Casting Update: Heartland's EARNEST Begins Its Bunbury Business September 7

Heartland Theatre Company and director Don LaCasse have announced who'll be pretending to be Earnest (spoiler alert: there is no Earnest or Ernest) when Oscar Wilde's delightful period comedy The Importance of Being Earnest opens September 7th.

The Importance of Being Earnest was first performed in 1895, which is also when it's set. Earnest takes place in fashionable English settings like a London flat and the garden of a country house, and its cast of elegant characters are generally floating around in gowns with giant leg-o-mutton sleeves and feathered bonnets (the ladies) or silk cravats and high hats (the gents). Wilde is sending up society and puncturing its pomposity, which means you must see what that society looked like in 1895.

The most memorable character in the play and the clearest example of snobbery among the finer classes is Lady Bracknell, the formidable dragon who sniffs at her daughter marrying a man whose pedigree cannot be ascertained. After all, Jack Worthing was abandoned as a baby, left in a handbag at the railway station. A handbag! She also has all the best lines in Wilde's deliciously witty play, like this one: "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness."

Because it's such a wonderful role, men have strapped themselves into Lady Bracknell's corset quite a lot, with acclaimed performances from the likes of Brian Bedford, Geoffrey Rush and David Suchet. Still, my favorite Lady Bracknell is Dame Edith Evans in the 1952 movie version of the play. Apparently director LaCasse is also a fan of the female Lady Bracknell, since he's cast local favorite Kathleen Kirk to play Lady B for Heartland.

The four lovers in the play -- Algernon, Jack, Cecily and Gwendolyn -- will be played by Kyle Redmon, Timothy Olsen, Emilia Dvorak and Jessie Swiech. Joining them will be Julie Riffle as Miss Prism, Cecily's governess, and Dean Brown as Dr. Chasuble, a local rector, with Chuck Pettigrew and Larry Eggan as Merriman and Lane, the perfectly composed manservant and butler who bring in the tea (and possibly cucumber sandwiches) at inopportune moments.

Wilde called The Importance of Being Earnest "a trivial comedy for serious people," but it's actually not at all serious as long as it skates along with the proper fin de siècle feel.

You'll find The Importance of Being Earnest on stage at Heartland Theatre beginning with a Pay What You Can preview on September 7, followed by Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday performances through the 23rd. For the complete list of performance dates and times, click here. For reservation information, see this page.

New in November!

A sweet Swedish movie called A Man Called Ove, with the quintessential "Get Off My Lawn" cranky neighbor as the main character, comes to the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign tomorrow and Thursday. A  Man Called Ove puts the curmudgeon, a retiree and a widower whose main pursuit in life is enforcing neighborhood regulations, in conflict with a noisy, disorderly family that moves in next boor. Rolf Lassgård stars as Ove; he earned two Best Actor awards, one at the Seattle International Film Festival, for the role. A Man Called Ove will be screened at the Art Theater tomorrow at 6 and 8:30 pm and Thursday, November 3 at 7:30 pm.

Community Players brings out the puppets in November with Avenue Q, the irreverent Broadway musical that mixes Muppet-like characters with adult situations represented in songs like "It Sucks to Be Me" and "The Internet Is for Porn." George W. Bush was president when Avenue Q opened in 2003 and he got a mention in the song "For Now," which celebrates the temporary nature of problems and annoyances. The lyrics to that song have changed since Bush left the presidency in 2009, including a Donald Trump reference earlier this year. No word on whether the Community Players cast will sing about Trump being only "For Now," but we can hope. Brett Cottone directs a cast that includes Aaron Wiessing as Princeton, the puppet who moves to Avenue Q and meets his neighbors, human and puppet alike, and Erin Box as Kate Monster, his love interest. Avenue Q opens at Community Players with a preview performance on November 3, with performances continuing through November 20. For information, click here, or to purchase tickets, click here.

Harold Pinter's The Homecoming, a creepy play from 1964 about a malevolent family and the son (and his wife) who visit, comes to Heartland Theatre beginning November 3. The last time I reviewed The Homecoming, I called it "a surreal domestic dumping ground." That's as good a description as any, I suppose. Since then, I've learned that Pinter thought it was a feminist play, while I fall more on the side of those who think it's really, really misogynistic. If you're a Pinter fan, you'll probably want to decide for yourself if the sole female character, Ruth, represents female power, a combination of the Madonna and the whore, or she's just a "disgusting, distinctively masculine, sexual fantasy." Sandra Zielinski directs a cast that includes guest actor David Kortemeier, who has played many roles for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and last appeared at Heartland in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof in 1991. After a Pay What You Can Preview on Thursday, November 3, The Homecoming will run till November 19. For showtimes, check this link.

Emergency Prom will give freshman actors at Bradley University a chance to strut their stuff from November 10 to 13 at the Hartmann Center for the Performing Arts. And when I say "strut their stuff," I mean swaying to "Stay" or doing a little Bump N' Grind or whatever else was in fashion with outsiders in 1994. That's the premise of the play -- a group of not-exactly-popular kids in 1994 decide that last weekend's prom was so terrible that they need to stage a do-over, a new prom, an Emergency Prom. Check out the details here.

Arts at ICC presents David Landau's Murder at the Cafe Noir beginning November 11. As you might expect from the title, there are mysterious doings afoot in this play, involving a hard-boiled PI named Rick Archer. If you know your Bogart movies, both pieces of that name will sound familiar. Murder at the Cafe Noir is part Casablanca, part Maltese Falcon, and part Choose Your Own Adventure, with audience interaction to decide what Rick should do. If you're interested in seeing Murder at the Cafe Noir at ICC, pay special attention to the times of performances. Fridays and Saturdays, the curtain is at 6:30 pm, Sundays it's at 2:30 pm, and Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the show opens at 7:30 pm.

When you think of songwriters Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, something like "My Funny Valentine," "Blue Moon" or "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" may be the first song that comes to mind. But the Rodgers and Hart score for The Boys from Syracuse is pretty swell, too. This musical version of Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors has "Falling in Love with Love," "This Can't Be Love" and "Sing for Your Supper," songs which were popular at the time and are still popular enough to show up often in revues and concerts. George Abbott directed the first Broadway production in 1938, with Eddie Albert starring as Antipholus of Syracuse. (That's the poster you see at left.) Classic material with a sparkling score is perfect for Illinois Wesleyan University's School of Theatre Arts and its talented students, and also perfect for IWU Associate Professor Scott Susong, who directs the production opening November 15 at the Jerome Mirza Theatre inside MacPherson Hall. Susong's cast includes Conor Finnerty-Esmonde and Tim Foszcz as the two Antipholi, Eli Miller and Kenny Tran as their identical twin servants, both named Dromio, Jackie Salgado as Adriana, who is married to the Antipholus from Ephesus but mistakes his twin bro for her husband, and Yuka Sekine as her sister, Luciana. The Boys from Syracuse will play at IWU for six performances between the 15th and the 20th. For more information or to reserve tickets, contact the School of Theatre Arts box office at 309-556-3232.

