Duke UniversityTheater Studies

Duke University to Present Tony-Award Winning Musical Ragtime - opening April 5th

Durham, N.C. Duke University Departments of Theater, Music and Dance in association with the student musical groups Hoof ‘n’ Horn and the Duke Chamber Players will present the Tony Award-winning musical Ragtime.

In an unprecedented collaboration, the creative team and cast led by Theater Studies director Jeff Storer will stage this classic American musical from April 5th-15th in Reynolds Theater on Duke University’s west campus.

Music department professor Anthony Kelley provides musical direction, and choreography is by Dance professor Barbara Dickinson. Theater Studies professor Torry Bend designs sets, and local artist Derrick Ivey designs costumes.

Based on the 1975 novel by E.L. Doctorow, this turn-of-the-20th century tale follows three diverse families as they all search for success in America.  Played out against a background containing actual historical events and celebrities like Henry Ford, J.P. Morgan and Harry Houdini, Ragtime offers a sweeping view of American life that still resonates today.

“We selected Ragtime because of its profound relevance in 2012,” says student producer Nathaniel Hill.  “By re-examining the Ragtime era through a modern eye, our faculty dramaturg Jules Odendahl-James seeks to show students how they can connect the events from the musical to issues they see in the news today, such as wealth distribution, racial inequality and even celebrity tabloid culture.”

Featuring a cast and crew of more than 120, made up of Duke students, faculty members, guest artists and community children, this groundbreaking production features a Tony Award-winning score from Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty with songs including “Wheels of A Dream,” “Getting Ready Rag” and “Till We Reach That Day.”  The fusion of marches, cakewalks, gospel, and of course, ragtime, celebrates a truly eclectic mix of American music.

“The musical style known as ‘ragtime’ represents the coming of age of a nation,” says Anthony Kelley. “The delightful lyrical, melodic and harmonic turns offered by Flaherty and Ahrens really typify both the joy and intensity of the idiom. Preparing this in the context of the Duke collaboration has been highly gratifying.”

Duke’s Vice Provost for the Arts Scott Lindroth notes that, “This unprecedented undertaking that brings together three academic programs with two vibrant student organizations has engaged students from all across campus. I hope Ragtime inaugurates a new era of ambitious collaboration in the arts at Duke.”

Tickets for the production are on sale at www.ragtimeduke.com or tickets.duke.edu.  Prices range from $5 to $10, with discounts for students, seniors, and groups.  

Ragtime is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI) and is supported by the office of the Vice Provost for the Arts at Duke.

Duke Theater Student Translates and Directs The Mary Play

Durham, N.C. – Duke student Mandy Lowell of the Duke University Dept. of Theater Studies brings a reading of The Mary Play from the N-Town Cycle to Duke for her senior distinction project. The Mary Play will run March 23-25, 2012 in East Duke 209 on Duke’s East Campus.

“Even within medieval theater, the Mary Play is unique in many ways,” says Lowell.  “It has a grander scale and scope than most of its pageant-style fellows, it features more than twenty characters, and it is centered around Mary rather than Christ.  Its expressions of pain and joy – long-awaited parenthood, marriage, redemption, finding one’s purpose – should resonate long after we have abandoned the presentational pageant as the primary mode of theater.”

According to Lowell, the play takes the world’s most famous theological figures – the Virgin, Joseph, Elizabeth, St. Anne, even the Holy Trinity itself – and gives them humanity. Lowell says she learned a great deal studying her young subject and hopes her audience will too.

Show dates/times/prices:
The Mary Play
Translated and directed by Mandy Lowell
(Sr. Distinction Project)
East Duke 209, East Campus
Admission Free of Charge
March 23, 24 at 8 pm; March 25 at 2 pm

Duke Players to present Lady in the Red Dress by David Yee

Durham, N.C. – Duke Players will present Lady in the Red Dress by Canadian playwright David Yee. Alyssa Wong will direct. The play will run Fri –Sun., March 16-18, 2012 in Brody Theater on Duke’s East Campus at 8 pm. Admission is free.

According to the students, Lady in the Red Dress is a “psycho-political, neo-noir action/horror/thriller ghost play.” The play was a shortlisted nominee for the for the Governor General's Award for English language drama at the 2010 Governor General's Awards.

