{"id":80607,"date":"2022-09-01T17:48:15","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T17:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/?p=80607"},"modified":"2022-09-07T15:37:38","modified_gmt":"2022-09-07T15:37:38","slug":"uri-theatres-season-will-take-audiences-from-mean-streets-to-fairytale-woods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2022\/09\/uri-theatres-season-will-take-audiences-from-mean-streets-to-fairytale-woods\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 Theatre\u2019s season will take audiences from mean streets to fairytale woods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Sept. 1, 2022 \u2013 The 溏心vlog免费B站 Theatre Department<\/a>\u2019s upcoming season will transport audiences from the darkest edges of the city where \u201cdreamers, dealers and desperadoes\u201d roam, to a 17th<\/sup> century London flat and the meetings of lovers and spies, to the trials of a young Black actress in 1930s Hollywood, and leave them deep \u201cInto the Woods\u201d listening to Sondheim\u2019s Tony Award-winning music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Always a diverse lineup, 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s season<\/a> will bring to the Robert E. Will Theatre stage thought-provoking and, at times, laugh-out-loud funny contemporary works by award-winning playwrights \u2013 that are equally compelling for audiences and theatre students, on stage and behind it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEach of our four productions has such an exciting and unique perspective,\u201d says David Howard, chair of the Theatre Department. \u201cWe have a lot of new plays that are being produced and we will have a lot of new guest artists joining us.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The season opens Oct. 13 with Naomi Iizuka\u2019s 1997 \u201cPolaroid Stories,\u201d<\/strong> which mixes classical mythology and real-life stories of drugs, violence, and money from kids living on the streets in society\u2019s shadows. Howard calls it \u201ca very modern and edgy piece that students are really excited about.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play, directed by guest artist Patrick Saunders, introduces street-wise kids whose characters are adapted from Ovid\u2019s \u201cMetamorphoses,\u201d an epic poem of mythic heroes and monsters. While the play has a mean-streets feel of graffiti, garbage and concrete, scenic designer James Horban is exploring a setting that recognizes the play\u2019s abstract bridging of stories tied together through mythology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Polaroid Stories\u2019 is the type of play that can be produced in a variety of ways,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s less strict about dictating the setting. From a design perspective, what was really important to me in choosing our season was having room to grow on the spectrum of realistic sets or something more open ended.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the season\u2019s second play \u2013 Liz Duffy Adams\u2019 hysterical and historical \u201cOr,\u201d <\/strong>which opens Dec. 8 \u2013 the Theatre Department is trying something a little different. \u201cOr,\u201d will be the annual student-run, full-length production, where students fill every job, from actor to director to designer. Instead of being produced on the season\u2019s fringes, the play will be part of the main productions, allowing students to throw in all the bells and whistles available. While students have an equal say in choosing each season\u2019s lineup, \u201cOr,\u201d was selected by senior Sarah Taylor, who will direct the play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Set in the 17th<\/sup> century, \u201cOr,\u201d takes place over mostly one night in the life of Aphra Behn (1640-1689), a poet, spy and soon-to-be first professional female playwright, as she tries to finish writing a play as she parries the advances of King Charles II, rubs elbows with a celebrated actress, and tests wits with a former spy colleague, in this door-slamming farce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat makes this kind of cool is it will be our period show of the year,\u201d Howard said. \u201cSo, that gives the opportunity for the student designers to really explore doing something that we would not normally do. We always support our student productions, but this time it\u2019s full on. They have full access to the shops of technical director and carpenters, and scenic artists and costume shop manager and cutters and drapers and stitchers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Feb. 23, \u201cBy the Way, Meet Vera Stark,\u201d<\/strong> by two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage, will take over Will Theatre. Based on the story of actress Theresa Harris, \u201cVera Stark\u201d follows the life of a Black maid, Gloria Mitchell, as she goes from budding actress in 1930s Hollywood to a fading star trying to hold on to her career. The play draws on screwball comedies of the era to provide an irreverent look at racial stereotypes in Hollywood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The play will be directed by Assistant Professor Rachel Walshe, who is directing another Nottage play, \u201cSweat,\u201d at the Gamm Theatre in Warwick. \u201cLynn Nottage\u2019s work is intensely relevant and human. It\u2019s political but it\u2019s always done in a very wily comic way,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you get to work on a Lynn Nottage play, that is, in and of itself, a really great season. As faculty members, our job is to give students a really diverse experience as it relates to the type of plays and the type of styles they work on while always being in the hands of excellent writers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The season closes in the spring with the annual musical \u2013 the Tony Award-winning and Academy Award-nominated \u201cInto the Woods,\u201d<\/strong> Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine\u2019s classic reworking of popular Brothers Grimm fairytales. The play, directed by 溏心vlog免费B站 lecturer Tracy Liz Miller, opens April 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The musical centers on the quest by a baker and his wife to begin a family. But they\u2019re stymied by a witch\u2019s curse. To cancel the curse, they must filch Little Red Riding Hood\u2019s cape, a lock of Rapunzel\u2019s hair, Cinderella\u2019s golden slippers, and the cow belonging to Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAnytime we produce Steven Sondheim is very exciting,\u201d said Howard. \u201cHis work is intellectual, it\u2019s smart and it\u2019s always important and always resonates. It\u2019s some of the most complex musical theater to work on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sondheim has been a popular go-to musical for the department\u2019s year-end show, probably because Howard and former chair Paula McGlasson are big fans. 溏心vlog免费B站 last produced \u201cInto the Woods\u201d in 2004 \u2013 when Howard designed costumes and played the baker. (He still sings the score in the shower every day, he said.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI am incredibly sentimental about that experience,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was really important for me and it changed how I worked with students in a lot of ways. It really hit home how invested and how hard working our students are. I’m really looking forward to the students being able to hopefully share the experience that I had with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a full list of show dates and times, go to the 2022-23 season webpage<\/a>. Tickets for all the season\u2019s shows go on sale online on Sept. 5. To buy tickets online and see up-to-date COVID-19 guidelines, click here<\/a>. Tickets may also be purchased in person starting Sept. 26 by phone at (401) 874-5843 or in person at Room 101H in the Fine Arts Center, 105 Upper College Road.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Sept. 1, 2022 \u2013 The 溏心vlog免费B站 Theatre Department\u2019s upcoming season will transport audiences from the darkest edges of the city where \u201cdreamers, dealers and desperadoes\u201d roam, to a 17th century London flat and the meetings of lovers and spies, to the trials of a young Black actress in 1930s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":80608,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80607"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":80614,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80607\/revisions\/80614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/80608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}