Young at Heartland Fall Showcase Looks at "Life's Choices" Next Wednesday

Young at Heartland's Acting Troupe

Young at Heartland, Heartland Theatre’s senior acting troupe, is now a teenager! As YAH celebrates its 13th year of "continuing education, creative self-expression, and community outreach" through the vehicle of theater, the troupe will once again show off their talents in a performance at Heartland Theatre.

Young at Heartland's Fall Showcase will take the stage at Heartland Theatre on Wednesday, October 19 at 7:30 pm. There is no set charge for admission, although donations are accepted at the door to help with program expenses. Note that these performances tend to be well-attended, so you are advised to be there early to get a good seat.

If you are unable to attend the evening performance, Young at Heartland will offer another show open to the public at the Normal Public Library at 2 pm on October 28.

This year's theme -- a unifying idea that runs through all the scenes the senior actors will be performing -- is "Life’s Choices." The YAH press release explains:

Every day brings us choices, some small and others big, so the Young at Heartland senior acting troupe’s program will be exploring the complications and pleasures of Life's Choices. These brand new short scenes and plays are performed by the Young at Heartland senior acting troupe traveling through our community delivering lighthearted fun. Come see how they light up the stage.

Heartland's website indicates that the scenes being performed include several pieces by members of the troupe, including Cemetery Walk and Goosed by Bruce Boeck, Going Postal by Lynda Straw, Helpful Hints and What's for Dinner? by Elsie Cadieux  Skinfall and Telephone Tango by Joy Schuler and 'Tis The Season by Holly Klass.

Young at Heartland Hijinks

The actors in the troupe have participated in a two-month acting workshop led by retired Illinois State University professor Sandra Zielinski, with ISU alum Terri Whisenhunt assisting.

For more information (and more pictures) of the irrepressible Young at Heartland acting ensemble, click here.

Young at Heartland Summer Showcases Today and June 22

Heartland Theatre's senior acting troupe, Young at Heartland, is back for two fresh Summer Showcases, with performances today at 1 pm and on June 22 at 7:30 pm. Both performances take place on stage at Heartland Theatre.

Young at Heartland provides a two-month workshop for actors over 55. Sandra Zielinski, retired Illinois State University professor, has brought her extensive directing experience to YAH this semester, and she has been assisted by Terri Whisenhunt. At the end of each semester, the troupe takes its act on the road to a dozen area nursing homes, retirement centers, churches and civic groups, with the Summer Showcase at Heartland Theatre the only time they offer performances to a general audience.

From left, Lynda Straw, Mary Scott, Kathleen Clesson and Norma Oberholtzer.

All of this year's pieces were written by current or former members of Young at Heartland. That means you have the chance to experience your friends' and neighbors' writing as well as their acting if you attend the Showcase. Playwrights include Bruce Boeck, Elsie Cadieux, Kathleen Clesson, Holly Klass and Lynda Straw.

There is no charge for admission to the Summer Showcase, although they do ask for donations at the door. You are advised to get there early, because these are VERY popular events. Doors will open 20 minutes before the show.

Ann White (L), Lola Devore and Elsie Cadieux in the YAH Summer Showcase

About Young at Heartland: "Young at Heartland strives to build an ensemble of seniors who share the values of continuing education, creative self-expression, and community outreach. It is designed to accommodate and support performers’ comfort levels with memorization. We aim to find appropriate pathways to showcase performers’ gifts in a fun, stress-free atmosphere."

Young at Heartland is supported by grants from the McLean County Arts Regranting Program (Illinois Arts Council) and the Mirza Arts and Culture Fund of the Illinois Prairie Community Foundation.

Heartland Theatre Announces 2016-17 Season

Heartland Theatre Company has announced its upcoming season, starting with the 15th annual 10-Minute Play Festival set for June 2016, and ending with Anna Ziegler's Photograph 51, scheduled for performances in April 2017.

Here are all the details:

THE ART GALLERY

2016 10-Minute Play Festival 

June 2 to 25, 2016

In any given ART GALLERY, you may run into old masters, new masters, pop art, papier-mâché, maybe even something unexpected, something that completely changes the way you see the world. Artists, critics and patrons may not agree on what's worth bidding on, oohing and ahhing over, winning a prize, or even calling art in the first place, but that's where the fun starts. And who knows? You may find you're part of the installation in Heartland Theatre's ART GALLERY 10-Minute Play Festival.

FIGHTING WORDS by Sunil Kuruvilla

September 8 to 24, 2016

In September, 1980, three women in the tiny Welsh village of Merthyr Tydfil wait, worry and watch, pinning their hopes and dreams on a bantamweight boxer named Johnny Owen, who has traveled all the way from Wales to Los Angeles to fight for a world championship. Every man in town who could scrape up the money is in California with their favorite son, but sisters Peg and Nia and their landlady Mrs. Davies are left behind. To pass the time before the bout is on television, they bake, they talk – and they fight – about their futures and fears and how they live their lives in this sorrowful mining town.

THE HOMECOMING by Harold Pinter

November 3 to 19, 2016

Like many of Harold Pinter's plays, The Homecoming begins with a seemingly innocuous event. Teddy, a philosophy professor who's been living in America, brings his wife Ruth to his father's home in North London to introduce her to his family. Teddy may work in an ivory tower, but the home he is returning to is somewhere harsher and darker. His dad was a butcher, his uncle is a chauffeur, one brother is in demolition, and the other is a vicious pimp. Given all of that, it should come as no surprise when menace, bitterness and violence bubble under the surface of this venomous family reunion. Winner of the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play.

SONS OF THE PROPHET by Stephen Karam

February 9 to 19, 2017

Family legend says that brothers Joseph and Charles Douaihy are distantly related to Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet. Through a series of odd misfortunes and accidents, the family has suffered recently – their father died, Uncle Bill is getting trickier to handle, and Joseph is feeling mysterious pains he can't explain. But if Joseph is willing to trade on the Prophet connection, he might just be able to sell a book, get health insurance, and keep the Douiahy family alive. At New York's Roundabout Theatre, Sons of the Prophet was called "the funniest play about human suffering you're likely to see."

