Opening Tonight: RHINOCEROS at IWU

Eugène Ionesco was really big in the 70s, when I came of age. My junior high theater teacher assigned two of his plays (The Lesson and The Bald Soprano) for a whole semester's worth of class work. I seem to recall Ionesco in my French textbook, including an image of a nose shaped like a circular stair. And I saw (and fell in love with) Rhinoceros when another high school used it for its contest play. There was no actual rhinoceros in that one, just puffs of dust as they supposedly ran by and physical work by the actors whose characters turned into them. The 1974 movie starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel, who'd played the same role in the 1961 Broadway production, also eschewed real rhinoceroses in favor of Mostel chewing the scenery. But the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis built immense rubbery rhino outfits for their production in the 80s. And that, too, worked like a charm. Or a rhinoceros.

Whether Illinois Wesleyan University is giving their prop and costume people a rhino-sized workout remains to be seem. But their own Rhinoceros, that timely parable about regular people inexplicably embracing the beasts inside (and outside) to go along with the crowd, opens tonight at 8 pm at the Jerome Mirza Theatre at McPherson Hall on the IWU campus.

Here's how IWU's press materials describe their take on Rhinoceros:

The sublime is confused with the ridiculous in this savage commentary on the human condition. A small town is besieged by one roaring citizen who finds himself turning into a rhinoceros and who proceeds to trample on the social order. As with any "disease," more citizens become infected. "An allegory for our times." - The New York Times "It’s satirical humor, combined with its provocative theme and surprisingly moving ending, results in an evening that is strange, disturbing and arresting." - New York Post

The IWU Rhinoceros stars Chris Woodley as Berenger, a listless young man who is nonetheless a holdout from rhinomania; Will Mueller as Jean, his more punctilious friend; and Maya McHowan as Daisy, the woman Berenger loves. Brooke Emmerich, Holden Ginn, Melissa Iheakam, Paola Lehman, Jean Salgado, Juna Shai, Megan Spencer, Cami Tokowitz, Tuxford Turner, Travis Ulrich, Robert Wilson and Libby Zabit will make up the rest of the rhino-ravaged town.

Rhinoceros runs from February 27 to March 4, with performances at 8 pm Tuesday through Saturday and a matinee at 2 pm on Sunday. You can order tickets online here or call the box office at 309-556-3232.

IWU Theatre 2017-18: LUGHNASA and SOUTH PACIFIC Casts, Lab Theatre Info

The new season for Illinois Wesleyan University's School of Theatre Arts will bow in October, so this is a good time to fill in some blanks on the whos, whats and wheres.

IWU previously announced the main part of their season, with four shows set for the Jerome Mirza Theatre in MacPherson Hall.

Beginning October 3, we'll see Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel's memory play about five sisters trying to stay together and find some measure of happiness in a small village in rural Ireland in the 1930s. IWU Adjunct Instructor of Theatre Arts Michael Cotey will direct, with a cast that includes Cadence Lamb, Kamilah Lay, Hailey Lechelt, Cami Tokowitz and Libby Zabit as the Mundy sisters, with Tuxford Turner as Michael, the narrator who steps back in time to tell us about his mother and aunts, Sam Hulsizer as Gerry, a charming man who waltzes in and out of youngest sisters Chris's life, and Will Mueller as Father Jack, the older brother who has returned quite changed from a mission in Africa. Dancing at Lughnasa will play for five evening performances at 8 pm October 3 through 7, with a matinee at 2 pm on the 8th.

The classic Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific will take the stage November 14 to 19, with Emily Hardesty and Madison Steele alternating in the role of cockeyed optimist and Navy nurse Nellie Forbush; Timothy P. Foszcz as planter Emile de Becque, the handsome stranger Nellie meets one enchanted evening; Holden P. Ginn as Lieutenant Cable, a young Marine called by the mysterious power of Bali Ha'i; Megan Lai and Juna Shai alternating as Liat, a beautiful young Tonkinese woman who complicates Cable's life; Paola Lehman and Kira Rangel alternating as Bloody Mary, Liat's wheeling and dealing mother; and Connor Widelka as Seabee Luther Bills, another wheeler and dealer who has a way with a coconut bra.

As we move into 2018, Eugène Ionesco's absurdist Rhinoceros, about the dangers of conformity and groupthink, will be performed February 27 to March 4, with Xanadu, a fantastical musical involving a Greek muse who visits Earth and gets into roller disco, with music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar and book by Douglas Carte Beane, scheduled for performances April 10 to 15.

And what about the E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre?

There's an October option there, too. Fault Lines by Ali Taylor, described as a "razor-sharp new comedy that exposes the dilemmas of working in charity today," is scheduled for performances October 27 to 29, with a cast that includes Andrea Froehlke, Morgan McCane, Emily Strub and Braden Tanner.

The Girl Who Fell Through a Hole in Her Sweater, a "witty adventure for young audiences" written by Naomi Wallace and Bruce McLeod, closes out the Lab Theatre season, with performances March 15 and 26.

Tickets for shows in the Jerome Mirza Theatre range from $10 to $12 for plays and $12 to $14 for musicals, with a season package option as well. Lab Theatre shows are $3 for general admission and $2 for students. For advance purchase for Fault Lines in the Lab Theatre, tickets will become available October 19 and for The Girl Who Fell March 8, 2018.

For information on the entire Mirza season, click here. For the Lab Theatre, click here.

IWU School of Theatre Arts Announces Mainstage Choices for 2017-18

Illinois Wesleyan University's School of Theatre Arts has announced via Facebook what will be on stage for the mainstage part of their 2017-18 season. No dates yet and the official IWU Theatre page is still showing last year's schedule, but at least we know what we'll seeing if not exactly when. I'm guessing checking back on that page periodically should yield a schedule at some point.

