Theatre and dance use languages of movement, light, darkness, spoken word and deep quiet to communicate with audiences. Our theme this year gives voice to displaced persons, the poor, targets of hate crimes, and citizens struggling with trauma – in many instances showing how humor and solidarity are crucial strategies in giving voice, refusing silence. 

Fall 2011 Productions

 
“THE INLAND SEA” BY NAOMI WALLACE

directed by Beth Cleary 

NOVEMBER 11, 12, 17, 18 AND 19 AT 7:30 P.M. 
NOVEMBER 13 AT 2:00 P.M.!  

This is the U.S. premiere of MacArthur "genius" playwright Naomi Wallace's play about 1760s rural England:  the landed gentry want the landscape to look just so, and the peasants who will be displaced to make the perfect views start to feel their collective strength in numbers.  The play pits class against class, man against woman, living against dead -- in Wallace's evocative language, provocative scenes, and vision of complex hope. 

FALL DANCE CONCERT

DECEMBER 9 AND 10 AT 7:30;  DECEMBER 10 AT 2:00

Featuring choreography by Theatre and Dance faculty members that includes a range of contemporary movement styles addressing the theme of Voices of the Silenced.  

Macalester dance alumna Mikari Suzuki returns from Japan to create a work for select dance students.  

Spring 2012 Productions

“STOP KISS” BY DIANA SON 

directed by Cheryl Moore Brinkley 

FEBRUARY 17, 18, 23, 24 AND 25 AT 7:30 
FEBRUARY 19 AT 2:00

Variety called Stop Kiss, "A poignant and funny play about the ways, both sudden and slow, that lives can change irrevocably.” Follow the nascent relationship of savvy New Yorker Callie and Midwestern idealist Sara, flipping in time before and after a horrific assault provoked by the couple’s first kiss. Callie must make up her mind about her life, identity and, ultimately, love. 

“THE LARAMIE PROJECT” BY MOISES KAUFFMAN AND THE TECTONIC THEATRE PROJECT 

directed by Harry Waters Jr 

APRIL 5, 6, 7 12, 13 AND 14 AT 7:30 
APRIL 7 ALSO AT 2:00 

Research for the The Laramie Project, Moisés Kaufman’s internationally successful play, began one month after a horrific crime occurred in the city of Laramie, Wyoming. In 1998, Matthew Shepard, a twenty-one-year-old gay student registered at the University of Wyoming, was tied to a cattle fence, beaten about the head, robbed, and left to die on a bitterly cold night in October.

The play is based on more than 400 interviews with about 100 Laramie residents, as well as journal entries from the members of Tectonic Theater Project and Kaufman, as they reflect on their own reactions to the crime and to the interviews they carried out. Structured as a documentary, it attempts to reenact the events that occurred on that fateful night. Was this a hate crime? Or was it a random, senseless assault and robbery? No matter which, Kaufman’s objective was to explore the issues of homosexuality, religion, class, economics, education, and non-traditional lifestyles through the residents’ raw responses to the incident. 

SPRING DANCE CONCERT

APRIL 27 AND 28 AT 7:30 
APRIL 28 AT 2:00 

Dance students rise to the challenge of producing, choreographing and performing in this concert. They bring forth an eclectic blend of modern, ballet, jazz and hip-hop dance.