PHOTOGRAPH 51 by Anna Ziegler 

April 6 to 22, 2017

Dr. Rosalind Franklin was one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century, one whose expertise with X-rays put her ahead of the pack when it came to solving the mysteries of human DNA. But Dr. Franklin was a woman. A chilly, fiercely independent woman who did not suffer fools gladly. And her colleagues and rivals did not appreciate much about her. When it came time to hand out Nobel Prizes for the discovery of the double helix, Dr. Franklin's name was nowhere to be found. Photograph 51 is a funny and moving portrait of the life and career of Rosalind Franklin, a woman way ahead of her time.

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Heartland's Flex Passes, which offer six tickets to be used good for the performances listed above, will be available for order May 1. Flex passes are priced at $60 for seniors and $75 for general admission. For individual shows, regular ticket prices are $15, with senior discount at $12 and students at $5. 

Heartland also offers two events not included in season passes. There's the Young at Heartland Summer Showcase, when "Heartland’s senior acting program struts its stuff on stage." This summer, Young at Heartland will perform their showcase on June 17 and June 22. There is no charge for admission, although donations are welcome at the door.

The second special event is the Mike Dobbins Memorial New Plays from the Heartland, when three new winning one-act plays from written by Midwestern playwrights are presented as staged readings. A nationally known playwright also comes to town to conduct a workshop with the winning playwrights and deliver a forum, open to the community. The New Plays from the Heartland events, which are made possible by the Town of Normal Harmon Arts Grant and sponsored by Paul and Sandra Harmon, will take place between July 14 and 17, 2016.

For more information, visit www.heartlandtheatre.org or email Gail Dobbins, Heartland's DIrector of Marketing and Operations, at gmdobbins@aol.com

CLYBOURNE PARK Opens Tonight at Heartland Theatre

Bruce Norris's Pulitzer Prize winner Clybourne Park opens tonight at Heartland Theatre with a 7:30 pm pay-what-you-can preview. Performances continue tomorrow through Saturday, February 27, with a panel "response" scheduled for after the matinee on Sunday the 21st. Check out all the dates and times of performances here.

Heartland Artistic Director Rhys Lovell directs Clybourne Park, a 2010 play that spins off from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, a groundbreaking play from 1959. In the earlier play, we meet members of the Younger family, struggling to make ends meet and dreaming of something better than where they live on Chicago's South Side. The Younger matriarch decides to spend a $10,000 inheritance on a house in the fictional Clybourne Park area, an all-white neighborhood where the Youngers are not really welcome. The action of A Raisin in the Sun shows us the conflict inside a black family where different people see their place in society and how to challenge that in very different ways.

Norris looks at the other side of the equation, focusing on the house Mama Younger wants to buy and the couple selling it. In 1959, Bev and Russ Stoller are still grieving the loss of their son and they see selling the house as a way to make a fresh start. Their neighbors try to convince them not to sell, with Karl, the only crossover character from Raisin in the Sun, and a local pastor named Jim arguing that property values will decline as soon as the Youngers move in. The Stollers' domestic help, Francine and Albert, are caught in the middle of the tension, along with Betsy, Karl's wife.

When we flip the script to 2009, Clybourne Park is an all-black neighborhood, but white people are moving back in and gentrifying the place. The actors who played Karl and Betsy are now would-be home buyers Steve and Lindsey, who want to remodel the modest house into something a lot bigger and spiffier. Their plans would mean razing the house, which doesn't sit well with Lena and Kevin, African-Americans who grew up here and want to preserve the history and character of the neighborhood.

Clybourne Park's spark as well as its challenge is that 50-year leap in time between Act I and Act II. Lovell's cast includes Tim Wyman and Kristi Zimmerman-Weiher as Russ and Bev in Act I and Dan, a worker on the renovation project, and Kathy, a lawyer trying to stave off legal objections to it, in Act II. John Fischer and Michelle Woody are Karl and Betsy and then Steve and Lindsey, flipping from the white preservation side to eager renovators; Anastasia Ferguson and Elante Richardson are Francine and Albert, who just want to do their jobs and not get involved in the dispute in 1959, but stand completely on the side of hanging on to their culture and their neighborhood as Lena and Kevin in 2009; and John Bowen plays Jim, the clergyman asked to try to convince the Stollers not to sell to black people, and then Tom, a lawyer hired by Lena and Kevin to stop the gentrification. Joshua McCauley plays Kenneth, a young man who functions as a blast from the past.

If that seems complicated, it really isn't the way it all plays out. Norris's script is especially insightful when it comes to the shifting alliances that unite its characters and the growing tensions that divide them. The humor in the piece is also a strength, making everybody seem that much more real.

After tonight's pay-what-you-can preview, Clybourne Park is scheduled for evening performances at 7:30 pm on February 12 and 13, 18, 19 and 20, and 25, 26 and 27, with a Sunday matinee at 2:30 pm on the 21st.

For more information on all things Clybourne Park at Heartland, follow this link. Rehearsal pictures and more current info have been posted on Heartland's Facebook page here.

Heartland's ART GALLERY 10-Minute Play Competition Open for Entries Till February 1

If you're still putting the finishing touches on your little work of art -- an ART GALLERY 10-minute play -- you have till February 1 to share it with Heartland Theatre.

Heartland's annual 10-minute play competition is always a popular part of its season, with last year's CLASS REUNION plays making a strong impression. If you'd like to see your work as part of this summer's 15th annual 10-Minute Play Festival, you have three weeks left to polish it up and get it in under the wire. Or under the sketch, painting, sculpture, textile... Or whatever other kind of art you've chosen to write about.

Robert Caney, Stage Set with Paintings and Statues

Here's how Heartland's website describes what they're looking for:

"Art has been used as a canvas to explore issues of creativity, culture, censorship, passion, talent, ownership, class, race, privilege and aspiration, with a variety of theatrical imaginations taking it as a jumping-off point.

"And it isn’t just one kind of drama… Art as a weapon, art as a scam, a political football, a gift or a forgery, tortured artists trying to create and unsure whether what they’re doing will matter, art as something reserved for the upper classes, some people’s art valued more than others because of the color of their skin… Whether you choose to write about one of those ideas or something completely different, there is fertile ground in an art gallery."

They're asking you to keep in mind that the theater will have to recreate your vision on stage, so what you want represented in front of an audience needs to be within the realm of the possible. Feel free to create any kind of theatrical art that can be accomplished at Heartland with two, three or four actors in about ten minutes.

Edouard Vuillard, The Conversation

For more information, click here. The official rules for the competition are here, with the entry form about 2/3 down the Rules page. Playwrights need to fill out and submit the entry form, attaching their plays right to that form. Questions should be directed to: playfest@heartlandtheatre.org

Paul Gaugin, Haystacks in Brittany

The artwork displayed here is from the National Gallery of Art's open access collection.

