HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR This Weekend

Do you need a little Christmas, right this very minute? The Pantagraph's Holiday Spectacular, which features "[b]eautiful singing, hundreds of sparkly costumes, laughter and tears and lots of heart," returns to the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts on December 1, 2 and 3. The Friday performance begins at 7:30 pm, with 2 pm matinees on Saturday and Sunday.

As in years past, Illinois State University professor Lori Adams directs this Holiday-palozza of entertainment, with Michael Schneider and Angela Bargmann as musical directors and Stacy Terry and Janet Hayslip as choreographers. Nancy Steele Brokaw has once again written the story for the musical and Marcia Basolo is back for her 16th year as executive producer.

We are assured that many audience favorites -- from "precision-dancing Toy Soldiers" to an "enormous all-cast Santa medley" and "mass choir Nativity" -- will be back, with new features to keep the production fresh.

The cast includes four actors (Kevin Alleman, Ed Campbell, Jennifer Rusk, Paul Vellella and Michelle Vought), an adult ensemble about 40 members strong, 50 children performers ranging in age from kindergarten to 8th grade, another 18 high schoolers, seven father/daughter teams, eight "Dobski dancers," 16 Wooden Soldiers, ten tappers, and a coterie of other groups who'll perform the opening number, a Frosty Follies, Christmas Wishes and Christmas Day numbers, an Ugly Sweater song, elves and reindeer dances and solos, a piece just for "Mr. Santa" and a Santa Claus Parade with ballerinas.

You can get tickets in person at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts box office, by phone (with an added charge) at 309-434-2777, or online at the BCPA website.

Shepard's LIE OF THE MIND Opens Tomorrow at ISU

When playwright Sam Shepard passed away in July, Illinois State University theatre professor Lori Adams decided it would be an appropriate memorial to direct one of his plays as part of the fall ISU season. Adams chose A Lie of the Mind, one of Shepard's best.

Shepard specialized in family drama threaded with dark, cynical humor, and that is certainly true of A Lie of the Mind. The play involves two families linked by a dysfunctional marriage and defined by a history of violence.

There's Jake, a man so consumed by jealousy and rage that he lashes out with his fists, and his wife, Beth, the person he lashes at. When the play opens, Jake has beaten Beth so badly he isn't sure if she's alive or dead. She is alive, but she has serious brain damage. By the end of the play, the reverberations of Jake's violence split the families and their secrets wide open.

On Beth's side, we see her father, Baylor, mother Meg, and brother Mike. They are ill-equipped to deal with her condition, with very few emotional tools of their own, except, of course, rage. Her dad also has a gun and he really likes to shoot things. Jake's side isn't any better -- he has a smothering mother, Lorraine, a sister, Sally, hiding family secrets, and a brother, Frankie, who has a kinder nature than the other toxic men in the play, but also a bad habit of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

After auditions last month, Adams' cast included Parker Carbine as Jake, Gina Sanfilippo as brain-damaged Beth, Dylan Dewitt and Elena Sasso as her parents, Raul Marron as brother Mike, a chip off Baylor's block, Abby Langner as Jake's mother Lorraine, Betsy Diller as sister Sally and Everson Pierce as sweet brother Frankie.

On the production side, Emily Kinasz is costume designer, Kayla Brown has lights, Morgan Hunter is in charge of sound, and Nick Kilgore and John Stark were listed as co-scenic designers.

A Lie of the Mind officially opens at the ISU Center for the Performing Arts at 7:30 pm tomorrow night, with performances continuing through a 2 pm matinee on October 1. For tickets or information, contact the CPA box office at 309-438-2535 between 11 am and 5 pm Monday through Friday.

If you'd like to see a sneak peek, the cast will also offer a short scene from their production on the ISU Quad as part of the SEVEN kickoff program. SEVEN is a wellness campaign bringing together a variety of campus groups and resources, including the College of Fine Arts. As their contribution, actors from A Lie of the Mind will perform a short "teaser" scene at Schroeder Plaza on the Quad sometime between 11 am and noon, while other SEVEN activities are taking place. For more information on the SEVEN kickoff, click here.

ISU News: LIE Cast, BALM Added, COSI Director and Stark Leading Shakes Fest

A lot has been happening at Illinois State University's School of Theatre and Dance. Along with the usual auditions and casting for fall shows, they've added a few pieces of information to fill out the overall 2017-18 season and announced who will be the new Artistic Director for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival.

John Stark

In the wake of Artistic Director Kevin Rich's departure, there has been a bit of mystery surrounding the Illinois Shakespeare Festival leadership position. It's reminiscent of Shakespeare, where we all wonder who will wear the crown by the end of the play. Wonder no more -- it will be John Stark, Head of the Design/Production Area for ISU's School of Theatre and Dance and a member of the ISU faculty since 1991. Stark has designed for the Shakespeare Festival many times (with at least two Hamlets, Midsummers and As You Like Its to his credit) as well as numerous designs for the University and for theaters from coast to coast. He won a Joseph Jefferson Award in 1997 for his scenic design for The Living at Famous Door Theatre in Chicago and he designed the set for the 2013 Off-Broadway production of Falling that was nominated for three Drama Desk Awards. Falling was directed by Stark's wife, Lori Adams, Head of Acting at ISU; she directed and he designed for its trifecta of productions in St. Louis, New York and back here in Normal at Heartland Theatre. There is no doubt in my mind that under Stark, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival will look fantastic and work like a well-oiled machine. He's just that good. No word yet on the Festival's 2018 lineup, but it will be very interesting to see where he takes it.

