Hamlet
Mask and Bauble, October 24-28, at Poulton Hall on campus. Tickets are $8 for students.
You shouldn’t need convincing to see Hamlet, one of the greatest works of literature in the English language. Mask and Bauble is jazzing it up a little—rather than 12th century Denmark, this one is set in a capital city, “much like Washington D.C.” But the iconic parts of the story will still be there: drownings, implied illicit sex, moody prince, comic gravediggers, scandal, intrigue, deception, corruption, questionable psychological motives. And a chance to see someone you usually encounter hunched over a laptop in Sellinger debate suicide while holding a skull.
Auditions are Friday, August 31st from 7 p.m.-11 p.m. and Saturday, September 1st from 1 p.m. –4 p.m., if you want to try and pull an Ethan Hawke.
The Exonerated
Nomadic Theater, October 17-21 at Walsh Black Box on campus. Tickets are $9.
Political dramatic realism at its finest, The Exonerated tells the stories of six people wrongfully accused of crimes, who, once vindicated, tell their stories. The script is taken from interviews, reports and court records of actual cases. Be prepared for some seriously searing condemnations.
Auditions are Thursday August 30th 7pm–11 p.m. and Friday August 31st 7 p.m.–11 p.m. Go and assuage your liberal guilt.
Trees and Ghosts
Davis Performing Arts Center, November 8-November 17th. Tickets are $7 for students.
This one sounds unique—a “multimedia” production based on three graphic novels by Tezuka Osamu, considered the “father” of manga-style comics. The production involves video, drawing on stage, drums, nature and World War II; its like a Hayao Miyazaki movie, but live! Audition information to be posted soon.
My Trip to Al-Qaeda
Kennedy Center, September 22-24, 2007, tickets are $35.
A trip to the Kennedy Center is always fun: the river, the lit-up building, feeling sophisticated and cultured. This play combines those sentiments with lots of juicy politico-religious controversy for SFS-types, and good old-fashioned drama for everyone else. My Trip to Al-Qaeda is based on the best-selling book The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11, and details the rise of radical Islam, its effects on terrorism and terrorism’s effect on us. Tickets available from the Kennedy Center web site.
Lazarus Syndrom
Theater Alliance at the H Street Playhouse, 1365 H Street, NE. August 16-September 9, tickets are $30.
Lazarus Syndrome revolves around subjects tragically underexplored in theatrical drama—gays, AIDS, Jews and the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Despite the familiarity of the milieu, the play has gotten great reviews and apparently does have something new to say. An AIDS-ridden gay man, depressed about the friends he’s lost and wracked with survivor’s guilt, gets a visit from the brother he hasn’t seen in years; their father shows up, and they discuss life, suffering and love while making Shabbes dinner. One assumes revelations ensue.
Tickets at www.theateralliance.com.