Duke Theater Students to Present Creditors by Strindberg

Durham, N.C. – Duke student Ali Yalgin of the Duke University Dept. of Theater Studies will direct August Strindberg’s Creditors as his senior distinction project. Creditors will run Feb. 23-25, 2012 in Brody Theater on Duke’s East Campus.

“Strindberg's journey to the darker parts of the human soul put Creditors on my radar,” says Yalgin. “In the centenary year of Strindberg's death, it seemed to be appropriate to visit his fears and frustration, common to most of us, in an intimate and claustrophobic setting.”

Creditors tells the story of Adolf, a painter, and Tekla, an author, who have been married seven years. When Tekla leaves Adolf for a week, a mysterious and charismatic stranger shows up and interrogates Adolf, leading to paranoia, jealousy and revenge.

Show dates/times/prices:

Creditors
By August Strindberg
Translated by Elizabeth Sprigge
Directed by Ali Yalgin (T’12)
(Sr. Distinction Project)
Brody Theater, East Campus
Admission Free of Charge

Feb. 23 at 8 pm
Feb. 24-25 8 pm and 10.30 pm
Audience is limited to 30 people.

 info: theaterstudies.duke.edu           

Duke Theater Students to Present Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

Durham, N.C. – Students in the Duke University Dept. of Theater Studies will present Cat on a Hot Tin Roof by Tennessee Williams Feb. 2-4, 2012 in Brody Theater on Duke’s East Campus. The play is the senior distinction project for four students.

Kim Solow will direct the ensemble of student actors for senior distinction. Kirsten Johanssen, Jennifer Blocker and Kyler Griffin will act for senior distinction in this play, said to be Tennessee Williams’ favorite.

The student director and actors will explore the themes of mendacity, death and greed in this story that revolves around an impending death, a troubled marriage and a family who epitomizes the term “dysfunctional family.”

Show dates/times/prices:

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

By Tennessee Williams

Directed by Kim Solow (T’12)
Featuring Kirsten Johanssen,
Jennifer Blocker, Kyler Griffin (all T’12)
(Sr. Distinction Project)
Brody Theater, East Campus
February 2-4, 8 pm, FREE

info: theaterstudies.duke.edu           

Spring 2012 Emerging Humanities Networks Announced and Proposal by Theater Studies Professors is One of Six Chosen

The Humanities Writ Large Steering Committee, chaired by Srinivas Aravamudan, Dean of Humanities, has selected six proposals to become the inaugural Emerging Humanities Networks of the Mellon Foundation-funded Humanities Writ Large initiative.  They are:

Performance and Integrated Media
Professor of the Practice Jody McAuliffe (Theater Studies, Slavic and Eurasian Studies), Professor Thomas DeFrantz (Dance and African and African American Studies), Assistant Professor of the Practice Torry Bend (Theater Studies), and Associate Professor of the Practice William Noland (Visual Arts) will be forming a working group to redefine the understanding of possible relationships between live performance and integrated media in the humanities in undergraduate education.  They seek to connect humanistic inquiry with application of digital technologies and new media, and integrate multiple media and disciplines into unique forms of expression that combine art and technology.  The group will, among other activities, bring in talented artists and scholars at the leading edge of performance practices research.

To read about other recipients, click here.

Edith Can Shoot Things and Hit Them Features Three Duke Students

Jeff Storer directs this hilarious, heartbreaking, and gently subversive story of real family values featuring Duke students Andy Chu, Wanda Jin, Jacob W. Tobia.

All but abandoned in the American heartland, three kids struggle to create a makeshift family. And when the outside world barges in, the only things that can protect them are love, loyalty, and marksmanship.

by A. Rey Pamatmat
December 1-17, 2011 at Manbites Dog Theater
Regional Premiere

SHOWS:
Thur-Sat Dec 1-3
Thurs-Sun Dec 8-11
Wed-Sat Dec 14-17
Shows at 8:15 except Sunday Dec 11 at 3:15
http://www.manbitesdogtheater.org/

Watch the trailer at http://sites.duke.edu/dukedollshouse/

Duke Theater Studies to Present A Doll’s House

Durham, N.C. – The Duke University Dept. of Theater Studies will present Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House Nov. 10-20, 2011 in Sheafer Theater in Duke’s Bryan Center. Ellen Hemphill, associate professor of the practice of theater studies, is directing the play.

Allison Leyton-Brown composed the score and will be joined by four musicians who will play the live music, and Jim Haverkamp designed the video, which plays a central role in the play. Set design is by Torry Bend, lighting design is by Andy Parks and costumes are by Bill Clarke.