The Stark-Adams household is keeping busy, since Adams is at the helm of ISU's first fall show, A Lie of the Mind, Sam Shepard's blistering, violent, sometimes surreal domestic drama from 1985. Adams has cast Parker Carbine as Jake, the out-of-control husband who beat up his wife, Beth, played by Gina Sanfilippo, to the point of brain damage. In the play, Beth is taken to her old family home, a cabin in Montana, to pick up the pieces amongst her own difficult family. For ISU, Beth's father, Baylor, also quick on the trigger, will be played by Dylan Dewitt, with Elena Sasso as his well-meaning wife Meg and Raul Marron as their son Mike, a chip off Baylor's block. On Jake's side of the conflict, Abby Langner will play his enabling mother Lorraine, while Betsy Diller takes on sister Sally and Everson Pierce will play brother Frankie, who is more sensible than his ragey brother, but has terrible timing. Emily Kinasz will design the costumes, Kayla Brown will design the lights, Morgan Hunter is in charge of sound, and Nick Kilgore and John Stark are listed as co-scenic designers. Never a dull moment for Adams and Stark!

Laurie Metcalf (front) and Gary Sinise (back) in Balm in Gilead at Steppenwolf in 1981. William Petersen is at right.

Filling in the blanks previously left in ISU's Spring schedule, we now know that Mozart's Così fan tutte, set for performances March 2 through 6, 2018, in the Center for the Performing Arts, will be directed by Joe McDonnell, and that John Tovar has chosen to direct Lanford Wilson's Balm in Gilead, to be performed April 13 to 17, also in the CPA. Balm in Gilead is one of the shows that defined Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre -- The Chicago Tribune's Richard Christensen called it "one of those brilliant electric evenings for which the living theatre was made " -- back in the early 80s. Directed by John Malkovich and featuring a host of now-famous actors (Joan Allen, Gary Cole, Francis Guinan, Glenne Headly, Tom Irwin, Terry Kinney, John Mahoney, Laurie Metcalf, Jeff Perry, William Petersen, Rondi Reed, Gary Sinise...), the production was revived Off-Broadway four years later, part of  Steppenwolf's (and its company's) rise to national prominence. Metcalf's performance of a 20-minute monologue still remains in theater-goers' memories as something very special. Since Steppenwolf was founded by a host of former ISU students, one wonders if the likes of Cole, Kinney, Metcalf or Perry will pop in to see how it's going. Maybe Malkovich can even be lured back to campus to give his input.

For all the details on ISU's upcoming season, you can click here to see the latest press release.

At ISU, Shue's FOREIGNER Is Out and Shepard's LIE OF THE MIND Is In

The School of Theatre and Dance at Illinois State University has announced a change in their schedule for the upcoming 2017-18 season.

Due to "the horrific events taking place in Charlottesville, VA this past weekend," the SOTD will be removing the previously planned production of The Foreigner by Larry Shue and replacing it with A Lie of the Mind by Sam Shepard.

The Foreigner is a much-performed comedy about a sweet man visiting a rural cabin in Georgia who pretends not to speak English so he won't have to talk to people, but his new "foreigner" status causes all kinds of problems. The Foreigner may be hilarious, but it involves Klansmen, including hoods and weapons, and it is understandable that that sort of thing doesn't seem all that funny at the moment.

A Lie of the Mind is altogether different, about toxic masculinity and domestic abuse, as the play examines what happens to the families involved after a man beats his wife to the point of brain damage. The statement from the School of Theatre and Dance notes that the selection of a Shepard play honors "the recent passing of this award winning playwright."

If A Lie of the Mind occupies the same space as The Foreigner, it will play in the ISU Center for the Performing Arts from September 27 to October 1 and will be directed by Lori Adams.

Other shows on the SOTD agenda for 2017 include She Kills Monsters, a 2011 play by Qui Nguyen involving Dungeons and Dragons, directed by Paul Dennhardt for the CPA in performance from October 27 to November 4; two classics -- Sophocles' Oedipus directed by Kristen Schoenback and Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well directed by Enrico Spada -- in repertory in Westhoff Theatre between October 13 and 28, and the Fall Dance Concert under artistic director Sara Semonis for the CPA November 30 to December 2.

Things are a bit less clear-cut in the spring, although there is information that directing MFA candidate Schoenback will be back at the helm for Anne Washburn's dystopic fantasy Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play in Westhoff from February 16 to 24, 2018, while her colleague Spada will direct The Illusion, presumably playwright Tony Kushner's adaptation of Pierre Corneille's 17th century comedy, in Westhoff  March 30 to April 7, 2018. After that, the Mozart opera Cosi Fan Tutte will play the CPA from March 2 to 9 under a director to be named later and a show to be named later will be directed by John Tovar for the CPA from April 13 to 21.

To keep up with School of Theatre and Dance news, follow their Facebook page here.

IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE -- Or Can It? ISU Hosts Staged Reading Tomorrow at 7:30

Nobel Prize winner Sinclair Lewis wrote a novel called It Can't Happen Here -- "a cautionary tale about the fragility of democracy" -- in 1935, with Hitler on the rise in Germany, a controversial politician from Louisiana named Huey Long beginning a presidential campaign, and the Great Depression and its economic woes opening the door for demagogues promising America "a return to greatness."

Lewis wrote the book to wake up the American public to the idea that it could happen here, a notion that has kept It Can't Happen Here timely (and scary) ever since. More than one voice in the media has noticed the similarities to Donald Trump's campaign.

Signet Classics put out a new edition in 2014, noting that It Can't Happen Here "juxtaposes sharp political satire with the chillingly realistic rise of a president who becomes a dictator to save the nation from welfare cheats, sex, crime, and a liberal press. Called 'a message to thinking Americans' by the Springfield Republican when it was published in 1935, It Can't Happen Here is a shockingly prescient novel that remains as fresh and contemporary as today's news."