November News

Everybody's gearing up for drama (and comedy and music) as we head into that long slide toward the holidays. What exactly are area theaters up to before the December madness begins? Read on!

The Trojan Women, adapted by Ellen McLaughlin from the tragedy by Euripides and directed by Connie de Veer, opens November 6 in ISU's Westhoff Theatre. The play's focus is on the collateral damage from a lengthy, devastating war, specifically on the women left in pieces when the battles are done. Performances of The Trojan Women will take place at 7:30 pm on November 6, 7, 10, 11, 12, 13 and 14, with a matinee performance at 2 pm on Sunday, November 8. Tickets are $12 for adults and $10 for students and seniors; call the Center for the Performing Arts Box Office at 309-438-2535 to buy tickets or get them online at ticketmaster.com.

Still have a hankering to see Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet? Tomorrow and Wednesday, the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign will screen the National Theatre Live presentation of the London stage production, directed by Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Chimerica) and starring the Cumberbatch himself. Others in the cast include Sian Brooke as Ophelia, Anastasia Hille as Gertrude, Ciaran Hinds as Claudius and Jim Norton as Polonius. The Art has Hamlet set for 6:30 pm on Tuesday the 3rd and 1:00 pm Wednesday the 4th. Click here for info on this "event screening."

Heartland Theatre's November show is Intimate Apparel, a beautiful play about a woman named Esther, an African-American seamstress who makes exquisite undergarments for high and low society in turn-of-the-century New York City. Esther dreams of love and respect, but both things are hard to come by in her world. Playwright Lynn Nottage won the Pulitzer Prize (for Ruined) and a MacArthur "genius" grant. Don LaCasse directs Intimate Apparel for Heartland Theatre, with third-year Illinois State University MFA actor Faith Servant as Esther, Elante Richardson as her pen pal from the Panama Canal, Fania Bourne and Megan Tennis as two very different customers, Jennifer Rusk as her landlady, and Rhys Lovell as the Jewish fabric merchant she forges a connection with. LaCasse and Servant also teamed up for Nottage's Meet Vera Stark last year at ISU, when the playwright herself spoke on campus. Intimate Apparel runs from November 5 to 22; click here for ticket info or here to see a schedule of performances.

If you're in the mood for some blonde ambition, Legally Blonde the Musical may be just the ticket. This musical version of the book and movie about a fizzy sorority girl who follows her ex to Harvard Law School opens with a preview performance on November 5 at Community Players. The Players cast features Breeann Dawson as Elle Woods, the pink-loving blonde who tries to prove she has a brain, with Aaron Wiessing as the uptight boyfriend who dumps her for law school, Colleen Rice as his new (more serious) girlfriend, Jacob Deters as the sweet TA who helps her out at Harvard, Joe McDonald as a mean professor, Sharon Russell as her new friend, a hair stylist named Paulette, and Kim Behrens Kaufman as a client accused of murder. Legally Blonde runs through November 22, with weeknight performances at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees at 2:30 pm. 

Also coming up this month at the Art Theater in Champaign: Suffragette, the new movie starring Meryl Streep, Carey Mulligan and Helena Bonham Carter as women fighting for the right to vote in Britain in the early 20th century, and two hugely influential pieces of American cinema in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather and The Godfather, Part II. Follow the links under the titles of the movies to see times and dates. In general, Suffragette is playing from November 7 to 12, The Godfather has showings between November 6 and 12, and The Godfather Part II runs between November 13 and 19.

ISU's annual Fall Dance Concert takes the stage at the Center for the Performing Arts November 18 to 21, under the direction of Sara Semonis. Keep an eye on the ISU CPA Facebook page or check in with the box office at 309-438-2535 for more information.

Illinois Central College Theatre presents Adam Bock's The Drunken City beginning with a 7:30 pm performance on November 13. Bock has a sharp, highly theatrical voice that matches up perfectly with this cynical, funny look at three brides-to-be embarking on "the bar crawl to end all crawls." You can see ICC's calendar of November events here and click through for tickets and more information.

You'll find a very different kind of musical at Illinois Wesleyan University when the School of Theatre Arts presents Giant, a musical version of Edna Ferber's novel spanning several generations of Texans trying to make their mark. This is quite a coup for IWU and director Scott Susong, since the show has only been seen in development and in an Off-Broadway production at the Public Theatre in 2012. Michael John LaChiusa (Hello Again, The Wild Party) created the music and lyrics, while Sybille Pearson (Baby, Sally and Marsha) wrote the book. IWU's Giant plays for six performances from November 17 to 22, and ticket information is available here or by calling the box office at 309-556-3232.

Sticky in the Sticks, the pop-up theatre that does its popping once a month at the Firehouse Pizza and Pub in Normal, will be back November 20th with another program of 10-minute plays. Sticky features local talent, led by founders Connie Blick and J. Michael Grey, putting on short plays which happen to be set in a bar and are therefore performed in a bar. Local playwrights like John Poling, John Kirk and J. Michael Grey himself have seen their work bellied up to the bar at the Firehouse. Doors open at 7:30 pm, the musical guest usually starts at 8, and the shows go on about 8:30 pm. It's first come, first seated, so you are warned to get there early to get the best view. Bottoms up, lights down!

At the end of the month, note that Community Players will hold auditions for The Crucible, Arthur Miller's searing indictment of the Salem witch trials, on November 23 and 24, and Heartland Theatre will hold auditions for Clybourne Park, Bruce Norris's Pulitzer Prize winner, on November 30 and December 1. Players has a list of roles they're looking to fill here, while director Rhys Lovell should be posting what he needs for Clybourne Park here sometime before the 30th.

November is also National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) if you'd like to participate in this "write the novel you always said you wanted to" project. And all month long, Heartland Theatre is accepting submissions in its two New Play initiatives -- 10-minute plays set in an Art Gallery and one-acts on the theme "A Key" -- with all the details on what they're looking for and how to enter here for 10-minute plays and here for one acts. Feel free to use NaNoWriMo to write a play instead of a novel if you're more inclined that way.

That ought to keep you busy in November!

TRIBES Finishes Its Powerful Run at Heartland Theatre

Heartland Theatre's Tribes -- a powerful, irreverent, emotional play about an idiosyncratic British family with a deaf son who has functioned as the quiet eye of their hurricane -- has already finished two weekends of performances. What does that mean? Only one weekend left!

Audiences have been responding very enthusiastically to director Sandra Zielinski's production, led by Illinois State University MFA actor Colin Law as Billy, the deaf son caught in the crosshairs of a smart, ferociously verbal family. His parents are writers of different stripes; his sister fancies herself an opera singer, and his brother is in the midst of a thesis about linguistics and language. At the play's onset, Billy doesn't know sign language, but he is a skillful lip reader. But as the others shout around him, sparring with quips, insults and some very colorful curses, Billy tires of trying to keep up. Is everyone too self-involved, too impatient to notice how much their son doesn't fit into this tribe?