“This classic piece of Ibsen which premiered in 1879 carries the weight of a psychological drama and thriller, as well as an enormous statement of where ‘women's rights’ were at the time,” says Hemphill. “I love that a piece of Art ‘threatened’ the Norwegian audiences at the time in relation to the way things were.

“The haunting music of Allison Leyton-Brown evolved from our conversations of epic film scores behind Victorian or period films and the music used in silent films to raise the tension of the action. By using piano, bass, clarinet and especially theramin in the score, I feel that Allison has captured the mood and depth of the piece,” she says.

Another inspiration for Hemphill was the 1892 short story, "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, which illustrated attitudes in the nineteenth century toward women's physical and mental health. Classified as gothic fiction, the story has influenced the imagery of A Doll’s House. “Stage designer Torry Bend's wonderful work has 'set the stage' for this design direction and the wonderful film work by Jim Haverkamp also reflects the tone,” says Hemphill.

Hemphill notes that the layers of miscommunication and fear and lying and heartache in this story make for an intriguing challenge for a director working with younger actors. “I find that the work on gesture and movement helps them to realize how to approach these layers of the psyche without 'acting’ more complex than their life experience has taught them; thus they learn to ‘portray’ a character in a subtle, but more stylized manner,” she says.

Jules Odendahl-James is serving as dramaturg on the production. A blog by the dramaturg, the students and members of the creative team documents the unfolding of the play (http://sites.duke.edu/dukedollshouse/) and includes many resource materials around the play.

The production will include a post-show talkback with Ibsen scholar Toril Moi Nov. 12.

Show dates/times/prices:

A Doll’s House
By Henrik Ibsen
Directed by Ellen Hemphill
Music by Allison Leyton-Brown
Video design by Jim Haverkamp
Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center, West Campus 

Nov. 10-12 & 17-19 at 8:00 pm, Nov. 13 & 20 at 2 pm

$10 general admission; $5 students and sr. citizens

tickets.duke.edu; 919-684-4444
info: theaterstudies.duke.edu           

Also see the trailer at http://theaterstudies.duke.edu/multimedia/a-doll-s-house           

Follow the development of the play at http://sites.duke.edu/dukedollshouse/           

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Theater Studies to Host Award-Winning Chinese Actor Yang Lixin

Wednesday, September 28, 7 pm
Gothic Reading Room, Perkins Library

A veteran actor of the Beijing People's Art Theatre, Mr. Yang plays the lead role in its touring production of Top Restaurant, coming soon to the Kennedy Center. In the 1990s, he starred in China's most popular sit-com, I Love My Home. He is featured in the hit film, Aftershock (being screened at Griffith Theater in the Bryan Center Tuesday, September 27 at 7:30 pm, and it will be followed by a Q&A with Eric Yang, Duke senior who worked on the film and son of Yang Lixin).

The Paper Hat Game, created and directed by Torry Bend, with video design by Raquel Salvatella, opens September 8 at Sheafer Theater in the Bryan Center on Duke University's west campus.

With dreamlike video, a gritty soundscape and live puppetry, Duke Theater Studies Professor Bend offers a voyage into the psychological and physical workings of a large city. She poses the questions: Can you fit an entire city in a theater?  How about inside a paper hat? To answer, Bend tells the story of notorious Chicago prankster, Scotty Iseri, aka The Paper Hat Guy, through the language of toy theater and projection.

September 8-10 & 15-17 at 8 pm; September 11 & 18 at 2 pm
tickets.duke.edu; 919-684-4444

Check out the trailer below:

Theater Studies Annual Open House - August 29th
5:30 - 7 pm in Sheafer Theater, Bryan Center

Our new and improved open house includes not only free food, but this year there will be free T-Shirts and a Magic Show by mentalist magician Josh Lozoff.

Joshua's magic combines amazing illusions developed in his travels around the world, with mental feats that explore the possibilities of the human mind. The result: a fun, mind-boggling performance that leaves audiences laughing, full of amazement , and wondering, what is real???

You can also meet the Theater Studies faculty, the Duke Players Council and meet new friends and reconnect with old ones. Info about courses, auditions, backstage opportunities and more will be available.