The book spawned a stage adaptation very quickly, with Lewis himself and John C. Moffitt offering a play version that opened across the country in a flurry of simultaneous productions in October 1936. There were various attempts to make a movie out of the book, but they all faded away, although a TV movie did surface in 1968. There's at least one account that the TV miniseries (and subsequent series) V was originally intended as an adaptation of It Can't Happen Here, but the network felt that the American populace would respond better to a show where reptilian aliens were the bad guys instead of home-grown fascists. Go figure.

Earlier this year, with politicians flinging around the same rhetoric used by Lewis's characters, Berkeley Rep staged a new adaptation of the play written by Tony Taccone and Bennett S. Cohen. The central character in It Can't Happen Here, one Berzeluis "Buzz" Windrip, is charismatic and ambitious, ready to use whatever weapons he can grab -- hate, fear, lies, hysteria, bigotry -- to put himself in power. And once he's there, his weapons just get bigger and scarier to maintain his position and his empire.

To underscore the timeliness of the material, the Sinclair Lewis Foundation/Society is hosting nationwide staged readings of the Taccone and Cohen version of the play. Right here in Bloomington-Normal, we can see a staged reading of this incredibly important play, directed by Illinois State University professor Lori Adams and Ball State's John Tovar, at 7:30 pm in ISU's Westhoff Theatre.

Adams and Tovar will also serve as narrators, leading a cast of sixteen that includes Mark de Veer reading the role of demagogue Buzz Windrip, Dean Brown taking on Vermont newspaperman Doremus Jessup, who finds himself a large part of the New Underground opposition, and Robert McLaughlin as Senator Walter Trowbridge, an early opponent of Windrip's divisive brand of politics. Everyone in the cast will read multiple roles, with actors Duane Boutté, Spencer Brady, Cyndee Brown, Connie de Veer, Nathan Gaik, Alex Levy, Colleen Rice, Danny Rice, Julie Riffle, Don Shandrow and John Stark joining Mark de Veer, Dean Brown and McLaughlin to give voice to Lewis's characters.

This event is free, which means tickets are not being sold and you will need to get there on time to ensure a seat. For more information on the Normal take on It Can't Happen Here, click here to see the event's Facebook page.

Heartland's LOVE LETTERS Opens Tonight

Melissa Gardner and Andrew Makepeace Ladd III have known each other and corresponded with each other since they were children. Now, after a lifetime of birthday cards, postcards, short notes and heartfelt letters, we see Melissa and Andrew in front of us, recapturing their relationship simply by reading aloud. And that is the sum and substance of A. R. Gurney's Love Letters.

Gurney was very specific when he published his play. To perform Love Letters, Gurney wanted actors to sit at separate tables -- no staring into each other's eyes or running around or popping up and down -- and simply read their correspondence.

The list of actors who've performed Love Letters is amazing, from Gurney himself, opposite Holland Taylor in the original production, to Elizabeth Taylor and James Earl Jones and Ali MacGraw and Ryan O'Neal, on and off Broadway, big cities and small towns in North America, in London and Monte Carlo and Tokyo, and supposedly in a command performance in Judge Ito's courtroom for the jurors in the O. J. Simpson trial. The most recent Broadway production opened with Brian Dennehy and Mia Farrow, with Carol Burnett taking over for Farrow and then Alan Alda and Candice Bergen stepping in.

Broadway.com quoted Dennehy when they wrote about the play's history before that 2014 Broadway production: "[Love Letters] is an extraordinary piece," Dennehy told Today. "You cannot stage a play more simply than this, and yet it’s about everything in life. First love, loss of opportunities, loss of life, loss of love...It’s a beautiful play, and all you do is speak it."

Lori Adams and Jonathan Green rehearse Love Letters

Ron Emmons directs Love Letters for Heartland Theatre, with the Pay-What-You-Can preview performance scheduled for tonight. Emmons' production features three different casts for its three weekends of performance, with Lori Adams, Head of Acting at Illinois State University, opposite Jonathan Green, Illinois Wesleyan Provost and Dean of the Faculty, tonight through Sunday the 10th.

They'll be followed by Devon and Rhys Lovell April 14, 15, 16 and 17; and Cyndee and Dean Brown April 21, 22, 23 and 24.  Dr. Cyndee Brown is Head of Teacher Education at ISU. Rhys Lovell is Heartland Theatre's artistic director and Dean Brown is vice president of its board. All four of the Lovells and Browns have acted on Heartland's stage, with Rhys Lovell (Clybourne Park) and Cyndee Brown (Circle Mirror Transformation, Proof) both directing there, as well.

Evening performances begin at 7:30 pm, while Sunday matinees start at 2 pm. For more information on Love Letters at Heartland, click here. For show times and performance dates, click here. For reservation information, click here.

CUCKOO'S NEST Flies Into ISU Starting Friday

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest got its start as a 1962 novel by Ken Kesey, at the time a would-be writer who was both working the night shift at a veterans' hospital and volunteering as a subject in hallucinogenic drug experiments. Kesey was just a bit ahead of the "tune in, turn on, drop out" phenomenon, but you can see that coming in his Cuckoo world, where patients at a mental hospital are fiercely controlled and subjugated, drugged (or shocked) or otherwise beaten down to try to make them conform.

With the hit book in 1962 and a stage version by Dale Wasserman in 1963, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest hit a collective nerve about the dangerous effects of repressive authority on individuality and self-expression. Movie star Kirk Douglas took the lead role of cocky, explosive Randle McMurphy in the Broadway production that featured Gene Wilder as timid inmate Billy Bibbit and Daniel Boone's Ed Ames (who was not actually Native American, but was cast as in Indian roles fairly often) as Chief Bromden, the huge, silent man who serves as the narrator of the novel and the play.