When Billy meets a young woman named Sylvia, everything changes. She is pretty much his opposite, a hearing child born into a deaf family, someone fluent in sign language and very much a part of the deaf community. Billy is taken with her fairly quickly, but he's also taken with this new world she's opened up. And that's the premise at the center of Tribes. Where does Billy belong? What does his family owe him? What does he owe them? Is Sylvia stealing him away from them, or is he using her as a life raft?

Raine's play has some tricky twists and turns, moving from comedy to despair and back again,and Zielinski and her actors navigate the trouble spots beautifully. Colin Law is terrific as Billy, giving the play a steady center and then deconstructing it bit by bit as the drama escalates. He is matched nicely by ISU senior actor Kaitlyn Wehr, who has fire and elegance as Sylvia, the girl of his dreams. Both tear it up when it comes to expressing emotion through sign language, a credit to dramaturg and signing specialist Brooke Hausmann.

The ensemble is strong across the board, with Timothy Wyman and Cristen Monson adding warmth and irascible charm to the family mix as Billy's parents, Aaron Sparks portraying troubled brother Daniel with edgy vulnerability, and Connie Blick turning sister Ruth into a tempestuous (and funny) drama queen.

Rob Fulton's scenic design is as eccentric and detailed as the family it houses, offering a perfectly drawn platform for their messy, complicated lives, while Jeanine Fry's costumes are especially good for Ruth and Sylvia, giving us visual clues about who they are.

Tribes continues through the 27th, with performances tomorrow, Friday and Saturday at 7:30 pm and a matinee at 2 pm on Sunday. The Thursday performance features sign language interpreters.

To see show times, click here. Try this link for reservation information.
 

Very Late for May!

May has been happening all around me and I am egregiously late in giving you the 411. Or 5-11, since that is today's date. Let's get this May party started, tardy or not.

First, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, a Neil Simon comedy that hit Broadway in 1993, opened last weekend at Community Players. There's one more weekend of this Laughter left, with the show closing on May 17. It's set at a TV comedy show in the 50s, with a brilliant, erratic, funny man named Max Prince, inspired by Sid Caesar and his time on Your Show of Shows, as the centerpiece. We see the writers' room, a place a lot like the one the real Neil Simon got his start, and the motley crew of writers, all based on or inspired by the talented but crazy people Simon and his brother wrote with, from Carl Reiner to Mel Brooks and Larry Gelbart. There's even a woman in the bunch, hugely pregnant Carol, who fights for the right to be as funny as the boys. On Broadway, Nathan Lane played Max Prince, with Mad Men's John Slattery, recent Oscar winner J. K. Simmons and Mark Linn-Baker, TV's Cousin Larry from Perfect Strangers, in the cast. For Community Players, Marcia Weiss directs Brian Artman as Max Prince, along with Melissa Breeden, Drew German, Hannah Kerns, Joshua McCauley, Bruce Parrish, Mario Silva, Chris Terven and Andrew Werner. Get all the info here.

On television this week, we're seeing the season finales of Nashville on Wednesday, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and Elementary on Thursday, and the last episode ever of Mad Men on Sunday night. Late Night with David Letterman finishes for good next week, with Dave's swan song on Thursday, May 20. If you're not weeping after Mad Men takes its final bow, maybe Letterman's will put you over the top.

Over on Turner Classic Movies, May spotlights the movies of Orson Welles every Friday night. We're coming up on a Friday full of Shakespeare by way of Welles, with Chimes at Midnight, also called Falstaff, with Welles playing Falstaff, before Othello and Macbeth. In a nice bit of companion programming, TCM will air a very different Macbeth, Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood immediately after Welles' version. They're both well worth watching for their treatment of Macbeth's witches alone. If you stick around for Kurosawa, it will take you well into the night on Friday May 15.

Since we're talking Shakespeare, it's a good time to remind you that season tickets for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival are now on sale. This summer we'll be seeing Love's Labour's Lost, Richard II and Q Gents, a hip-hop take on Two Gentlemen of Verona from the Q Brothers, along with a special presentation of Love's Labor's Won, Scott Kaiser's sequel to Love's Labour's Lost. Click here to get the details on reserving tickets.

Heartland Theatre's 2015-16 season packet should also be reaching you soon, highlighting five subscription shows -- the annual 10-Minute Play Festival, this time with nine brand-new, winning short plays on the theme "Class Reunion," coming up in June; Nina Raine's Tribes, directed by Sandra Zielinski, set for September; Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage, directed by Don LaCasse, in November; Bruce Norris' Pulitzer-winning Clybourne Park, directed by Heartland's new artistic director Rhys Lovell, next February; and Love Letters by A. R. Gurney, directed by Ron Emmons, in April 2016. Extras on the 15-16 schedule include one-acts dealing with "A Fork in the Road" under the New Plays from the Heartland banner in July and a reading of An Alliance of Brats, an adaptation of an Ibsen play, newly translated by Nigel O'Hearn and produced by ISU third-year MFA Joey Banks, in December. The lineup is listed here. Watch your mailbox for season subscription details. And get your reservation in now for the always-popular 10-Minute Play Festival, which opens with a special Pay What You Can preview performance on June 4.

GLASS MENAGERIE Shines at Heartland

Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie may be over 70, but it still seems young and fresh on the stage. There's a reason for that. It lies in Williams' central conflict, with a mother so lost in what she wants for her children that she doesn't see who they are or what they want. The parent/child impasse, the desperation, the inability to understand... It's achingly real.

Because of that, Amanda Wingfield, the mother in question, has been a dream role for generations, as has her son Tom, this memory play's unhappy narrator and a representation of Williams himself. They seem like real people who could be plucked off any family tree.

In the context of the play, the Wingfield family, such as it is, has fallen on hard times. Dad decamped years ago, and the three remaining Wingfields -- Amanda, Tom and daughter Laura, a fragile, shy young woman -- live in a poor apartment in St. Louis. Tom supports the family with his income from a drab job in a shoe factory, even as he dreams of becoming a writer. His mother pushes him to make more of himself, but she also constantly interrupts when he tries to write. As she repeats stories of her own girlhood as a Southern belle, Amanda is desperate to find "gentleman callers" for her daughter, who becomes ill at the very idea.

Don LaCasse, the head of the MFA directing program at Illinois State University, makes this Glass Menagerie moody and a little misty, as befits a memory play. He is aided in that effort by John Stark's beautiful set, framed in brick and lace to keep the action constricted and confined, with a tricky little corner fire escape that affords Tom a breath of fresh air. Cassie Mings' lighting design is just as impressive, moving the actors from shadow to candlelight and darkness and providing a really lovely final tableau.

