Who'll Be DANCING AT LUGHNASA for ISU

Lori Adams

Fresh off her off-Broadway triumph with Deanna Jent's Falling, director Lori Adams returns to the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts at the helm of the lovely and lyrical Dancing at Lughnasa. This memory play, written by Brian Friel,  is set in his native Ireland, and its original production took place at the famed Abbey Theatre in Dublin in 1990.

Friel is sometimes called the Irish Chekhov, and Dancing at Lughnasa bears that out in some respects. Instead of Chekhov's Three Sisters, Friel focuses on five sisters, the Mundys, who live together in a small cottage outside the fictional town of Ballybeg in County Donegal. We see Kate, Maggie, Agnes, Rose and Christina Mundy from the point of view of Michael, Christina's son, as he shares his memories of his mother and her sisters in August, 1936. Their lives are complicated not just by the murky romantic possibilities of that moment in their lives, but also by their difficult financial situation, and the return of their brother -- much changed and very unwell -- after 25 years of mission work as a priest in Uganda.

Dancing at Lughnasa is poignant, sweet and sad, as we learn about the sisters' dreams and disappointments, and how Friel's stand-in, Michael, was affected by it all. The play has been honored with numerous awards, including the 1991 Olivier Award in London and the 1992 Tony Award for Best Play for its Broadway production. You can see the Broadway poster at right.

The 1998 film version, featuring Meryl Streep as oldest sister Kate, also made an impression, winning an Irish Film and Television Award for Brid Brennan, who played Agnes. Brennan had previously won the Tony for the same role in the Broadway production.

Lori Adams has cast MFA actor Robert Johnson as Michael, our narrator who steps back into his youth, with fellow graduate actors Faith Servant and Natalie Blackman as Agnes and Rose, and Ronald Roman as Gerry, Michael's father and the man who rides back into Christina's life with a flourish. Fiona Stephens and Jaimie Taylor will play Kate and Maggie, the taskmaster and the joker in the family, respectively, while Elsa Torner will take on Christina, Michael's mother.

Performances of Dancing at Lughnasa are scheduled for November 1 to 9 at the ISU Center for the Performing Arts. You can click that link under the title to see the Department of Theatre and Dance's entire 2013-14 slate of productions as well as ticket information.

ISU FreeStage Fringe Festival Happening Right Now

Yes, I'm late out of the gate with this one, but I only got the flyer today. And besides, there's plenty of FreeStage Fringe action still happening, with performances tonight through Saturday, November 10, 2012.

So what's up? Tonight your options are The Improvised Musical at 6 pm at Centennial West 301 and/or Where the Sidewalk Ends at 8 pm in Centennial East 115.

Tomorrow night, it's Still Ruminating, a Devised Piece at 8 pm in CW 301 and Axe Lizzy at 10 pm in the Westhoff lobby.

And on Friday the 9th, The Improvised Musical returns at 5:30 pm in CW 301, along with a pair called Sure Thing and The Mystery at Twickham Vicarage at 7 pm in CE 115, Under the Influence (poster seen above) at 8:30 pm in the CPA lobby, and Axe Lizzy making a reappearance at 10 in the Westhoff lobby.

Saturday gives the whole lineup another shot, starting with Where the Sidewalk Ends (poster at left) beginning at 2 pm (CE 115), The Improvised Musical improvising at 4 pm (CW 301), Still Ruminating ruminating at 6 pm (CW 301), Under the Influence influencing at 7:30 pm (CPA lobby), Sure Thing/Twickham revealing whodunnit at 9:30 pm (CE 115) and Axe Lizzy wielding that ax at 11 pm (Westhoff lobby).

And if you're thinking you can't afford tickets to six different shows, guess what? They're all free.

If nothing else, these plays give you the chance to see theatre happen in some cool, non-traditional spaces. Who doesn't want to see ax mayhem running around the lobby outside Westhoff Theatre or a moving piece about substance abuse put on right outside a performance of Noises Off?

