Mazer, and their theatrical colleagues in Philadelphia, Look/Alive uses narration and movement to retell myths, fairy tales and folktales from Ovid, Grimm, Anderson and others, about avatars, statues, echoes, mirrors, reflections, and demonic possession, all of which depict the seductive danger of images. Wii players fall in love with their avatars; a puppeteer wishes his marionettes could come to life; a sculptor falls in love with his statue; a nymph fails to capture the attention of her beloved when she can only verbally mirror his words; a young man falls in love with his own reflection; a witch sucks her victims into a mirror; and an over-protective mother, succumbing to a voice echoing inside of her, kills her step-son, only to discover that his essence, protected by the spirit of his late mother, has returned to take his revenge.