Connie de Veer leads the cast as Amanda, offering a fully-drawn portrayal of a woman who expected so much more from her life than where she is now. It's not easy to make this domineering, narcissistic woman sympathetic, but de Veer finds a way. We can see her desperation and her lost dreams on her face and in her eyes, no matter what the facade, and the touches of humor in the performance only serve to underline that.

Joe Faifer is strong and equally compelling as Tom, who loves his sister -- and his mother -- even as he chokes on the stranglehold they have on him. His Tom is a little rough around the edges, someone we can see bolting to become a merchant marine, with a command of language that tells us everything we need to know about Tennessee the writer. The layers and the contradictions are all there in Faifer's performance.

As Laura, Elsa Torner is lovely and delicate, visibly shattering at even a hint of having to make her way in the world, breaking our hearts every time she tries to make herself heard, while Patrick Riley's ebullient Gentleman Caller is a welcome counterpoint with his boyish enthusiasm and can-do spirit.

The beauty of this production is that each of the four shows dashed dreams and failed expectations, giving strong support to each corner of Williams' play. After we've met them, we want more for each of them. It's the eternal human dilemma, right there in front of our eyes.

THE GLASS MENAGERIE
By Tennessee Williams

Heartland Theatre Company

Director: Don LaCasse
Assistant Director: Megan Hoepker
Scenic Designer: John Stark
Assistant Scenic Designer/Charge Artist/Properties Master: Jen Kazmierczak
Costume Designer: Lauren Lowell
Lighting Designer: Cassie Mings
Sound Designer: Shannon O'Neill
Assistant Sound Designer: Mat Piotrowski
Stage Manager: Matthew Harter

Cast: Connie de Veer, Joseph Faifer, Patrick Riley and Elsa Torner.

Running time: 2:10, including one 10-minute intermission.

Remaining performances: April 23, 24, 25 and 26, 2015

For performances times and ticket information, click here.

THE GLASS MENAGERIE Opens Tomorrow at Heartland Theatre

It's not like Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie has ever gone out of style, but still... Recently -- or maybe since the Broadway revival that starred Cherry Jones as Amanda Wingfield and Zachary Quinto as her son Tom -- Glass Menagerie has been hotter than hot.

Heartland Theatre's production, which opens tomorrow night with a "pay what you can preview," is directed by Don LaCasse, the Illinois State University professor at the helm of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, Lynn Nottage's musing on what it meant to be an African-American movie star in the first half of the 20th century, last fall for ISU, and Douglas Post's psychological mystery Earth and Sky for Heartland last season. The Glass Menagerie is considerably different from either of those shows, although it does have strong female characters in common with the other two.

LaCasse directs ISU professor Connie de Veer as Amanda Wingfield, the lapsed Southern belle who despairs of understanding her children or the place her life has led her. The Glass Menagerie offers de Veer a chance to take on one of the biggest roles in the American theatrical canon, one originated by the legendary Laurette Taylor and revived on stage by the likes of Maureen Stapleton, Jessica Tandy, Julie Harris, Jessica Lange, and, as mentioned above, the amazing Cherry Jones. Joanne Woodward played Amanda in a very well-received 1987 film directed by her husband Paul Newman, while Shirley Booth and Katharine Hepburn were very different Amandas in very different versions of the play produced for television.

The actors who have played Tom, the stand-in role for Tennessee Williams himself, are also a Who's Who of the American stage, from Eddie Dowling, who produced and directed the 1945 Chicago production that put the play on the map and then moved to Broadway; to Montgomery Clift, George Grizzard, Hal Holbrook, Željko Ivanek, John Malkovich, Rip Torn and Sam Waterston. And, of course, Zachary Quinto, the new Spock, who was opposite Cherry Jones.

For LaCasse's production, Tom will be played by Joe Faifer, a fine actor who graced ISU stages in roles as disparate as inebriated old actor Selsdon Mowbray in Noises Off, an innocent man sent to Death Row in The Exonerated and a father slipping into dementia in Tales of the Lost Formicans.

That's the beauty of The Glass Menagerie and why it's such a great choice for all these revivals and reimaginings -- the characters are so strong and yet so flexible that every production is a little different, each providing a new lens to see the play. Joanne Woodward and John Malkovich make for a unique mother and son, just as Laurette Taylor and Eddie Dowling did before them. And de Veer and Faifer will at Heartland.

They will be joined at Heartland by Elsa Torner, who played Christina, the youngest Mundy sister in ISU's recent Dancing at Lughnasa, as Laura, Tom's fragile sister, while Patrick Riley, seen to good advantage in The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Playboy of the Western World in Westhoff Theatre, as Jim, the would-be suitor Tom brings home after pressure from his mother to provide a "Gentleman Caller" for his sister.

After tomorrow's "pay what you can" preview, The Glass Menagerie will continue at Heartland Theatre on June 10 and 11; 16, 17, 18 and 19; and 23, 24, 25 and 26, with evening performances at 7:30 pm and Sunday matinees at 2 pm. The cast will be present for a talkback after the matinee on the 19th to answer questions about how they approached their roles and why this play continues to exert such a strong influence in American theatre.

Follow these links for more information on showtimes and reservations.

Winners (and Auditions!) for Heartland's 10-Minute Play Festival

Heartland Theatre Company has announced the winning playwrights and plays in its annual 10-minute play festival, along with audition information. Auditions will be April 20 and 21, from 7 to 9:30 pm.

This year's theme is Class Reunions, with each play somehow involving that idea. For the first time, there are nine winning plays instead of the usual eight, with a total of 23 roles available for characters from 18 to 90. Heartland notes that the ages attached to the scripts are for the characters, not necessarily the actors. They also note that actors are welcome to audition even if they have conflicts with performance dates because it has been possible in the past to double-cast a role to cover conflicts.

Auditioners will be asked to read from the script, with no monologues or prepared audition pieces required.

And here is all the info you'll need on the winners:

AULD LANG SYNE by Dan Borengasser, Springdale AR
Fifty years ago, Blake and Jack each thought they came first in Lily’s heart. Now that they’re older and presumably wiser — and without spouses — they’re still vying for Lily. May the best man win!
2 M, 1 W, 60s.