That's not something you see every day.

The FreeStage projects provide an opportunity for ISU students to produce, direct, act and design in spaces on and off campus, with a special interest in experimental and original works, including works by women and minorities. FreeStage festivals are held at the end of each semester, with the same kind of flurry of activity and variety of theatrical choices you'll see this week.

NOISES OFF a Slapstickstravaganza at ISU

Illinois State University digs deep into the comedy well to bring us Noises Off, Michael Frayn's hilarious farce-within-a-farce, through November 10 at the Center for the Performing Arts on the ISU campus.

For ISU, MFA directing candidate Christopher Dea takes the reins of this slaptickstravaganza about a hapless (very, very hapless) theatre company on the road with a terrible sex farce. Frayn has supposedly said that he got the idea for the script after watching a farce he'd written for Lynn Redgrave from the wings and realizing that what was happening backstage was even funnier than what was on stage. That's why we see both front and back of the stage for both Noises Off and Nothing On, the farce inside Noises Off.

If you want to know what the greater purpose is in the play, there's a line from the character of Lloyd Dallas, the director of Nothing On, that explains it all neatly. It's doors and sardines, of course. "That's what it's all about, doors and sardines," Lloyd says. "Getting on, getting off. Getting the sardines on, getting the sardines off. That's farce. That's the theatre. That's life."

There are plenty of doors and plenty of sardines in this particular production, with doors (and a nifty revolving set) provided by scenic designer Andrew Sierszyn and some very neat and tidy sardines apparently supplied by Props Master Danielle Wiseman. (There's no props designer listed in the program.)

Although the comedy is a bit slow in the early going, the pace picks up in Acts II and III with good results and some clever transitional staging. Among Dea's cast, Nico Tangorra (as Garry Lejeune, the romantic lead on and off-stage) and Hannah Brown (as gossipy Belinda Blair) show the best grasp of the terrible-actors-trying-to-play-terribly-written-roles concept, while Joseph Faifer (as old boozehound Selsdon Mowbray), Kyle McClevey (director Dallas) and Nicholas Spindler (as sleep-deprived stage manager Tim) grabbed the most laughs at the opening night performance I saw.

NOISES OFF
by Michael Frayn

Center for the Performing Arts
Illinois State University

Director: Christopher Dea
Scenic Designer: Andrew Sierszyn
Costume Designer: Jessica Ray
Lighting Designer: Harrison Hohnholt
Sound Designer: Glenn Wilson
Hair and Makeup Designer: Steph Taylor
Fight Director: Paul Dennhardt
Stage Manager: Andrew Blevins

Cast: Ashlyn Hughes, Kyle McClevey, Nico Tangorra, Kelsey Bunner, Lizzy Haberstroh, Matt Hallahan, Hannah Brown, Nicholas Spindler, Joseph Faifer.

Running time: 2:40, including one 15-minute intermission

Remaining performances: November 7-10 at 7:30 pm

For more information, click here.

With November Here

Pack way the Halloween costume -- November is here for real. And it's starting with a veritable onslaught of theatrical options.

From November 1 to 18 Heartland Theatre Company offers the local premiere of Red, the Tony-Award winning Best Play from 2010, which concerns artist Mark Rothko and his attempt to finish an important commission for New York's posh Four Seasons restaurant. As Rothko works with his assistant, Ken, he also questions his own choices, artistic integrity, and whether it's possible to create in the face of mortality. Christopher Connelly directs Dean Brown as Rothko and Rian Wilson as Ken for this production. Note that there is a special post-show discussion with artists Harold Gregor and Ken Holder after the Sunday matinee on November 11. Click here for showtimes and here for ticket information.