Past Events

Laramie events

Join us for these post-show talk-backs in Sheafer Theater beginning five minutes after curtain and lectures in Perkins Library

April 8, with Carol Martin, Tisch School of the Arts, NYU

April 10, a panel discussion, “Why Do We Need Laramie?”

April 15, with Derek Paget, University of Reading, UK

Professors Martin and Paget will also give public lectures in the
LINK, Classroom 5, Perkins Library

2 pm, April 8, Professor Martin: “Beyond Documentary Theatre”

2 pm, April 15, Professor Paget: “Why This, Why Now? The  Millennial Turn   to Documentary on Stage and Screen”
 

The Laramie Project Coming to Duke

Theater Studies will present The Laramie Project April 7-17, 2011 in Sheafer Theater in Duke’s Bryan Center. Jeff Storer, Professor of the Practice of Theater Studies, is directing the play.

The Laramie Project, by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project, is based on the reaction to the 1998 murder of University of Wyoming gay student Matthew Shepard in Laramie, Wyoming. The play draws on hundreds of interviews conducted by the theater company with inhabitants of the town of Laramie, company members’ own journal entries and published news reports. The student actors will portray more than 60 characters in this iconic piece of documentary theater.

Jules Odendahl-James has been serving as dramaturg on the production and has been co-teaching a class with Storer with 18 students (all members of the cast or crew).  The class has studied the original production, the media surrounding the event and the myriad productions of the script over the last 12 years. The class also enjoyed a special visit to rehearsal by Maude Mitchell while she was in residence on campus with Mabou Mines. Mitchell was one of the original Tectonic participants and gave her insights about the collection of interviews and early development of the text.

A score has been composed by Bart Matthews, who will also provide the solo piano accompaniment during the production. Set design is by Torry Bend, lighting design is by Chuck Catotti and costumes are by Jessica Gaffney.

A very robust blog by the dramaturg and the students documents the unfolding of the play (http://sites.duke.edu/dukeinlaramie/) and includes many resource materials around the historic event that inspired The Laramie Project.

The production will include a series of three post-show talkbacks with special guests:

1) Carol Martin (NYU) on Friday, April 8. She will also deliver a lecture, “Beyond Documentary Theater” that afternoon (2pm) in Perkins Library (LINK Classroom #5).

2) Derek Paget (U of Reading, UK) on Friday, April 15. Derek will also deliver a lecture, “The Millennial Turn to Documentary on Stage and Screen” that Friday afternoon (2pm) in Perkins Library (LINK Classroom #5)

3) A panel discussion “Why Do We Need Larame?” on Sun., April 10 with panelists Sean Metzger (Duke, English), Brian Ammons (Duke, Education), Jeff Storer (Duke & Manbites Dog) and Pam Spaulding (Pam’s House Blend Blog).

Nick Yu Arrives at Duke

Chinese theater artist Yu Rongjun (Nick Yu) will arrive on the Duke campus March 16, 2011. He will be in residence at Duke to work with the students in Professor Claire Conceison's course “The China Experiment.” The students will welcome Yu to campus with a reading of excerpts of several of his plays in Sheafer Theater Saturday, March 19 at 7:30 pm, with a reception following in the Multicultural Center on the lower level of the Bryan Center. The class will culminate with a workshop production of his new play, Das Kapital, on April 26, also in Sheafer Theater. Both performances are in English and free and open to the public.

According to Conceison, Yu's residency will expose students, faculty and community members to a dynamic and significant artist in China who is literally changing the course of theater there and who is deeply involved in international artistic exchange. Yu is the most produced living playwright in mainland China and also the Deputy General Manager (and longtime director of marketing and programming) for Shanghai’s only state-run theater company, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre.

Yu is the author of more than 30 plays and has won many prestigious awards. He is also the founder and director of a college theater festival in Shanghai, illustrating his commitment to young audiences and emerging playwrights. "He will relate wonderfully to Duke undergraduates and has an exuberant personality and contagious enthusiasm for life and for theater," says Conceison.

While in Durham, Yu will meet with several other classes both at Duke and UNC in addition to"The Chinese Experiment" class. He will also meet with Chinese students and will introduce a film screening on April 7 as part of the Cine East series. He will visit some local schools in the community as well. Requests for meetings with Yu can be directed to mmsauls@duke.edu.

