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Northern Illinois University

NIU Office of Public Affairs


News Release

Contact: Mark McGowan, NIU Office of Public Affairs
(815) 753-9472

July 6, 2005

NIU School of Theatre and Dance announces
productions for 2005-06 season

DeKalb — The Northern Illinois University School of Theatre and Dance has announced its 2005-06 production season.

All events take place within the three theater spaces in the Stevens Building, which houses the 450-seat O'Connell Theatre, the “black box” Players Theatre with flexible seating up to 180, and the Studio Series-only Corner Theatre, which seats 145. Mainstage productions of the Subscription Series are performed in the O'Connell Theatre and the Players Theatre.

The Stevens Building is located on West Lincoln Highway, behind the McDonald's and Pizza Hut restaurants.

The two series offer a wide variety of production styles and settings, and include several matinees planned for students from elementary school through high school. All weekday and Saturday School of Theatre and Dance performances begin at 7:30 p.m. Sunday performances start at 2 p.m. For information about school matinees and high schools nights, call the school's marketing office at (815) 753-1337.

“Alice,” NIU Professor Christopher Markle's adaptation of Lewis Carroll's story, opens the season in Players Theatre and runs Sept. 8 to 11 and Sept. 14 to 18.

The remount of an NIU production in Moscow, this is the charming tale of a proper young Victorian girl who takes the journey of a lifetime by following a white rabbit through a hole and into a world in which madness reigns and where, “I mean what I say,” is not the same thing as, “I say what I mean.” The story is all too reminiscent of the adult “real” world: brusque, impatient, demanding and rude.

“Fall Dance Concert” runs Oct. 13 to 16 in O'Connell Theatre. It's a dance extravaganza that represents the full range of dance expression and showcases the nationally recognized pre-professional training program that has placed the School of Theatre and Dance students in nationally renowned dance companies and venues throughout the United States since 1979. The fall concert features selections from the ballet, “Pas de Quatra,” and a remount from a summer tour in New York of the modern dance piece, “Crossings.”

The second of the mainstage productions, “Cinders,” by Janusz Glowacki, runs Nov. 10 to 13 and Nov. 17 to 20 in the O'Connell Theatre.

Set in a girl's reformatory school in Poland in the late 1980s, “Cinders” is a bleak, and truly accurate, depiction of adolescents oppressed and manipulated by the communist regime. A play-within-a-play, staging the classic story of “Cinderella” becomes a refuge and a hope for the girls to escape their unhappy lives, but a career enhancing propaganda film for the director. The interplay between the mindless bureaucracy running the school, the ambition of the director and the means by which the girls' dreams are taken advantage of, is a stark look at the methods of creating conformity and cooperation.

“Omnium Gatherum,” a comic drama by Theresa Rebeck and Alexandra Gersten-Vassilaros, begins the spring with shows Feb. 2 to 5 and Feb. 8 to 12 in Players Theatre.

Believing that lively, contentious debate is the heart and soul of a dinner party, a domestic artist and perfect hostess has invited an assortment of opinionated personalities to share a surreal meal. In an urgent, impassioned but comical work, the characters are guests at this exquisite feast of food and argument who confront the global implications of Sept. 11 and beyond.

“War and Peace,” Helen Edmundson's adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's epic historical novel, runs Feb. 23 to 26 and March 2 to 5 in the O'Connell Theatre. Edmundson condenses the novel's 1,000 pages into an “enthralling, imaginative, serious masterpiece” of three acts, according to “Financial Times.”

It follows the histories of five aristocratic families, members of which are portrayed against a vivid background of Russian social life during the war against Napoleon (1805-14). The theme of war, however, is subordinate to the story of family interplay and survival, exemplifying Tolstoy's optimistic belief in the life-asserting pattern of human existence.

The season's final offering, “Mahagonny Songspiel,” a satirical opera by Bertolt Brecht, runs March 30 to 31, April 1 to 2 and April 5 to 9 in Players Theatre. Brecht's script deliberately breaks down the dynamics of operatic spectatorship through bizarre visuals, disagreeable music scores, and use of non-operatic voices. The facets of classic opera are thrown off, and a satirical look at its sometimes and unavoidably inherent inaccessibility is pronounced.

“Spring Dance Concert,” which runs from April 27 to 30 in O'Connell Theatre, offers a second look at the many facets of dance expression. It features guest artists from the Mark Morris Dance Group in New York and from the School of Theatre and Dance theatre faculty, and guest choreographer Dimtri setting dance numbers specifically for SOTD students. The concert also will mark the premier performance of a multi-media and multi-disciplinary dance event based on artist Irene Belknap's “Dressed in Words” oil on linen series of paintings.

Productions scheduled for Corner Theatre include “Voices of the Oppressed – A Theatrical Collage,” from Oct. 20 to 23; Chekov one-acts, from Nov. 3 to 6; scene night, from April 3 to 4; and Storytellers Theatre, from April 20 to 23.

Subscription brochures and forms can be picked up at the NIU School of Theatre and Dance administrative office in Room 221 of the Stevens Building, or ordered by phone and returned by mail.

For more information on subscription purchases, the season and school matinees, call the school's administrative office at (815) 753-1334.

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