If the order of the photos indicated the order of the shows, first up will be Dancing at Lughnasa, Brian Friel's wistful, haunting memory play set in County Donegal in Ireland in 1936.  The Lughnasa in Dancing at Lughnasa refers to the August harvest festival. The five Mundy sisters are struggling to get by, from the eldest, Kate, a tightly wound schoolteacher, to Christina, the youngest, who has a child but no husband or other means of support. Their lives only get more difficult when their older brother, who'd been a Catholic missionary and chaplain in Africa, returns for unspecified reasons, but has trouble mentally balancing the world he left behind and the one he's reentered. Christina's son Michael is the narrator of the play, standing in for Friel. He appears as an adult to step back into the action of his childhood. Dancing at Lughnasa was first produced at the Abbey Theatre in Dublin, thereafter transferring to London, where it won the Olivier Award for Best Play in 1991. On Broadway, it also took the Tony for Best Play, along with awards for director Patrick Mason and Best Featured Actress in a Play for Brid Brennan, who played Agnes, the shy, tentative sister somewhat overshadowed in the middle of the family, in its Dublin, West End and Broadway productions.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1949 musical South Pacific comes next in the picture scroll. Everybody knows "Some Enchanted Evening," "Bali Hai" and "I'm Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair," right? Based on James Michener's Tales of the South Pacific, this South Pacific features music by Rodgers, lyrics by Hammerstein and book by Joshua Logan, telling the stories of Americans stationed on islands in the Pacific. There's Navy nurse Nellie Forbush, who faces her own prejudices when she falls in love with a French plantation owner named Emile de Becque who has mixed-race children; a squadron of rowdy Seabees led by Luther Bills; and Lieutenant Cable, a forthright young officer in the midst of dangerous missions and a love affair with a native woman. As a child, I remember thinking Nellie was an idiot for her bigotry against two kids who were half-Polynesian, but that's the point of South Pacific, that our prejudices are not innate or logically justifiable but "carefully taught." The original Broadway production won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and piled up ten Tony Awards, including winning Best Musical along with awards for its book, score, director, producer and scenic design, and sweeping the acting categories, with wins for leads Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza, who played Nellie and Emile de Becque, and featured actors Myron McCormick, who played Billis, and Juanita Hall, who played Bloody Mary, the enterprising mother of Cable's beautiful love interest.

Next on the list in Eugene Ionesco's absurdist drama Rhinoceros, wherein the citizens of a French town inexplicably start turning into stampeding rhinoceroses. One by one, they sprout horns and hoofs, as a lone man, Berenger, tries to hold out against the onslaught. Rhinoceros was written in 1959 and is widely regarded as a cautionary tale about how mass movements like Fascism and Nazism can take over and turn people who were once reasonable human beings into fanatical monsters. In other words, it's perfect for our current international political landscape. Although actor/producer/director/mime Jean-Louis Barrault played Berenger in the original French production and Laurence Olivier took the role in London, it was Eli Wallach who made Berrenger (now with an extra R) his own on Broadway, with Zero Mostel as his intellectual friend John (originally Jean) who turned rhino in front of his eyes. In the showier role, Mostel was the one who won the Tony as Best Actor. In the 1973 film, Gene Wilder played a new version of Berenger called Stanley, with Mostel reprising his role.

In a real change of pace from the politically and personally provocative to just plain fun, the last show in IWU's mainstage season is the roller disco musical Xanadu, based on the 1980 film that starred Olivia Newton-John as a Greek muse. On Broadway, Kerry Butler took the Newton-John role, while Cheyenne Jackson played the man she's trying to inspire. Douglas Carter Beane spruced up the book from the film script, adding more mythology and a whole lot of parody to send up the campy movie. Along with the roller skates, songs from the movie like the title song and "All Over the World" came with it from screen to stage, with added hits like "Have You Never Been Mellow?" and ELO's "Strange Magic." Click here to see Jackson, Butler and the rest of the cast perform "Don't Walk Away" on the Tonys.

In case you're wondering, it was Kelli O'Hara who was nominated but did not win the Tony for the 2010 revival of South Pacific, whose poster image you see up top, while Kerry Butler -- the blonde in the poster just above -- was nominated but did not win for Xanadu in 2008.

Watch this space for more details on all these shows as dates are added. Check here for IWU's Laboratory Theatre schedule once that's added.

What's Happening in January?

You really can’t do better than Alec Guinness in “Our Man in Havana” at the Normal Theater on January 14th and 15th, although Humphrey Bogart, all sweaty and consumed with greed in John Huston’s “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre,” may be a contender. You haven’t lived till you’ve heard Mr. Bogart growl, “Nobody puts one over on Fred C. Dobbs.” “Sierra Madre” hits the big screen on the 16th and 17th.

Community Players, which is in the middle of its 87th season, offers “Dearly Departed,” a comedy by David Bottrell, which opened on the 7th and runs till the 23rd.

Urbana’s Station Theatre opens Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros” on January 14th, running till the 30th. It’s a fine little piece of Theater of the Absurd and considered by many to be a comment on groupthink. Or Communism, Fascism, Nazism or any other movement that seems like a mindless herd of rhinoceri to you. Interesting enough, ISU is also doing “Rhinoceros” in March, so this may be your opportunity to compare and contrast.

If you have a lovely daughter, you may want to check out Herman’s Hermits (starring Peter Noone, just like in the Old Days) at the Bloomington CPA on January 22nd . Or, if Lake Wobegon is more your style, “An Evening with Garrison Keillor” of Prairie Home Companion fame may be just the ticket. That’s also at the CPA, one night only, on January 25th.