It took till 1975 to get Hollywood to take on Cuckoo's Nest. By that time, Kirk Douglas was too old to play McMurphy, so he handed off the film rights to his son, Michael, who got it made with Miloš Forman directing Jack Nicholson in the lead role, Louise Fletcher as evil Nurse Ratched, Will Sampson, an imposing actor from the Creek nation, as the Chief, Brad Dourif as Billy Bibbit, and Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd and Vincent Schiavelli as inmates on the ward. Kesey famously dropped out of any interaction with the movie version when he found out that this story would no longer be told in the point of view of Chief Bromden, but the movie was still a major hit, sweeping the five major Oscar Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor (Nicholson) and Best Actress (Fletcher).

Lori Adams, head of the acting program at Illinois State University, directs a stage Cuckoo's Nest, with Kyle Fitzgerald as McMurphy, Kate Vargulich as his nemesis Nurse Ratched, Matt Frederick as Chief Bromden and Josh Pennington as Billy Bibbit. The rest of the cast includes Trisha Bagby, Robert Hunter Bry, Daniel Esquivel, Ryan Groves, Natalie Kozelka, Alex Levy, Lindsay Nolan, Andrew Piechota, Luke Rahtjen, Thomas Russell, Mitch Sachdev, Mario Silva and Wesley Tilford. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest opens October 23 at ISU's Center for the Performing Arts. Performances continue through the 31st, with weeknights and Saturday night at 7:30 pm and a Sunday matinee at 2 pm on the 25th. For tickets, you can go directly to Ticketmaster or call the ISU CPA box office at 309-438-2535 between 11 am and 5 pm Monday through Friday.

ISU Invites You to a Proper PRIDE AND PREJUDICE Opening Thursday at the CPA

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice is that rare bird, a popular novel that is mostly a romance but is also accepted as literature in English departments everywhere. P & P has never been out of print, it continues to sit at the top of lists of "most favorite books ever," and it left in its wake the entire Regency subgenre within the world of romance novels.

For years, modern authors have been working within Austen's era -- the narrow sliver of 1811 to 1820, or the Regency of George IV -- and writing about who is and who isn't part of the ton, weak lemonade at Almack's, dashing heroes in Hessian boots, and lovely young women who are "diamonds of the first water."

When it comes to Pride and Prejudice itself, there are at least a dozen movie and television versions, plus a Youtube series, a host of prequels, sequels and spin-offs, and in the book world, mysteries, manga, horror, chick-lit and erotica, from Bridget Jones' Diary to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, fashion and etiquette how-tos and a counting book for babies.

There are also, of course, stage versions, including two musicals and an opera. Director Lori Adams has chosen a 2011 script by Joseph Hanreddy and J. R. Sullivan as a showcase for Illinois State University's MFA actors, casting all eight of them in various roles to fill out the Regency tapestry of Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth Bennet, the second-eldest Bennet daughter who is more frank and less interested in the marriage market than seems healthy in her world, will be played by Natalie Blackman, while Robert Johnson will take on Mr. Darcy, Lizzie's romantic foil.

Colin Lawrence will play Mr. Wickham, a charming but untrustworthy suitor, while Joey Banks takes on Mr. Collins, a puffed-up clergyman whose marital prospects are also in the mix. Ronald Roman and Faith Servant have been cast as the Bennet parents, patient Mr. Bennet and dithering Mrs. Bennet, with Bethany Hart as both Caroline Bingley and Lady Catherine de Bourgh, different generations of snobby aristocrats, and Colin Trevino-Odell as Mr. Gardiner and Fitzwilliam, relatives of Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy respectively.

The other four Bennet sisters will be played by Megan Tennis, Clare Supplitt, Amanda Nach and Brittany Mounce. Rounding out the cast are Mitch Fischer as Mr. Bingley, Darcy's friend; Tynece Allen as Darcy's sister Georgiana; Julie Schmitt as Elizabeth's friend Charlotte Lucas; Larissa Strong as Mrs. Lucas, Lauren Partch as Mrs. Gardiner; as well as Ryan Engelman, Kyle Fitzgerald, Marixa Ford, Elizabeth Good, Cassie Green, Graham Gusloff, Tim Jefferson, Jessica Lubinski and Andrew Piechota in supporting roles.

ISU's Pride and Prejudice opens March 26 in the Center for the Performing Arts, with performances through April 4. For ticket information, click here or call the CPA box office at 309-438-2535 Monday through Friday between the hours of 11 am and 5 pm.

Heartland Welcomes IWU WEEKEND WITH DEANNA JENT

Heartland Theatre's production of Deanna Jent's Falling continues this week, with performances at 7:30 pm on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and a 2 pm matinee on Sunday. Although it's standard operating procedure for Heartland to do three weekends of performances, Falling stands out for Heartland in several ways.

For one, this production features the same director (Lori Adams) and scenic designer (John C. Stark) as the productions in St. Louis (the play premiered at the Mustard Seed Theatre) and New York City (off-Broadway at the Minetta Lane Theatre).

For another, there are short talkbacks -- post-scripts -- after almost every performance, allowing audience members a chance to hear more about how families and society deal with autism, since that is the challenge for the family in Falling, and to allow a backstage look at how director Adams, scenic designer Stark and the cast and crew have brought Falling to life in Bloomington-Normal. The complete schedule of post-script topics and speakers is available here.

Deanna Jent

But the biggest news about Falling this weekend is that playwright Deanna Jent, an alumna of Illinois Wesleyan University who now lives in St. Louis, will be in town for a series of events grouped under the heading IWU WEEKEND WITH DEANNA JENT. Jent's visit has been made possible by Illinois Wesleyan University and Provost Jonathan Green.

As the mother of an autistic child, Jent balances her time with a thriving theatre career. She is artistic director of the Mustard Seed Theatre, a professor at Fontbonne University and also a working director and playwright. Jent acted as the commencement speaker at last spring's IWU graduation ceremony, when her son graduated, and she wrote a piece for the IWU Magazine in 2013 about some of her Falling experiences. 