BITTERSWEET SAMBA by Sean Crawford, Waltham MA
David needs to get into this reunion. Bad. Unfortunately, it isn’t his reunion, and Gary, the gatekeeper, isn’t about to let him pass. Rock, meet Hard Place. How will David get past Gary into the one place that holds his heart’s desire?
1 M, 20s and 1 M, 30s

DEVEREAUX REDUX by Tim West, San Diego CA
Dixon is sidestepping his reunion to go straight to the professor — stern, exacting taskmaster Devereaux — who once made his life difficult. Why is he still trying to figure out Devereaux? Why do we keep poking at the past?
1 M, 30s, and I M, 60s

HAPPY HOUR by Deborah Duane, Milburn NJ
It’s pretty unconventional to put a class reunion in a funeral home. But when 90-year-old Sister Mary Bernadette shuffles off this mortal coil a few days before the big reunion, plans are going to have to change. Welcome to Happy Hour, with a dead nun who is still dispensing advice even from the Great Beyond.
2 W, 30s to 40s, and 1 W, 90

IT’S BEEN YEARS by Scott Tobin, Waltham MA
Dominic seems to know every single detail of Rose Ella’s life, even though she doesn’t remember him at all. Better watch out for snoopy ex-classmates who think Facebook “friends” are the real thing.
1 M, 1 W, 30s to 40s

OLD FLAMES by Erin Considine, Lawrenceville GA
It’s hard to predict where you will go when you leave high school. But “Most Likely to End Up a Phone Sex Operator” and “Will Never Be Kissed” were not in the yearbook, which means Mary, a teacher at the same school she went to, and Gina, “Most Likely to Smoke in the Teachers’ Lounge,” are working without a net.
2 W, 1 M, 30s to 40s

THE SONG WE SHARED by Jimmy Holder, Milledgeville GA
Lou and Mo are too young to be swimming in the waters of emotional maturity, but that doesn’t stop them from putting a toe in a murky puddle. In twenty years, will they be going to their reunion with regrets and apologies? Together? Apart? Singing a different song?
1 M, 1 W, 18

A SUPER REUNION by Candace Perry, Welfleet MA
There’s a lot to live up to when your entire graduating class is super. Wanda once saved the world, but now she’s worried about sexist superhero costumes, which of her colleagues are using their X-ray vision in creepy ways, and whether her cape makes her butt look big. Super or not, reunions are tough!
1 M, 1 W, 50s

VALIDATION by Robin Pond, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Fenton Crisp has a master plan: Bring together the people who wronged and ignored him in high school and make them pay. He’s now got buckets of money, and if he has his way, old classmates Allan, Debbie and Judy will grovel for the bucks. Grovel, do you hear? Bwahaha!
2 M, 2 W, 50s

Performances of Heartland's Class Reunion 10-Minute Play Festival are scheduled for June 4-6, 11-14, 18-20 and 25-28, 2015. Click here for audition information

Opening This Week: HEROES at Heartland Theatre Company

The winter theatre season kicks into high gear this week with the opening of Heroes, a Tom Stoppard translation of a French play called Le Vent des Peupliers by Gérald Sibleyras.

Sibleyras wrote his Peupliers in 2002, and Stoppard did his version in 2005. The original British production, which starred Richard Griffiths, John Hurt and Ken Stott, picked up the Olivier Award for Best New Comedy for its successful run.

The French title means "the wind in the poplars," and that is important in the play, which involves three long-retired military men, all veterans of World War I, who wile away their time on the terrace of a home for old soldiers somewhere in the French countryside. From their terrace, they can just see -- sometimes -- a stand of poplars on a faraway hill, and they dream of escaping from their terrace and the insufferable life of controlling nuns and tepid soup. They all survived the horrors of a world war. But how will they get through yet another birthday party?

Stoppard has said that he changed the title because British producers were worried that The Wind in the Poplars sounded too much like The Wind in the Willows. He's also said he would've gone with Veterans if that hadn't been already taken. But if you've seen the play... Well, Heroes is just exactly right. The three gentlemen at the center of the play are heroes, just for finding a way to use lively humor and a gentle imagination to get them from August to September.

Photo by Jesse Folks
Taken at Ewing Manor

For Heartland Theatre, Illinois Wesleyan Professor Emeritus John Ficca directs Joe Penrod, George Peterson-Karlan and Todd Wineburner in the roles played by Hurt, Stott and Griffiths, respectively. Left to right in the promotional shot at right are Penrod, Wineburner and Peterson-Karlan, posing at Ewing Manor in Bloomington, a wonderful local example of French chateau style.

Performances of Heroes begin on Thursday, February 12, with a special Pay What You Can preview at 7:30 pm. The regular run begins on Friday, with performances on the 13th and 14th, the 19th through the 22nd and February 26th through March 1.

A panel discussion is scheduled after the matinee on the 22nd, with Illinois State University theatre professors Will Daddario and Joanne Zerdy on hand to talk about the connection between theatre and war. The after-show discussion is open to the public and free of charge.

For showtimes and reservation information, visit the Heartland Theatre website.

Heartland Theatre Wants Your 10-Minute CLASS REUNION Play

It's interesting when the postcards, emails and Facebook alerts for class reunions start popping up in your various mailboxes. Some people -- and not necessarily the ones you expect -- are really gung ho at tracking down every last member of the class and pushing them into not just coming to the reunion, but organizing flash mobs and surprise parties and cocktail hours and picnics. Others -- and not necessarily the ones you expect -- hide from every appeal, every message, every attempt to find them.

Heartland Theatre is interested in both those camps, as well as everybody in between, for its annual 10-minute play contest on the CLASS REUNION theme. Or, as they ask the dramatic question, "Who are you now? Who were you then?"

"Once the invitation to a class reunion lands in your mailbox, the questions begin. It’s not just whether you want to go or whether you have anything in common with those people anymore, but who might show up, who might not show up, what secrets they’re hiding or getting ready to spill, who did what to whom back then, and just how far past it you are now."

It's true that reunions have long been fodder for dramatic imaginations, from Jeffrey Sweet (Flyovers) to Stephen Belber (Tape), Jason Miller (That Championship Season) and Tyler Perry (Madea’s High School Reunion).  A hit man man going home for his reunion (Grosse Pointe Blank) is decidedly different from an unhappy housewife (Peggy Sue Got Married) or the last surviving members of Miss Lucy’s last Tapping Toddlers Class.

Who are you now? Who were you then? 

If those questions inspire you to write a 10-minute play, Heartland Theatre would like to see it. the basic idea is 2 to 4 characters that can be played by actors between 18 and 80, no more than ten minutes in length, and something to do with a class reunion.

Heartland Theatre provides info here, as well as rules and guidelines here. You will need to visit the rules and guidelines page to get to the entry form, which you will fill out and attach your play to officially enter.

The final deadline is February 1, 2015, but if you get your play in by January 1, Heartland's judges may offer a revision option if your play is close but not quite there in terms of advancing to the next round.