Four theater studies majors are presenting senior distinction projects this spring. Here is how they describe their projects:

Heather Wiese, who is also a math major with an education minor, will perform in Proof by David Auburn. According to her synopsis: On the eve of her twenty-fifth birthday, Catherine (played by Wiese), a troubled young woman, has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, a famous mathematician. Now, following his death, she must deal with her own volatile emotions; the arrival of her estranged sister, Claire; and the attentions of Hal, a former student of her father's who hopes to find valuable work in the 103 notebooks that her father left behind. Over the long weekend that follows, a burgeoning romance and the discovery of a mysterious notebook draw Catherine into the most difficult problem of all: How much of her father's madness—or genius—will she inherit? Marshall Botvinick, himself a theater studies graduate with distinction in 2006, is directing Proof.

Will Sutherland, who is double-majoring in English & theater studies with a markets and management certificate, has adapted five short stories by Ernest Hemingway into a evening of theater called Death in the Café. According to Sutherland, the project comprises two elements: composition of a scholarly thesis on Ernest Hemingway, and the adaptation of Hemingway short stories into a theatrical production.  “I am directing a cast of Duke actors for performances in February, with permission obtained from the Hemingway family trusts and copyrights,” he says. A café in Madrid will be the setting where matadors, picadors, boxers, bartenders and other colorful characters come to life on stage in Death in the Café. 
February 17,18,19 at 8 pm in Brody Theater, East Campus, FREE

Benjamin Bergmann has combined his two majors, theater studies and political science and his minor in history to write Founding Rivals, an historical drama that demystifies "great men" like Jefferson, Hamilton and Burr by re-visiting the story of the dramatic presidential contest of 1800, America's first great election, in which great friends became greater enemies and in which Washington's great dreams for a government led by "men above faction" was firmly dashed on the altar of partisanship. There will be a reading of his work during the New Works Festival.
April 21 & 23 at 8 pm, Brody Theater, East Campus, FREE

Alexandra Young has written a horror play about the relationship between a woman, recently blinded, and the man taking care of her. It is a story about the woman’s struggle to cope with her blindness and her eventual struggle against the man taking care of her. “I feel that we are too dependent on film for horror stories,” says Young. “In film your point of view is directly controlled by the camera. We are used to a certain type of storytelling for horror, which, if we’re not careful, will grow stale. I want to be able to bring horror and suspense to the stage and give people an experience that will measure up to their experiences watching horror films.” Kim Solow will direct the play, which is also a part of the New Works Festival.
April 20 & 22 at 8 pm, April 23 at 2 pm, Brody Theater, East Campus, FREE

Proof
by David Auburn
(Sr. Distinction Project)
Featuring Heather Wiese (T’11)
Brody Theater, East Campus
February 3-5 at 8 pm

Hemingway: Death in the Café
(Sr. Distinction Project)

Adapted and directed by Will Sutherland (T’11)
Brody Theater, East Campus
February 17-19 at 8 pm

2011 New Plays Festival
(Sr. Distinction Projects)

new works by Alex Young & Ben Bergmann (T’11)
Brody Theater, East Campus
April 20-23 at 8 pm, April 23 at 2 pm

Please join us for the following events associated with our fall play,
The Beatification of Area Boy
by Wole Soyinka

no tickets necessary for these events:

Reception with Professor Soyinka after opening night performance Thursday, October 21, Reynolds Theater

In association with the Franklin Humanities Institute: a lunch discussion with Professor Soyinka
 “Mega-Cities/Mega-Slums: Urban Ruin and Renewal on the Global Stage”
October 22, C105, Bay 5, Smith Warehouse, lunch 12:30 pm; lecture 1:00
Click here for a resource list about this topic.

Pre-show discussion with Professor Soyinka before the Friday, October 22 play, Rare Book Room, Perkins Library, 6:30 pm

for play tickets: http://tickets.duke.edu or 919-684-4444
 

2010 graduating class of theater studies majors

Theater Studies Dept. Announces 2010 Award Winners

The Department of Theater Studies is proud to announce the following awards:

John M. Clum Distinguished Theater Studies Graduate Award
Allison Thawley

Alex Cohen Awards
Kana Hatakeyama
Tatianna Mott

Dale B.J. Randall Award in Dramatic Literature
Allison Thawley

Jody McAuliffe Honorary Award for Excellence in Directing
Danya Taymor

Richard E. Cytowic Honorary Award for Outstanding Student Acting
Kana Hatakeyama

Kenneth J. Reardon Honorary Award for Theater Design, Management
or Production
Kathryn Hampton

Harold Brody Award for Excellence in Musical Theater
Tatianna Mott

Still space in these fall courses!