On campus, Jent will speak to theater and psychology students about Falling and her life and career, and at Heartland, she will be in the audience for the Saturday night and Sunday afternoon performances of her play on November 15 and 16. She will also be present after the show on both Saturday and Sunday to speak to audiences and take questions. And she will be there on Sunday evening for a reading of her new play, Blood Lines, which takes place in a group home for adult autistic women. That reading will feature actresses from Illinois State University, Illinois Wesleyan University and from Heartland's pool of actors. Actors Olivia Candocia (ISU), Alexa Eldridge (IWU), Debra Madans (IWU), Melissa James Shrader (Heartland) and Jaimie Taylor (ISU) will take part under the director of Dr. John Ficca, Emeritus Professor from the IWU School of Theatre Arts.

The talkback sessions with Deanna Jent will follow the performances, with the Saturday night discussion beginning at approximately 8:50 pm and the Sunday session starting at about 3:20 pm. The Sunday night reading of Blood Lines will begin at 7:30 pm. Both post-show discussions and the reading of Blood Lines will take place at Heartland Theatre, and all three are free and open to the public.

For Heartland Theatre reservation information, click here. To read more about Deanna Jent and Falling, you will definitely want to check out this essay, written by Jent in 2013.

Heartland's FALLING, Opening Nov 6, Spotlights a Family Dealing with Autism

When Heartland Theatre opens Falling, Deanna Jent's play about the challenges of living inside a family with a profoundly autistic son, it will represent Step 3 in the journey director Lori Adams has taken with this play. Adams directed the show's world premiere at the Mustard Seed Theatre in St. Louis as well as its Off-Broadway production at the Minetta Lane Theatre. And her husband, scenic designer John C. Stark, designed both productions, along with a return stand at the Mustard Seed.

What made Falling rise above all the other new plays that pop up regionally, enough to send it straight to New York? The fact that it is in part based on Jent's real life as the mother of an autistic son certainly makes it stand out. And the rising profile of autism, along with larger and larger numbers of children diagnosed somewhere on the spectrum, makes it timely and compelling.

Adams and Stark are once again on board for Heartland's take on the family drama, bringing everything they learned about Jent's script back home for the benefit of local audiences who may not have been able to get to New York or St. Louis to see it there.

For this production, Karen Hazen and Rhys Lovell, who appeared together at Heartland in Middletown in 2013, will appear as Tami and Bill Martin, the couple whose marriage is tested by the demands of their older child. Daniel Esquivel, an ISU student in the School of Theatre and Dance, will play Josh, the child in question, while fellow Redbird Ashley Pruitt will play his younger sister Lisa. The family's fragile balance begins to falter when Grammy Sue, played by Ann B. White, arrives for a visit.

Playwright Deanna Jent will add to the Falling experience with a visit to Bloomington-Normal for what Illinois Wesleyan University is calling an "IWU Weekend with Deanna Jent" over November 15, 16 and 17, including events at Wesleyan as well as Heartland Theatre. Jent will stick around after Heartland's performances on the 15th and 16th to answer questions and give the inside scoop on Falling. These after-show discussions will be free and open to the public. To cap off her weekend in B-N, Jent will be present for a reading of her brand-new play Bloodlines at Heartland at 7:30 pm on Sunday the 16th.

In addition to Jent's appearances for post-show discussions, Heartland has arranged "post-scripts" involving various issues raised in the play, from daily life and employment opportunities for people with autism to bridging the gap between theater and disability. Lori Adams, John Stark and the cast of Falling will also be available after certain performances to give their perspective on the process. For the complete list of discussions scheduled, check Heartland's Show Times page here.

Falling opens tomorrow night at Heartland Theatre with a special Pay What You Can preview performance, followed by ten performances from November 7 to the 23rd. To see the complete schedule of performances, click here. For reservation information, click here.

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

Auditions Sunday at 7 for IRON at Heartland Theatre

Heartland Theatre and director Christopher Connelly will be holding auditions on Sunday, February 9 from 7 to 9:30 pm for the upcoming production of Rona Munro's Iron. Munro is a Scottish playwright whose works have dealt with astronauts, kings, witches, class, culture, murder, violence, and a wide array of women.

Iron involves a woman named Fay, who has spent the last 15 years of her life in prison for murdering her husband. Although it's clear she did kill him, she chose to keep silent at her trial, not even trying to defend herself, and she has never revealed why she did it or what exactly happened. Her daughter Josie went to live with her dad's mom right after the crime, and she hasn't visited or communicated with her mother in the ensuing years. But now her grandmother has passed away and Josie is interested in reaching out, in finding out who her mother is and what happened all those years ago. She has almost no recollection of her father or what it was like when they were a family. When Josie enters the world of the prison to see her mother, she learns more about her mother, and she also begins to remind Fay of what it was like to live outside. Their visits are closely watched by prison guards George and Sheila, decent people trying to do their best to keep the peace and follow the rules. Fay certainly doesn't appreciate their presence, however. There are no easy answers in Munro’s wrenching look at the justice and injustice in crime and punishment.

Connelly has cast Lori Adams in the role of Fay, and he will be looking for two women and one man to fill the other roles. Here's how those roles are described:

JOSIE, 25. A smart and somewhat serious woman who has been successful professionally, but she doesn’t have much of a personal life. She was ten when her father was killed and was raised by her fraternal grandmother since the murder. She has very little memory of her father or his murder.

GUARD 1, 53. (George) Married to a “lovely, gentle” woman, with three daughters. He is taking online classes in Moral Philosophy and Theology in his spare time. He has been a prison guard for a long time and understands the world of the prison very well.

GUARD 2, 24. (Sheila) A single mother. She is not without sympathy for the prisoners she guards, but is also a realist about them. She is definitely unsentimental when it comes to Fay.

