Who's Got the Bitch of Living in ISU's SPRING AWAKENING

The musical Spring Awakening, the first show on Illinois State University's fall schedule, has been cast. Spring Awakening is a gritty, grim, yet intensely alive sort of musical, with Duncan Sheik's pulsing alt-rock music fueling the teen angst in Steven Sater's book and lyrics. Together, they tell the story of just how dangerous it is to keep kids in the dark about their own bodies and sexual urges. Spring Awakening the musical is based on an 1891 play by German playwright Frank Wedekind, and that play was performed at ISU as part of the 2007-08 season under the title Spring's Awakening.

This time out, director Matthew Scott Campbell will be working with Colin Lawrence and Gloria Petrelli as Melchior and Wendla, the confused pair of teenagers trying to navigate a sexually repressive society, and Carlos Kmet as Moritz, Melchior's best friend, who is withering under the pressures of puberty and adolescence.

Those roles were filled by Jonathan Groff, Lea Michele and John Gallagher, Jr., in the original Broadway production that won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, Best Featured Actor (for Gallagher), Best Book, Best Score, Best Direction, Best Orchestrations, Best Choreography and Best Lighting Design. The show's steam-punk-meets-rock-and-roll spirit made it a sensation, putting Groff, Michele and Gallagher on the road to stardom. You can get a hint of that rebellious look and energy in the photo below from the Broadway production. Duncan Sheik's unrelenting beat and Sater's twisted, profane lyrics, showcased in knickers, skinny ties, strange hairdos and black socks against a bare-bones set, gave Wedekind's old story a real kick.

For ISU, the Spring Awakening cast will include Joey Banks, Christine Duris, Nina Ganet, Josh Gouskos, Bethany Hart, Ali Lockenvitz, Anne Olson, Gabriella Rivera, Mitchell Schaeflein, Nico Tangorra, Colin Trevino-Odell, and Abby Vombrack, in performances September 27 to October 5 in the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts.

Click here for ticket information. Tickets for Spring Awakening are already available at Ticketmaster, and you will be able to get info and tickets for all the fall shows through the CPA box office after August 26.

When Bad Things Happen to Good J.B.: Theology as a Circus at ISU

Archibald MacLeish's J.B., a reworking of the Job story in the Bible, was all the rage back in 1959. Its inaugural Broadway production earned the Tony Award for Best Play, and the play itself took the Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as a gushing piece called "The Birth of a Classic" from The Saturday Review's poetry editor John Ciardi. J.B. was "not only an intrinsically great play," wrote Ciardi, but one that set "the model from which great poetic drama may hope to flow in our times."

Pretty heady stuff for a verse drama about Job set in a lowly circus, with God represented by a balloon seller and Satan by a popcorn peddler.

So how well does J.B. survive for our times? There's certainly still plenty of suffering to go around, and plenty of people wondering what faith is for if you're just going to suffer, anyway. J.B. doesn't necessarily provide the answers, or even redemption for poor Job, but it does offer a chance to discuss how limited some of the options are.

Under the direction of Matthew Scott Campbell for Illinois State University, MacLeish's J.B. certainly looks great. Megan J. Lane's big-top set is beautiful as well as mysterious and a little scary, and Lauren M. Lowell's costumes provide an excellent match. The motley coats, steampunk personifications of History, Religion and Science, and the White Clown's entire outfit are especially impressive. Harrison Hohnholt's lighting design helps define good and evil, and the grand masks and one creepy puppet created by Brittany Powers, Mary Rose and Mark Spain also add to the atmosphere and tableau.

The set for J.B. designed by Megan J. Lane.

Actors Andrew Rogalny and Matthew Hallahan are as grand and crafty as they need to be to play God and Satan, respectively, and Tommy Malouf does both the slick-and-prosperous and miserable-wretch sides of Job quite well, while Audra Ferguson is sympathetic as Job's equally put-upon wife. Martin Hanna, Alex Kostner and Sara Shifflet make the trio of "comforters" dark and dangerous, with Hanna and David Zallis also coming up strong as various messengers of bad news.

The White Clown is director Campbell's own addition to MacLeish's circus world -- the character is more of a Charon than a Bozo -- and Christopher Bryant gives the role a definite sense of presence as well as adding meaning to the action without saying a word. His final stage picture is especially strong.

Visually, this J.B. definitely works, with enough tricks and acrobatics to keep it engaging.

But the script... MacLeish's words are not the most accessible, and Ciardi's assessment that J.B. is one from whom all verse drama thereafter flows is not really supported in performance. In the end, the squabble between Satan and God, with Job getting in a few licks at the end, too, seems peevish and overwrought more than profound. Is God good? Is good God? Is love really the answer? I dunno.

J.B.
by Archibald MacLeish

The School of Theatre and Dance at Illinois State University
Westhoff Theatre

Director: Matthew Scott Campbell
Scenic Designer: Megan J. Lane
Costume Designer: Lauren M. Lowell
Lighting Designer: Harrison Hohnholt
Voice and Text Director: Connie de Veer
Prop Master: Katie McCasland
Stage Manager: Gianna Consalvo

Cast: Julia Besch, Colleen Besler, Hannah Brown, Christopher Bryant, Eddie Curley, Audra Ferguson, Matt Hallahan, Martin Hanna, Tommy Malouf, James Keating, Alex Kostner, Mary Leake, Patrick O'Gara, Joshua Pennington, Andrew Rogalny, Sara Shifflet, Chana Wilczynski. Taylor Wisham and David Zallis.

Remaining Performances: February 27-28 and March 1-2 at 7:30 pm

Running time: 2:10, including one 15-minute intermission

For ticket information, click here.

Cast Set for J.B. at ISU Next February

Auditions are done, and all the actors have been cast for Illinois State University's winter/spring season. If you're looking forward to the next batch of ISU shows and you're wondering who will be playing whom, you can start with the Oklahoma! cast here. That rip-roarin' musical begins February 22, 2013, at the Center for the Performing Arts. But the night before Oklahoma! takes its first bow, you can start the season with Archibald MacLeish's J.B. on February 21. Here's the low-down on the cast for that one.

J.B. is a verse play, written in 1958, taking up the Biblical story of Job set under the big top of a traveling circus, as a balloon vendor and a popcorn seller tell the tale of a wealthy banker who loses everything but his faith in God. The original Broadway production starred Raymond Massey and Christopher Plummer as Zuss and Nickles, the two vendors, and Pat Hingle as J.B. Basil Rathbone -- Sherlock Holmes himself -- came in as a Mr. Zuss replacement in that production. The show played for 364 performances and won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as Tony Awards for Best Play and for director Elia Kazan.

For Illinois State University, Matthew Scott Campbell will direct, with a cast that includes Andrew Rogalny, Jr., as Mr. Zuss and Matt Hallahan as Nickles. Rogalny recently appeared as the hypocrite of a Chaplain in Mother Courage and Her Children, while Hallahan was sweet, dopey Freddy the nose-bleeder in Noises Off. Tommy Malouf, who played Eilif, Mother Courage's bloodthirsty son, will play J.B., the banker whose faith is so severely tested by God. That is quite a departure!

Others in the cast include Audra Ferguson as Sarah, J.B.'s wife; Chris Bryant as the White Clown, a role created for this production; and Julia Besch, Colleen Besler, Hannah Brown, Eddie Curley, Martin Hannah, James Keating, Mary Leake, Joshua Pennington, Sara Shifflet, Chana Wilczynski, Taylor Wisham and David Zallis in the ensemble.

Performances of J.B. are scheduled for Westhoff Theatre from February 21 to March 2, 2013.