The Maids also opened last night, and it runs through the 10th in the small space tucked inside Illinois State University's Centennial West 207. Second-year MFA directing candidate Vanessa Stalling directs Jean Genet's disturbing play about class, gender and repression, with Fiona Stephens and Elizabeth Dillard as the sisters playing dangerous dress-up games while their employer is away. You can visit ISU's Facebook page for the play here. (As a side note, the poster image you see here for The Maids may be my favorite graphic of the season.)

Lanford Wilson's Home Free!, directed by Leah Cassella, is the second ISU show with November 1 as its start date. It's a short one-act (coming in at about 35 minutes) so the School of Theatre and Dance at ISU has scheduled it with a 5:30 pm curtain so you can see it before you head off to either The Maids or Noises Off. Given its uncomfortable subject matter -- an incestuous and agoraphobic brother and sister -- it's probably a better fit with The Maids. Just a thought! Click here for more info on Home Free! and its four performances.

November 2 is opening night for New Route Theatre's for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, Ntozake Shange's  "choreopoem" that deals with the many angles and identities of African-American women. You are invited to join New Route at the YWCA on Hershey Road in Bloomington to "Rediscover the REAL you, reclaim YOUR stuff, put a melody to your dance, be born and handled warmly..." Don Shandrow and Phil Shaw are co-directing the show, with Lyndetta Alsberry choreographing. Performers include Leola Bellamy, Jennifer Cirillo, Melissa James-Shrader, Gabrielle Lott-Rogers, Jennifer Rusk, Claron Sharrieff and Christie Vallela.

And then there's Noises Off, a show I absolutely love, which opens November 2nd and plays through the 10th at ISU's Center for the Performing Arts. It's a farce, it's hilarious, and it's a great introduction to theatre as we see all the wheels come off a very bad production of a terrible sex farce called Nothing On. The Noises Off Facebook page is available if you have questions. Your only real question should be, "How do I get tickets to this laugh fest?"

The musical theatre options at Illinois Wesleyan University are almost always top-notch, and with Scott Susong, head of the Musical Theatre program at IWU, directing 9 to 5: The Musical, it's bound to be a good one. The musical version of 9 to 5 is pretty much the same as the 1980 movie, with Dolly Parton's score adding more music like the bouncy title song to its all-in-good fun female empowerment plot. For IWU, Kate Rozycki, Lizzie Rainville and Christine Polich play the three fed-up, feisty businesswomen who take matters in their own hands after their sexist pig of a boss pushes their buttons one too many times.What a way to make a living! Performances begin November 13 at IWU's McPherson Theatre, continuing till November 18.

Mid-month, Rhys Lovell directs A Kind of Alaska, Harold Pinter's one-act play about a woman who awakens from a 30-year coma, for Eureka College Theatre, with performances November 13-18. Pinter's play deals with Deborah, now middle-aged on the outside but still 16 inside, as she tries to come to terms with the fact that she and the world around her have changed considerably since her last conscious moments.

Getting a jump on the holiday season, ISU's Civic Chorale performs Handel's Messiah at 8 pm on November 14 with John M. Koch conducting at the Center for the Performing Arts.

The National Theatre Live project brings Timon of Athens direct from London to Champaign's Art Theater on November 16. This is a filmed version of the stage show directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Simon Russell Beale as the titular Timon, who is popular with the fashionable set while he is doling out the bucks, but on his own as soon as the cash is gone.

The Shop Around the Corner, the exquisite little romantic comedy about pen pals who don't know they're also bickering co-workers, hits the big screen at the Normal Theater November 17 and 18. You may know the plot from later versions like You've Got Mail and the musical She Loves Me, but Shop Around the Corner stands apart, an elegant, lighter-than-air confection given the "Lubitsch touch" from director Ernst Lubitsch.

Keeping up the holiday spirit, the Normal Theatre adds The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant as a ghost/saint/guardian angel for Loretta Young on November 22 and 23,  the Judy Garland musical Meet Me in St. Louis November 24 and 25, and the amazing Fred Astaire hoofing it up with Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn on November 29 and 30.

What better way to close out the month than a little Astairiffic magic?