Only one night of auditions is scheduled; Connelly has indicated that he will hold callbacks at another time if necessary.

No monologues or specific material is required. Auditioners will be asked to read from the script.

Performances of Iron will begin April 17 and run through May 4, 2014. For more information, click here to see Heartland's Auditions page or here for the scoop on the entire season.

Opening Friday: ISU's DANCING AT LUGHNASA

Sisters are always popping up on the page and on the stage, from Shakespeare's Weird Sisters in Macbeth to Goneril, Regan and Cordelia in King Lear, Chekhov's Three Sisters, the March girls in Little Women, the Southern Gothic Magrath sisters in Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart, Wendy Wasserstein's New York Jewish Sisters Rosensweig, and last summer's Fail sisters at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, who found their place in Chicago in the 1920s.

Brian Friel's Dancing at Lughnasa has five sisters, not three, and they're in Ireland, not Russia. Still, it's hard not to see the similarities between Friel's women and Chekhov's. The eldest works too hard and is a schoolteacher and one of the others is smitten with an impossible love. Both sets of women are stuck somewhere provincial and suffocating, somewhere they don't want to be, and money and gender pay big parts in who can do what and go where. Each family also has a brother, and he brings complications that only make their lives more difficult. And yet... Chekhov's women are so very Russian. And Friel's are so very tied to Ireland.

Plus Lughnasa is a memory play, as our narrator, a man named Michael, steps back into the childhood he remembers, with his image of his mother and her sisters what we see on stage. There's another factor that sets the Mundy sisters apart, too, in the poverty that pervades their humble abode. Money may be a problem for the Prozorovs, but it's a grinding reality for Kate, Maggie, Rose, Agnes and Christina Mundy. But what makes Lughnasa stand apart is neither the memory play issue or the financial distress they're in. Instead, it's the sense of joy in the midst of that poverty, of dancing even when the soles of your shoes are wearing very thin.

Dancing at Lughnasa began its life in Ireland, as you might expect, in a very well-regarded production at Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1990. Much of the Irish cast traveled with the play to London and then New York, including Brid Brennan, who won a Tony Awards for her portrayal of Agnes. That production also took home Tonys for the play itself and for director Patrick Mason.

The Cusack sisters (Sorcha, Niamh and Sinéad -- who've also done Three Sisters, by the way) appeared in a 2009 London revival, while Meryl Streep joined Brid Brennan for the 1998 film version.

Lori Adams directs Dancing at Lughnasa for Illinois State University's Center for the Performing Arts in performances from November 1 to 9. Robert Johnson will play Michael, the narrator who steps back into his youth, with Faith Servant and Natalie Blackman as Agnes and Rose, and Ronald Roman as Gerry, the dashing Welshman who comes back into Christina's life at all the wrong times. Johnson, Servant, Blackman and Roman are all part of ISU's new class of MFA actors. Fiona Stephens will play Kate, the oldest and most responsible sister, while Jaimie Taylor takes on Maggie, the one who likes to laugh. Rounding out the Mundy family, Elsa Torner will play Christina, Michael's mother, and Arif Yampolsky will play Father Jack, the brother who went to Africa as a priest but came back very much changed..You can see all the details here including how to get tickets.

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.

2013 Drama Desk Awards (Including Our Very Own Nominees)

How exciting was it when Illinois Wesleyan alum Deanna Jent and Illinois State University's Lori Adams and John Stark took Jent's play Falling to New York after a smash engagement in St. Louis? Adams, who is head of acting in ISU's School of Theatre and Dance, directed Jent's play, with scenic design by Stark, who is head of design and production at ISU. The little play that could and its Minetta Lane production scored Drama Desk nominations for Jent for Outstanding Play as well as actors Daniel Everidge and Julia Murney. And that's about as major as it gets.

Broadway World photo of Jent and Adams on opening night
Photo credit: Walter McBride

Fellow nominees included the likes of Annie Baker, David Byrne, Christopher Durang, Tom Hanks, Nathan Lane, Tracy Letts, Bette Midler, Vanessa Redgrave, Tony Shalhoub and Cicely Tyson.

The Drama Desk Awards are the only major New York awards to nominate and honor Broadway, Off-Broadway and Off-Off Broadway shows in the same categories of competition. And that allows all the New York theatrical folk who cross those boundaries to be together for one night of big fun and excitement.

Sunday night, the Drama Desk Awards were handed out at Town Hall in Midtown Manhattan, with Christopher Durang's mixed-up Chekhovian comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike taking honors in the Outstanding Play category and Matilda, a musical version of the Roald Dahl novel with book by Dennis Kelly and music and lyrics by Tim Minchin, named Outstanding Musical. The Broadway transfer of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf took the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Play, while Stephen Schwartz and Roger O. Hirson's Pippin won in the Outstanding Revival of a Musical or Revue category.

Acting honors were spread around, with winners including Virginia Woolf's Tracy Letts, Cicely Tyson for her performance in The Trip to Bountiful, Billy Porter in Kinky Boots and Laura Osnes in Cinderella. In the "featured" categories, Richard Kind (The Big Knife), Judith Light (The Assembled Parties), Bertie Carvel (Matilda) and Andrea Martin (Pippin) took home the trophies.

The Outstanding Director awards both went to women directors, with Pippin's Diane Paulus and Virgina Woolf's Pam MacKinnon honored.

To see the complete list of nominees and winners, click here.

HOLIDAY SPECTACULAR Returns December 7-9 at Bloomington CPA

The Pantagraph's Holiday Spectacular takes the spectacular part of its name quite seriously, annually involving a cast and crew of over 300, plus an assortment of sheep, donkeys, goats, puppies, llamas and camels. In the past, the Holiday Spectacular has combined professional and amateur local talent that includes special needs children and adults, school groups, church choirs, the Boys and Girls Clubs, and a variety of local singers, dancers and actors.

