Moliere's SCHOOL FOR WIVES Up Next at ISU

When looking for classics, college theatre programs often land on Moliere. Moliere (or Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, which is his real name) isn't as familiar as Shakespeare, as talky as Shaw or as sad as Chekhov, plus his critiques of privilege and pomposity are still funny and still as much on target as they were in the 17th century.

Next week, Illinois State University's Department of Theatre and Dance returns to Moliere for the first time since 2008, when Tartuffe was on the bill, bringing The School for Wives to Westhoff Theatre. School for Wives is a comedy, of course, with humor that punctures the arrogance of a man of position who is so afraid of being cheated on that he brings up his beautiful young ward in a nunnery with the idea of marrying her himself before she can meet any other men.

MFA directing candidate Jonathan Hunt Sell directs a cast that includes Dario Carrion as Arnolphe, the middle-aged man trying to maneuver an innocent young woman into marriage; Natalie Kozelka as Agnes, the woman in question; and Kaitlyn Wehr as Horace, the young man she meets and falls in love with when Arnolphe isn't looking.

You will notice that Sell has gender-bent Horace as a comment on the sexual politics at work in the play. The other roles are played straight, however, with Nicholas Spindler and Eliza Palumbo as Arnolphe's servants, Bryson Thomas as a friend who tries to steer his old pal Arnolphe away from the errors he's making, and Aaron Thomas and Sam Willis as a pair of deux ex machina fathers who arrive on the scene just in time.

The School for Wives opens February 26 at 7:30 pm in Westhoff Theatre, with additional evening performances on the 27th and 28th as well as March 3, 4, 5 and 6. There is one matinee scheduled for March 1 at 2 pm.

For more information on ISU's entire season, visit this page on their website. Click here for ticket information.

Catching February Theatre Fever

Time to get your February calendar ready!

Along with Oscar-nominated short films, the Art Theater Co-op in Champaign is currently showing M, Fritz Lang's masterpiece of German expressionism. It's a creepy film about a child murderer (played by young Peter Lorre in his third film) on the loose in pre-World War II Berlin, a city of deep shadows and lurking evil. You can read Roger Ebert's take on M here.

Back on the Oscar theme, upcoming at The Art will be Selma, Foxcatcher and Still Alice, all nominated in various categories.

Foxcatcher is also on the bill at the Normal Theater, with this story about multimillionaire John du Pont (played by Steve Carrell), a man obsessed with Olympic wrestling and brothers Mark and Dave Schultz (Channing Tatum and Mark Ruffalo), on screen on February 7 and 8.

Illinois State University Theatre's year begins with Cabaret, opening February 12 in ISU's Center for the Performing Arts. Duane Boutte directs a cast that includes Paige Brantley as Sally Bowles, the American girl who sings at the seedy Kit Kat Club in Berlin. In fact, the low-rent Kit Kat Club could've been right down the street from the goings-on in M, above. Jimmy Keating will play Cliff, the Englishman who enters Sally's life as the Nazis rise to power around them, and Alex Levy will portray the Emcee, the sardonic, decadent ringmaster at this shady place. Check out the show's Facebook page for more information.

Heroes, based on a French play by Gerald Sibleyras that was translated and adapted by award-winning playwright Tom Stoppard, opens February 12 at Heartland Theatre. A lighter, sweeter piece with nary a trace of physics or politics, Heroes is a bit of a departure for Stoppard. It focuses on three men, all veterans of World War I, who are stuck in a retirement home for old soldiers. Each has his own mental or physical problem, but together, they plot a way out of their confinement. Will they make it off their terrace? Over the wall? To the poplars in the distance? Come out to Heartland to see Joe Penrod, George Peterson-Karlan and Todd Wineburner bring Heroes to life from February 12 to 28, with a panel discussion scheduled after the February 22 performance. The discussion topic is Theatre and War, with historiography scholars Dr. Will Daddario and Dr. Joanne Zerdy offering their take on why theatre artists come back to war as a topic again and again. Check out Heroes showtimes here to make your choice.