What are you waiting for? Get that Class Reunion play going!

Young at Heartland Stages FALL SHOWCASE October 25

If you've seen the Summer Showcase put on by Heartland Theatre's Young at Heartland troupe of senior actors, you know that they know how to put on a show. Their Summer Showcase tends to sell out and have audiences rolling in the aisles. For the first time, Young at Heartland is offering a Fall Showcase as well, spotlighting the pieces they've been working on this semester in their two-month acting workshop with instructor Kathleen Kirk and assistant instructor Matt Bedell. And this time it's prime time, with a 7:30 curtain on a Saturday night performance.

Members of the Young at Heartland Troupe

Most of the pieces they will be performing are homegrown, meaning they were written by members of the troupe specifically for this Showcase. Scripts by Bruce Boeck, Elsie Cadieux and Lynda Straw are in the mix this year along with a selection of monologues and poems on the general theme of "Taking Chances." Those chances may include moving on, a new restaurant or an old romance, taking a trip or writing a play.

Young at Heartland's Fall Showcase is set for Saturday, October 25 at 7:30 pm at Heartland Theatre in Normal. This event is open to the public at no charge, although donations at the door are encouraged to help defray program expenses and make it possible for Young at Heartland to continue their tours to area senior centers and retirement homes. Because their Showcases have proved so popular in the past, you are advised to arrive before 7:10, when the doors will open. Seating is first come, first seated.

For more information, click here or call 309-452-8709.

Lori Adams Announces Cast for FALLING

Director Lori Adams has announced her cast for the play Falling by Deanna Jent, to be performed at Heartland Theatre from November 6 to 23, 2014.

For Heartland, Adams' cast will feature Karen Hazen, who played the lead roles in Middletown and Earth and Sky, as Tami Martin, and Rhys Lovell, who starred opposite Hazen in Middletown and most recently directed and acted in My Fair Lady for Prairie Fire Theatre, as her husband Bill. Illinois State University students Daniel Esquivel and Ashley Pruitt will play their children, with Esquivel as Josh, the Martins' severely autistic son, and Pruitt as Lisa, the daughter who wishes her family life were not quite so challenging. Ann Bastian White, who created the senior acting troupe Young at Heartland and recently appeared in New Plays from the Heartland, will portray Grammy Sue, the relative whose visit precipitates change and disruption in the Martin's carefully balanced household.

Jent has often noted that the play's central question is how you love someone who is extremely difficult to love. Falling is semi-autobiographical, in that Jent herself has an autistic son and has confronted first-hand the tangle of educational, legal and medical issues for a family dealing with autism. And every autistic child is different. As she says, when you have met one person with autism, you have met one person with autism. There are no easy answers and no simple remedies that suit every family, no sure-fire way to catch a mother or father who fears falling down on this parenting job.

Adams directed the world premiere of Falling at the Mustard Seed Theatre in St. Louis in 2012, as well as the play's off-Broadway production at Minetta Lane later that year. Falling was named Outstanding New Play at St. Louis's Kevin Kline Awards in 2012. At Minetta Lane, the play was nominated for three Drama Desk awards, including Outstanding Play for Jent, Outstanding Actress in a Play for Julia Murney, who played Tami, and Outstanding Actor in a Play for Daniel Everidge, who played Josh.

For more information on Falling at Heartland Theatre, click here. For reservation information, click here or email boxoffice@heartlandtheatre.org

A "Wryly Beguiling" LANGUAGE ARCHIVE Opens Tomorrow at Heartland

It seems there has been a concerted effort to address the "female playwright" problem -- the fact that plays by women are much less likely to get produced than plays with male names on them  -- in Bloomington-Normal. As the Department of Theatre and Dance at Illinois State University launches a fall season that includes work by Sarah Ruhl, Quiara Alegria Hudes and Lynn Nottage, New Route Theatre is holding auditions for a new performance piece by A. Oforiwaa Adruonum and Heartland Theatre opens its first of two plays written by women.

Julia Cho's The Language Archive is up first, opening tomorrow, and that will be followed by Falling by Deanna Jent, an Illinois Wesleyan University alum, in November. Last spring, Heartland's season-ender was Rona Munro's Iron and three of its ten-minute plays were written by woman.

It certainly gives BloNo theatre audiences a chance to see if they think work by women is demonstrably different from work by men or if women are just as individual, as theatrical and as successful on stage as anybody else. (Answers: Probably not and definitely yes.)

The Language Archive is a beautiful piece of writing, showing Cho's skill with weaving real emotion and real life with a little bit of magic and fantasy. It centers on George, a fairly hapless language archivist who has spent his professional life recording lost languages for posterity. If George can collect and preserve language, he cannot really communicate all that well with his fellow human beings, who include his wife, Mary, reduced to leaving cryptic notes in his pockets, his books and even his teacup in an effort to be heard; his lab assistant Emma, who harbors a major crush that he has failed to notice; and Alta and Resten, a couple newly arrived from a faraway land to put their own native tongue, an almost-obsolete language called Elloway, into the archive. Will Mary ever get through to George? Will Emma find the courage to tell him she loves him or to learn Esperanto? Can Alta and Resten stop fighting long enough to speak a few words of Elloway?

Resten (Mark de Veer, L) and Alta (Nancy Nickerson, R) experience a failure to communicate while George (Bruce E. Clark) looks on.

Cho winds all that together beautifully, along with visits from a man named Baker who is indeed a baker, a forceful language instructor who brooks no failures to communicate, and a strange gent who purports to be L. L. Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto, the universal language. Look for humor as well as sadness in The Language Archive as Cho looks at what it means to be human and to feel love even when the words don't come easily.

I don't know that there's anything essentially female about The Language Archive, but it certainly does find fertile ground in the idea that language is fragile, powerful and exasperating, especially when it comes to love.

If you want to know more about Julia Cho or The Language Archive, you might be interested in this interview or this piece about Cho, a review of the first production of Language Archive at South Coast Rep, or Chris Jones' Chicago Tribune review of the Piven Workshop production last February in Chicagoland.

The Language Archive opens tomorrow night at Heartland Theatre with a Pay What You Can Preview, followed by performances September 12 and 13; 18, 19, 20 and 21; and 25, 26, 27 and 28. Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances begin at 7:30 pm, while Sunday shows start at 2 pm. Note that a panel discussion follows the Sunday matinee on September 21 -- panelists include ISU professor Connie de Veer, who acted as dialect coach for The Language Archive; Susan Ryder, co-pastor at New Covenant Community who has a special interest in the Tower of Babel; and Hank Campbell from Friends Forever, a program devoted to bringing together children from cultures in conflict to promote friendship and understanding.

Click here to see the list of showtimes and here to see reservation information.