Again this year, Nancy Steele Brokaw has written the script, and Lori Adams will direct. I can't even imagine how Adams manages to corral that many people into a unified whole, but she'll get help from musical director Kathryn Henderson, choir director Michael Schneider, children's choir director Dee Henderson, and choreographers Janet Hayslip-Streenz and Stacy Terry.

Because community involvement in the cast is so large, there's a pretty good chance you will see someone you know if you venture forth to catch the Spectacular in one of three performances from December 7 to 9 at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. If you'd like to peruse this year's cast list to look for your friends and neighbors, it's posted right here, but it may take you awhile to get through the whole thing.

That list also gives you a hint of what to expect, what with separate groups of tappers and Wooden Soldiers, as well as the Dobski Dancers, dad-and-daughter dance teams, a vocal jazz ensemble from State Farm, and a troupe of eight actors, including State Representative Dan Brady playing himself.

This picture from last year also offers clues, since presumably they'll go for the same high production values, with bright, beautiful costumes and stage effects. It looks pretty spectacular, doesn't it?

For more information on the 2012 Holiday Spectacular, check out their Facebook page and website. Ticket information is available here.

FALLING Flies High in Its Off-Broadway Home

Lori Adams

Falling, the play directed by Illinois State University professor Lori Adams, has officially opened Off-Broadway. Playwright Deanna Jent wrote Falling, about a family trying to find ways to stay a family while dealing with the challenges of an autistic child, and the play received great notices when it began its life in St. Louis, where Adams received Best Director honors from St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic Judith Newmark and the play itself took the 2012 Kevin Kline Award for Best New Play. Those notices were strong enough to earn it an Off-Broadway production at the Minetta Lane Theater, where it's been in previews, with opening night last night.

This New York production includes not only Adams as director, but also ISU's John Stark as scenic designer and former ISU faculty member Julie Mack as lighting designer.

Reviews are beginning to trickle in, and they're stellar. In today's New York Post, Frank Scheck notes that "this heartfelt and nuanced family drama is shot through with dark humor, as cathartic for the audience as it is for its conflicted characters," and he calls the action "superbly staged" by Lori Adams.

Rex Reed opens his review in the New York Observer by praising the play's "Graceful writing, great acting, exquisite direction, suspense, [and] profound subject matter..." before concluding that Falling "teaches you something and leaves you sated—and it rocks."

At Talkin' Broadway, Matthew Murray writes that Falling is a "meticulously crafted and intensely moving play, given a sterling production by director Lori Adams."

The New York Daily News also put Falling in the No. 2 spot on its list of "top 10 things on New York stages" for this week.

You can also see interviews with the cast, including lead actress Julia Murney, on this page at Broadway.com, and see pictures and ticket information at Playbill's online site. Testimonials for the play have been posted on Youtube, if you're interested in the reactions of real-live audience members.

Note that $5 from each full-price ticket purchased for performances in October will benefit Autism Speaks, the world’s leading autism science and advocacy organization.

If you, like me, are unable to get to New York in time to see Adams' Off-Broadway directorial debut, you can enjoy this picture of the marquee for the show, as posted at Playbill online. Beautiful!

Lori Adams and "Falling" Headed Off-Broadway to Minetta Lane

Lori Adams

Last year, St. Louis Post-Dispatch critic Judith Newmark awarded ISU's Lori Adams "Best Director" honors in her 2011 list of St. Loui's best theatrical endeavors for her work on the play "Falling," by Deanna Jent. As she talked about the play and why it stood out, Newmark wrote, "'Falling' comes endowed with a keen mind, a warm though troubled heart — and a future. There's hope to bring it to New York, probably Off-Broadway; productions at other theaters around the country are virtually certain."

Newmark knew whereof she spoke, as Broadway.com is reporting that "Falling," with Lori Adams once again at the helm, will receive its Off-Broadway premiere at the Minetta Lane Theater in the West Village. It's a wonderful theater, the launching pad for plays like Moises Kaufman's "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde" and Mitch Albom's "Tuesdays With Morrie."

"Falling" is scheduled to begin previews on Thursday, September 27, with its official opening night scheduled for Monday, October 15, 2012.

Jent's play involves parents trying to balance the needs of their teenage daughter and their austistic son. Or, as Playbill's listing and the banner above frame the issue: "Family is not the most important thing: it's everything. Who will be there to catch you?" Jent herself is the mother of an autistic son and Newmark noted in the article linked at the top of this piece that "Falling" is based on Jent's own family. Along with being a playwright, she is the Artistic Director of the Mustard Seed Theatre, where the play was produced in St. Louis.

For its New York production, "Falling" will feature the work of scenic designer John C. Stark, who is also Adams' husband and Head of Production/Design at Illinois State University's School of Theatre and Dance; costume designer Tristan Raines; lighting designer Julie Mack; sound designer Raymond Schilke and fight choreographer Rick Sordelet.

Adams is the head of the Acting Program at ISU, and she also directs and acts in local productions. Last season, she directed William Inge's "Picnic" as part of the ISU theater season and the annual Holiday Extravaganza at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts. She has acted in many local plays, including taking on the titular woman in Alan Ayckbourn's "Woman in Mind" at Heartland Theatre and playing Fanny Kemble in the touring one-woman show "Shame the Devil! An Audience with Fanny Kemble."

ISU's Intimate "Picnic" Unfolds in Centennial West

William Inge used the wide open spaces of Kansas to fuel a sort of claustrophobia in his "Picnic," the 1953 Pulitzer Prize winner about youth and passion, expectations and dreams, all stifled by life in a small town. In the Illinois State University production directed by Lori Adams for the tiny studio theater inside Centennial West 207, the wide open spaces (see poster above) and the claustrophobia (tiny studio theater inside CW 207) are both on display.