Over at Illinois Wesleyan, February kicks off with Where in the World Is Frank Sparrow? by Angela Betzien. Frank Sparrow is described as "a stark urban reality" combined with "a mythic underworld." IWU offers six performances in McPherson Theatre between February 17 and 22. For more information, click here.

ISU is also offering Moliere's classic School for Wives this month. Natalie Kozelka and Kaitlyn Wehr star as thwarted young lovers Agnes and Horace, with Dario Carrion as Arnolphe, the middle-aged man keeping them apart. Agnes is his ward, and Arnolphe wants her for himself. Given that it's Moliere, have no fear -- Arnolphe's plans will come to naught. But it's going to take a lot of plots and counterplots to make that happen. MFA director Jonathan Hunt Sell takes the reins on this gender-bent version of The School for Wives, scheduled for performances in Westhoff Theatre from February 19 to March 6.

February 22 is Oscar night, where Hollywood luminaries gather to celebrate their favorite directors, performers and films from 2014. Will Birdman stave off Boyhood for Best Picture? Can Eddie Redmayne take Best Actor from Michael Keaton? Can anybody stop Julianne Moore? (No, no one can stop Julianne Moore.) See all the gowns, the glamor and the heartbreak starting at 6 Central time on ABC on the 22nd.

Romeo and Juliet is Eureka College's February choice, bringing the Montagues and Capulets into the 21st century as rival political factions instead of warring families. Eureka's R and J begins February 25 in Pritchard Theatre.

The world premiere of Hostage by Kim Pereira opens New Route Theatre's 2015 season. New Route tells us that "[t]his powerful play, a semi-finalist at the Eugene O'Neill Center National Playwrights Conference, is set somewhere in the Middle East against the complicated backdrop of ISIS, the West Bank, and Arab-American relations." Directed by guest director Tom Palmer from Atlanta, Georgia, Hostage features Dan Irvin and Rhys Lovell, two of the best actors you'll find in these parts. Performances are scheduled for February 26 to 28, March 1 and March 5 to 8. New Route's new space is at 814 Jersey Avenue in Normal, and tickets will be available at the door. You can reserve a spot by calling 309-827-7330 or e-mailing new.route.theatre@gmail.com

And that should take you from one end of February to the other with plenty of entertainment...

What's Ahead on ISU Stages in 2014-15

Illinois State University's Department of Theatre and Dance has announced what will be on stage in the Fall of 2014 and Spring of 2015. And it's an ambitious and intriguing lineup, with lots of new work, lots of female playwrights, and lots of roles for actors of color.

The first play on the schedule will be Sarah Ruhl's funny, provocative take on women, sexuality, and the birth of the vibrator in the 19th century. In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) will be directed for ISU's Center for the Performing Arts by David Ian Lee, an MFA director who earned rave reviews for his production of Perestroika last semester. The Vibrator Play was originally directed by Les Waters, the current Artistic Director at Actors Theatre of Louisville, for Berkeley Rep in California; Waters then took the play to Broadway with a production that starred Laura Benanti and Michael Cerveris and earned Tony nominations for the play, David Zinn's Victorian costume design, and featured actress Maria Dizzia. The play was also a nominee for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Lynn Nottage, the playwright behind By the Way, Meet Vera Stark, also slated for the CPA this Fall, is no stranger to the Pulitzer Prize. Her play, Ruined, was the 2009 winner of that prestigious prize. Vera Stark is more humorous and more lively than Ruined, telling the story of an African-American woman who works as a maid for a Hollywood diva. But then Vera gets a role on screen as a maid -- the maid to her boss's Southern belle in some epic historical romance film -- and the fact that her sparkling performance upstages everybody does not go unnoticed. She had a career. She had suitors. She went to the best parties. So what happened to Vera Stark? Nottage's play is irreverent and a little wacky, and it will serve as the Crossroads production for the season. Don LaCasse is on tap to direct the ISU version of By the Way, Meet Vera Stark.