Performance at Duke - THEATRST 130S 02
We perform all the time as humans. How does that look at Duke?

Transforming Fiction to the Stage - THEATRST 138S 01
How does a literary work become a movie or play? Find out how and how to.

Shakespeare Studio - THEATRST 146S 01
How does an actor embody text? Work with a noted London actor to find out!

Contemporary Black Plays - THEATRST 180 01
Learn about the work of black playwrights and be a part of a black play festival!

OR Choose "Courses" on the "Academics" page of this site and click through to Fall 2010 to see more exciting offerings for fall.

Musical Performance Class Premieres a New Musical

Monday, April 26 at 7 pm in Sheafer Theater, the Musical Performance Class will present its end-of-semester show.

This year's Musical Theater Workshop will present in workshop form the musical written by students from Michael Malone and Anthony Kelley's Musical Theater Composition class. The musical consists of 3 acts which take place in 3 different towns in America in 3 different time periods. The musical runs 1 hour. The performance is free and open to the public.
 

The Miser Opens April 8

The Duke University Department of Theater Studies will present The Miser, by Molière in a new translation by Elisabeth Lewis Corley. Joseph Megel is directing the play, which will run April 8-18 in Sheafer Theater in Duke’s Bryan Center.

This fast-paced version of the classic comedy of greed versus love is a modern take on timeless themes in Corley’s fresh translation and adaptation. With a flourish of a hat or a cloak, the ingénue women double as the character men, and the miser’s cook doubles as his coachman. Musicians stroll through the action with instruments that include the unlikely combination of clarinet, banjo, horn, cello and tuba. Dave Garner and Alex Kotch composed the original music.

Torry Bend, Lecturing Fellow in the Department of Theater Studies, is designing the sets, Jessica Gaffney is designing costumes, and Ross Kolman is lighting the production.

Elisabeth Lewis Corley’s original translation of The Miser was commissioned by 7Stages Theatre, Atlanta, Georgia, Del Hamilton and Faye Allen, Artistic Directors. 

Duke’s guest director Joseph Megel is artist in residence at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Performance Studies where he runs the Process Series: New Works in Development.  

A pre-show discussion led by guest Molière scholar Mechele Leon from the University of Kansas will take place at 6:45 pm in the Multicultural Center in the Bryan Center at Duke (BC 0010) and is free and open to the public.

Kirstin Pauka Brings Randai to Duke

Visiting Professor of Asian Theatre Kirstin Pauka from the University of Hawaii will be appearing in several venues at Duke to share the unique art form of Randai. Originating in West Sumatra, Indonesia, Randai features unique percussion (pants-slapping), singing, circular dance, and martial arts that combine to form a dynamic theater-dance hybrid unlike anything in the West.

In Lunch Box at Brody Theater at 1 pm on Friday, March 26, Professor Pauka will discuss her field work in Sumatra, Indonesia and go over basic movements and characteristics of Randai, including a student demonstration. Free pizza will be served. The public is invited. No rsvp necessary.

In the rehearsal studio in the Bryan Center (BC127) from 2 to 4 pm on Saturday, March 27, Pauka will offer a workshop in Randai. Participants should dress comfortably (t-shirt and shorts or biking shorts). Randai pants will be provided. Interested students should rsvp to theater@duke.edu to attend.

Now You See Me

Previously on Final Battle . . . Claire has a significant relationship with her TV: she talks and it answers her.  Diagnosed with terminal cancer, she auditions to participate in a reality TV show so she can fight her Final Battle in front of millions of viewers.  A satire about life, love, and death on TV.

The Duke University Department of Theater Studies and Manbites Dog Theater will present a reading of Now You See Me, by Neal Bell, faculty member of the Dept. of Theater Studies. Faculty member Jody McAuliffe is directing the play. The reading will take place at Manbites Dog Theater (703 Foster Street, Durham, NC 27701, (919) 682-4974) on March 20, 2010 at 8:15 pm.

Now You See Me is Bell’s latest play and takes as its theme America’s obsession with reality television. The reading is part of Duke’s annual new works festival. One of the primary missions of the Department of Theater Studies is to play a role in the creation and development of new works for the American theater.