"Wide open" is represented by landscape paintings of wheat hung at the back of the stage and around the sides of the audience, while "closed in" is reflected both in the confined size of the playing space, with two back porches tucked inside it, and because scenic designer Eric J.J. Moslow has added a frame -- much like a large picture frame -- around what would be the proscenium if this were a full-size theater. The porches show how everybody is living in each other's pockets and getting into each other's business, while the frame hems everybody in, as well as offering a snapshot of Small Town America circa 1953, right out of a family album.

Thematically, the frame adds a nice touch. Practically, however, it blocks the view of the people sitting in line with it. I saw more than one craned neck as people tried to see who was doing what on the Owens family porch blocked by the frame.

The other limitation to the size of the Centennial West 207 space is that there is only room for one floor of the Owens home, even though the script refers to sister Madge, the pretty one, primping and getting ready in a window up on the second floor, where everybody can see her from down in the back yard. Instead of Madge up there in the window, you'll see the lights hung from the ceiling of CW 207.

Still, Inge's play's themes come across loud and clear in this production, as we see young people looking for passion or excitement or any kind of escape from the restrictions they face in this prairie town. Eliza Morris' Madge is every bit as pretty and restless as she needs to be, so that the entrance of bad boy Hal (Russell Krantz) turns her world upside-down. Morris gives Madge layers of vulnerability and self-awareness that make her a root-for character all the way through.

Krantz is boyish and brash as Hal, maybe a little too boyish to establish that Hal is a Man with a capital M. I'd also like to see a crack in Hal's bravado, showing he has been worn down by the mistakes he's made and the hard row he's been hoeing of late. Still, Krantz makes Hal energetic and athletic and fun to watch. He seems dangerous indeed, bouncing off the walls in this small space.

Betsy Diller is very good as Madge's little sis Millie, both a smarty pants and a tomboy in Diller's performance, and she creates good chemistry with Mitch Conti, striking the perfect note as Alan, Madge's country club boyfriend and Hal's old fraternity brother.

Devon Nimerfroh also stands out as Howard, a congenial salesman from a nearby town. Nimerfroh has the "Hail fellow well met" tone of that era and that kind of guy down just right.

"Picnic" has two more performances at CW 207tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 pm.

PICNIC
By William Inge

Centennial West 207
Illinois State University School of Theatre

Director: Lori Adams
Scenic Designer: Eric J.J. Moslow
Costume, Hair and Makeup Designer: Emily Nichelson
Lighting Designer: Grace Maberg
Sound Designer and Composer: James Wagoner
Fight Director: Tony Pellegrino
Dance Choreographer: Shelby Brand
Stage Manager: Danielle Wiseman

Cast: Lauren Sheffrey, Russell Krantz, Betsy Diller, Antonio Zhiurinskas, Eliza Morris, Melanie Camire, Elizabeth Keach, Mitch Conti, Tammy Wilson, Brittany Temper and Devon Nimerfroh, with offstage voices provided by Tammy Wilson, Antonio Zhiurinskas, Levi Ellis and Mitch Sachdev.

Running time: 2:20, including two 10-minute intermissions.

Temperatures Rising: "Picnic" at ISU May Heat Up Your Spring

ISU's Department of Theatre has four shows opening in the next two weeks, with the first, William Inge's "Picnic," as directed by Lori Adams, taking the stage at Centennial West 207 on Thursday night.

As you may recall, "Picnic" just won the Illinois High School Drama competition for Oak Lawn Community High School last weekend. The play was a major hit in 1953, winning a Tony for director Joshua Logan and earning a Pulitzer Prize for Inge. It also introduced Paul Newman to Broadway (but not in the lead, although he eventually did replace Ralph Meeker in that role) with his future wife Joanne Woodward attached  to the play as an understudy. The script was also turned into a fine movie in 1955, again directed by Joshua Logan, starring William Holden as sexy bad boy Hal, the guy who blows into town and turns everyone's world upside-down, with Kim Novak playing sweet and vulnerable as his romantic partner, Madge. The film version won two Oscars and was nominated for four more. (Because I can't resist an image of William Holden without his shirt on, I am giving you a look at the movie poster here.)

And in case you're keeping track, there was a Broadway revival in 1994 with Kyle Chandler of "Friday Night Lights" fame and Ashley Judd in the lead roles.

Although it isn't revived all that often, "Picnic" is a definite classic, all about two sisters, the aforementioned Madge and her tomboy sis, Millie, who live in a small town in Kansas. They squabble a bit with each other, and they are strictly controlled by their single mother, but both are yearning to breathe free and make their own decisions. And then Hal shows up next door, sweaty, hot, the kind of boy no girl can resist... Also in the mix are Rosemary, the schoolteacher who boards in their home, who pretends to be the very model of respectability even as she's desperate to snag a man; Mrs. Potts, their neighbor, who hires Hal to do some work around her house; Alan, Hal's friend from school; and Rosemary's beau, Howard, who goes along to get along most of the time.

For ISU, Eliza Morris, who starred in "Drowning Ophelia," will play Madge, with Russell Krantz, who last appeared in "Electra," opposite her as Hal. Betsy Diller has been cast as little sister Millie, Melanie Camire as the girls' mother, Flo, and Elizabeth Keach as Rosemary, the major pot-stirrer. Mitch Conti will appear as Alan and Devon Nimerfroh takes on Howard.

Director Lori Adams recently won an award from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for her directing efforts on the play "Falling," so she comes into "Picnic" on a roll. It will be very interesting to see what Adams does with the play in the intimate confines of the Centennial West Studio Theater.

"Picnic" opens with a 7:30 pm performance on Thursday the 29th, followed by shows March 30-April 1 and April 3-7. For ticket information, visit the production's Facebook page here, read this press release, or click here for their productions page. Because the venue is quite small, you would be wise to get your tickets ahead of time.