And here's that Pulitzer word again. The third play on ISU's schedule is a Pulitzer winner from yet another female playwright. Water by the Spoonful is Quiara Alegría Hudes's second play in a three-play series about a soldier named Elliot who has issues when he comes back to the U.S. The first play, Elliot, a Soldier's Fugue, was nominated for a Pulitzer in 2007, while the third Elliot play, The Happiest Song Plays Last, premiered at Chicago's Goodman Theatre last year. Elliot, his cousin, his biological mother and an online circle of recovering addicts populate Water by the Spoonful, a lyrical, innovative play about connections, guilt and forgiveness. Third-year MFA candidate Leah Cassella will direct Water by the Spoonful in Westhoff Theatre.

Going from Quiara Alegría Hudes to Noel Coward is quite a jump. Although Illinois Wesleyan just did Hay Fever last semester, ISU director Sonja Moser is going to go for her own take on the Coward classic. Instead of Spoonful's disconnected cyberworld of 2012, Hay Fever is all about the 1920s during a weekend at an eccentric family's country house. Tennis, anyone? It's lighter than air, fizzy and charming. What in the world will Moser do with it? I guess we'll find out next Fall in Westhoff Theatre!

The last piece of the 2014 puzzle is the annual Fall Dance Concert, under the direction of Sara Semonis, Artistic Director of Illinois Dance Theatre.

As we move into 2015, ISU assistant professor Duane Boutté will bring the Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret, based on the Joe van Druten play I Am a Camera, itself based on Christopher Isherwood's autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin, to the Center for the Performing Arts. The original Broadway Cabaret and its decadent view of life in Berlin in the 1930s won eight Tony Awards back in 1967, including Best Musical, Best Composer and Lyricist for John Kander and Fred Ebb, Best Director for Hal Prince and Best Featured Actor for Joel Grey, who played the seedy, scary Emcee. Grey reprised his role and won an Oscar for his role in the 1972 movie directed by Bob Fosse, a film that took home eight Oscars, including Best Director and Best Actress for Liza Minnelli. That's Liza at the top of the heap in the movie poster shown here.

Moving back in time and somewhere in the neighborhood of a thousand miles to the east, Anton Chekhov's The Seagull will take the stage at the CPA later in the Spring semester. The Seagull was written in 1895 and its first production was a famous flop. But Stanislavski's 1898 production for the Moscow Art Theatre turned it into a sensation. It's about the interaction and complications between and among a fading actress named Arkadina, her lover Trigorin, who is a writer; her would-be playwright son Treplev; and a young woman named Nina, as well as various other characters who live on the country estate owned by Arkadina's brother Sorin. The Seagull was last performed at Illinois State University as part of the 2004-05 season. This time out, Lori Adams, who heads up the Acting program at ISU, will direct.

Second-year MFA director Jonathan Hunt Sell will twist and (gender-bend) Moliere's classic comedy The School for Wives for Westhoff Theatre, giving Moliere the "Drag and Breeches" treatment with men playing the female roles and women playing the male ones. So the gents will be in dresses -- fancy 17th century French couture -- and the ladies will be in breeches. That should upend and refresh this tale of a creepy guy named Arnolphe and his attempts to keep his innocent ward, Agnes, cooped up and stupid so she won't fall in love and he can marry her himself.

Sell's colleague Jessika Malone, the other second-year MFA candidate in directing, also looks outside the U.S. for her play. She has chosen Selkie: Between Land and Sea, a mystical, mythical Scottish piece by Laurie Brooks, for her Spring production in Westhoff. The legend of the selkie is a cross between a mermaid story and the Swan Princess, with a girl who becomes a seal when in the sea, but a woman when on land. Laurie Brooks has also written a book version of her story, simply called Selkie Girl, and that's the image you see here.

All the details on Illinois State University's schedule will appear here and here once the current season is finished. 

Translating "Tartuffe" at IWU

Molière's "Tartuffe" is a tough assignment for college theater. It's not just that it's farce. Or that it's French farce. Or that it's French farce from the 17th century. Or that it's French farce from the 17th century written in rhyming couples.

Okay, maybe it is the rhyming couplet thing.

Most translations of "Tartuffe" keep the couplets, including the one by Richard Wilbur, which is considered to be high on the list of top translations of Molière's work. But those couplets... Actors have a tendency to fall into a singsong rhythm, to sink into the rhymes, losing the sense of their lines. But without the rhymes, it doesn't feel like the complete Molière experience. And that's what makes it so tough to pull off.