Local actors Jeffrey Detwiler, Chris Burner, Katja Hill, Frank Lentricchia and Nicole Quenelle will read, and Laine Hindley will stage manage. Videographer and Duke faculty member Shambhavi Kaul will provide the video components for the play. 

Bell was awarded an Obie Award in 1992 for sustained achievement in playwriting, and he has been recognized with fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.

Two Small Bodies at Duke

The Duke University Department of Theater Studies will present Two Small Bodies, by Neal Bell, faculty member of the Dept. of Theater Studies. Duke alumnus Marshall Botvinick (’06) is directing the play. The production is Brittany Duck’s senior distinction project and will run in Brody Theater on Duke’s East Campus Feb. 25-27 at 8 pm. Admission is free. (Tickets at the door.)

Two Small Bodies explores the unsettling love/hate relationship which develops between a tough-guy detective and Eileen, the voluptuous woman whom he suspects of murdering her two young children.

“I have always enjoyed plays with complex female characters such as Eileen,” says Duck. “I chose this play to give me an opportunity to really push myself as an actress. The fact that this play is based on a real crime contributes to the tension in the play.”

The story is loosely connected to the true story of the death of the two children of Alice Crimmins who were discovered missing on July 14, 1965.

“I find inspiration in newspapers and magazines and get absorbed in real stories—so I take a ‘ripped from the headlines’ approach to writing,” says Bell. “When a real life story intrigues me, I try to find the gray area in what might appear to be black and white. I don’t believe in black and white. People’s motives are never as clear as they may seem.”

Bell was awarded an Obie Award in 1992 for sustained achievement in playwriting, and he has been recognized with fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Guggenheim Foundation.   

You, Me, and the Devil to Premiere at Duke

The Duke University Department of Theater Studies will present You, Me, and the Devil, an original play written and directed by Danya Taymor that explores “what-ifs” of Colombian history through various media including dance, cinema and music. The production is Taymor’s senior distinction project and will run in Brody Theater on Duke’s East Campus Feb. 11-13 at 8 pm. Admission is free. (Tickets at the door.)

The play follows Elizabeth Mora, a Colombian journalism student, who finds herself stuck with the topic of narco-trafficking for her final project at the University of Medellín. Taking a risk, she contacts Pablo Escobar, who at the time is an up-and-coming face in the Colombian drug trade.

Throughout her journey of discovering the man Pablo Escobar could have been, Mora meets a variety of Colombians who change the way she perceives life and the world around her. She meets a Salsa champion whose wife was taken by the Paramilitaries, a gun-toting female assassin who is Elizabeth's classmate at school, and a young mother whose son is murdered by Escobar's men.

Based on interviews Taymor collected during a summer 2009 project making documentaries with DukeEngage, combined with research on Colombian history and fiction created by Taymor, You, Me, and the Devil is a character study of the greatness and deep flaws of one of the most notorious criminals of all time.

Announcements

The Duke University Department of Theater Studies will present a diverse 2009 fall season.

Mainstage

The Fall mainstage play will be The Lower D’s, directed by faculty member Jay O’Berski. The play, based on the Russian play The Lower Depths by Maxim Gorky, will be set in Lagos, Nigeria. The Lower D’s runs in Sheafer Theater Nov. 12-14 and 19-21 at 8 pm and Nov. 15 at 2 pm.

O’Berski is designing his play to be carbon neutral. The suggestion to go carbon neutral was put forth by Theater Studies graphic designer Rebecca Meek when O’Berski mentioned wanting to try a zero budget show with totally dumpster-dived set and costumes.

“I agreed that it was in keeping with the spirit of the play, which is about people who make something from nothing and are looking for meaning in a world where they're treated like garbage,” says O’Berski.

“NC Green Power is teaming up with us to create carbon credits to reverse travel emissions for audience members driving to the show.”

Duke Players

Duke Players, the student organizations in the Theater Studies department, will produce its first show for new student orientation. The Lives of Ives will be an evening of four short plays by David Ives. They are Sure Thing; Words, Words, Words; The Philadelphia and Death of Trotsky. The Lives of Ives will take place in Brody Theater Aug. 22 at 11:30 pm and Aug. 27-29 at 8 pm.

Duke Players will present Nevermore Halloween weekend. Nevermore, based on works by Edgar Allan Poe, will run Oct. 29, 8 pm and Oct. 30-31, 8 pm and 11 pm. Admission is free at both Duke Players shows.