What's it all about? As you might expect, it's about a man named Tartuffe, a greedy hypocrite pretending to lead others on the path to virtue while feathering his own nest at every opportunity. A wealthy man named Orgon is now buying whatever Tartuffe is selling, hook, line and sinker; he is so thoroughly smitten that he is willing to put Tartuffe before his lovely wife, Elmire, his children, and any semblance of good sense, no matter how much his family and his servants, including saucy maid Dorine, protest. Even though Tartuffe doesn't really hit the stage until almost an hour in, he is still the center of attention, as foolish Orgon refuses to see what a dupe he has become.

Illinois Wesleyan's current production of "Tartuffe," directed by Nancy Loitz, looks very good. Curtis Trout's elegant set is simple and smart, using pillars and a chair or two instead of the overdone Frenchified drawing rooms with ten or twelve doors and a million knickknacks you normally see when Molière is in play. Marcia K. McDonald's costume design is also smart, sticking to the period and identifying characters through color (Elmire sizzles in an orangey pink, while ingenue Mariane gets pale yellow) and level of frippery. I was a little surprised to see Tartuffe himself, the fake pinnacle of piety, not decked out in all black like the Puritan he pretends to be (or the one you see in IWU's poster shown below).

As played by Chase Miller, this Tartuffe looks pale and waifish, with long, lank hair and a pronounced limp. He's been described as red and round and rosy, but he is decidedly not. Miller gives his all to the role, but he looks more like the Aqualung cover than a 17th century religious leader.

Still, the audience on opening night was very appreciative of the comedy stylings of the entire cast, with Miller's Tartuffe, Amy Stockhaus's Dorine, Rosalie Alspach's Mariane, Kate Fitzgerald's Elmire, and Josh Conrad's Orgon earning an especially enthusiastic response.

TARTUFFE
A play by Molière
Translation by Richard Wilbur

McPherson Theatre
Illinois Wesleyan University

Director: Nancy B. Loitz
Scenic Designer: Curtis C. Trout
Costume Designer: Marcia K. McDonald
Lighting Designer: Krystal Martinez
Sound Designer: Kamaya Thompson
Stage Manager: Raven Stubbs
Dramaturg: James Matthews

Cast: Allyce Torres, Josh Conrad, Kate Fitzgerald, Blake Bauer, Rosalie Alspach, Zach Wagner, Ian Coulter-Buford, Chase Miller, Amy Stockhaus, Elliot Plowman, Josh Levinson, Casey Cudmore.

Performances through February 19, 2012. Click here for box office information.

Very Warm for February

Yes, February is here, whether we like it or not. It's certainly coming in as a nicer February than last year, when we were in the midst of the Snowpocalypse. I'll take Very Warm for February, thanks.

First up in February: The Black Actors Guild at ISU presents "Purlie Victorious," also known as "Gone Are the Days!" with screenings in Milner Library Room 164D on February 1 and 6 at 7 pm. This 1963 movie, with a screenplay by Ossie Davis adapted from his stage play, stars Davis himself as Reverend Purlie Victorious Judson, who returns to the Southern plantation where he grew up, with his fiancee (played by Ruby Dee, Davis's real-life wife) in tow, hoping to build a church and by hook or by crook pry an inheritance out of a bigoted plantation owner (Sorrell Booke, known from "The Dukes of Hazzard") and his more progressive son (Alan Alda, in his first film role).

The Sondheim/Furth musical "Company" opens the month for the Station Theatre, bringing bachelor Bobby and his search for emotional connection back to Urbana from February 2 to 18. Featuring the soaring"Being Alive" as well as the comedy showstopper "Getting Married Today," "Company" is a very entertaining, thought-provoking show. Are friends enough, or does everybody need a partner? Is anybody better off alone? How do you get beyond being "Sorry/Grateful"? Karma Ibsen-Riley directs "Company" for the Station, with Debra Dobbs as Musical Director.

"The Last Days of Judas Iscariot" also opens February 2, in the Studio Theatre inside the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Urbana. It's a courtroom drama set somewhere in Purgatory, with Judas and his lawyer petitioning for mercy and a ride out of Hell. Read more about this Stephen Adly Guirgis play and the U of I Department of Theatre production here.

"Tartuffe," the Moliere classic that punctures pomposity and religious hypocrisy, will take the stage at Illinois Wesleyan's McPherson Theatre February 14 to 18 at 8 pm and February 19 at 2 pm. Professor of Theatre Arts Nancy Loitz directs "Tartuffe" for IWU. It's a popular choice for college theaters (I think I saw one at ISU just a few years ago, and one at U of I a few years before that) but always good for a laugh, too. Who doesn't like to see a phony baloney religious leader, who pretends to be a paragon of spiritual virtues while he's really filled with lust and greed, brought down? To see that, you can either watch the news or go see "Tartuffe" at IWU.

Heartland Theatre gears up for 2012 with Theresa Rebeck's "Mauritius," which Rebeck has described as a play about, ""Betrayal and treason and poor behavior. A lot of poor behavior.” This little drama involves stamps from the island nation of Mauritius that were printed wrong in 1847. Because of the mistake, the stamps are incredibly valuable, and they may just have shown up in a stamp album left to two sisters when their mother passed away. Which sister really owns the album and the Mauritius stamps? Which of the three men -- a stamp store owner, a wheeler dealer and a greedy collector -- who desperately want the stamps will prevail in the game of cat-and-mouse they all begin to take control? "Mauritius" is directed by Sandi Zielinski and stars Sarah Stone Innerst, Andrew Head, Michael Pullin, Nancy Sultan and Kevin Paul Wickart in the Heartland Theatre production, which opens February 16 and runs through March 4.

Sarah Ruhl has been a hot playwright for a while now, and she's only getting hotter. "Passion Play," a sweeping and yet intimate play about three different incarnations of the traditional Passion Play, one in medieval England, one in Oberammergau, Germany, with Hitler in power, and the last in South Dakota during the Reagan years, comes to ISU's Center for the Performing Arts February 17-25, with a cast that includes Owais Ahmed, Matt Bausone, Caitlin Boho, David Fisch, Frank Huber, Ashlyn Hughes, Keith Jackewicz, Clayton Joyner, Carlos Kmet, Jeff Kurysz and Brody Murray. Click here for my previous piece which includes a more detailed description of the play, or here for ticket information about ISU's production.

If you're trying to catch up with Oscar-nominated movies before February 26, when the Academy Awards show airs on ABC, you have quite a few options. Yes, some of the films have already left theaters, but Comcast On Demand is offering quite a few of them ("Beginners," "Bridesmaids," "The Help," "The Ides of March," "Midnight in Paris, "Moneyball," "The Tree of Life," and "Warrior," at the time I checked.) Otherwise, "Hugo" and "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" are playing at the Starplex Normal Stadium," "The Descendants" is still showing in three first-run movie theaters in B-N, "War Horse," "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" and "The Artist" are at the Wehrenberg Bloomington Galaxy, and "The Artist" is also on screen at the Art Theater over in Champaign. If you want to see "The Artist" in an older theater that dovetails nicely with the plot of the movie, the Art is your best shot. And if you want to see "Hugo" in an older movie theater that dovetails nicely with the plot, our very own Normal Theater can make your dreams come true. "Hugo" will air on the Normal Theater's wonderful big screen February 23-26.

The Normal Theater is also showcasing Oscar's favorite short films from 2011, with programs of the nominated Documentary Shorts February 14 and 15, Live Action Shorts February 16 and 17, and Animated Shorts on the 18th and 19th. I've seen one of the Animated Shorts, and that one alone was so lovely I think I'm going to have to go see the whole bunch. The one I saw was called "The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore," created by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg. If you'd like to know what's nominated in those categories (as well as all the others), you may click here.

And on the local front, the Vale Community Players at Vale Community Church in Bloomington will present "Seasons of Love" February 23 and 24. I don't have a whole lot of info about this production, but it popped up as a Facebook page, so I know they're out there somewhere.