Drama Department

Productions

2018

REVOLT. SHE SAID. REVOLT AGAIN.

by Alice Birch
Directed by Miranda Cornell '19
Senior Project Members: Miranda Cornell '19, Samantha Leftt '19, Kaitlin Prado '19
A wildly experimental and inventive new play that does not behave. Playwright Alice Birch has put together a grouping of vignettes that ask how to revolutionize language, relationships, work, and life in general while bursting at the seams of conformity.
Campus Guests Only - Reservations required
8:00pm
sponsored in part by the E.J. SAFIRSTEIN '83 Memorial fund

October 25, 26, 27, 2018
Powerhouse Theater

THE EFFECTS OF GAMMA RAYS ON MAN-IN-THE-MOON MARIGOLDS

by Paul Zindel
Directed by Lily Berman '19
Senior Project Members: Lily Berman '19, Katie Scibelli '19, Jake Shepherd '19, Yael Haskal '19
In the Hunsdorfer home, the windows are covered with newspaper, the children tiptoe around their mother, and flowers bloom in the dark. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is a play about trying to grow under radioactive circumstances. Frowzy, acid-tongued Beatrice Hunsdorfer, supporting herself and her two daughters by taking in a decrepit old boarder, wreaks a petty vengeance on everybody around her.
Campus Guests Only - Reservations Required
8:00pm

November 15, 16, 17, 2018
Powerhouse Theater

DRUMS IN THE NIGHT

by Bertolt Brecht
based on the translation written by Finegan Kruckemeyer
Directed by Darrell James
Senior Project Members: Kevin Johnson '19, Sydney Lee '19, Philip Macaluso '19, Wesley Sheffield '19, Nic Penn '19
With Anna’s love Kragler having left for WWI five years earlier, her industrialist parents decide she must accept a new suitor, the well-placed businessman Murk. But on the evening of her begrudging engagement, who should return but the poor soldier thought dead by all. With a Spartacist uprising brewing in the background, and the Schnapps flowing in the fore, the stage is set for all kinds of rebellion. Written by Brecht at 23. Translated with approval from the Brecht Estate at same age.
Open to the Public - Reservations Required
8:00pm
This production is supported in part by The Joan Kostick Andrews '52 Fund for Musical Theater

December 6, 7, 8, 2018
Martel Theater, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film

(PAST Spring 2018 production) A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC

Original Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by Hugh Wheeler
Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, Suggested by a Film by Ingmar Bergman
Originally produced and directed on Broadway by Harold Prince
Stage Direction by Christopher Grabowski, Music Direction by Miriam Charney
Choreography by Teddy Kern
Presented by The Experimental Theater and the Music Department of Vassar College
These performances are in honor of the Inaugural year of Elizabeth H. Bradley as Eleventh President of Vassar College
Special arrangements to produce provided by Music Theatre International (MTI)
This production is supported in part by The Joan Kostick Andrews '52 Fund for Musical Theater
In turn of the century Sweden, trysts abound. The lawyer Fredrik Egerman has married the virginal 18-year old Anne, with whom Fredrik’s son, the melancholy academic Henrik, has fallen in love. Desiree Armfeldt, a stage actress of great beauty (and a reputation for taking on as many lovers as she does is involved with the buffoonish Count Carl Magnus Malcolm, the husband of the cynical and wryly comedic Countess Charlotte Malcolm. When Desiree spots her old flame Fredrik Egerman in the audience of her most recent production, however, her interest in him is immediately rekindled. All parties meet for a “Weekend in the Country” at Desiree’s mother, Madame Armfeldt’s, estate, where the tangled web of romantic involvements continues to surprise us with its twists and turns.
Open to the Public - Free/Ticketed assigned seats - Reservations required - email boxoffice@vassar.edu
Thurs. March 1 7:30pm, Sat., March 3 2:00pm, Sun., March 4 2:00pm

March 1, 3 and 4 2018 (Note: NO performance on Friday, March 2!)
Martel Theater, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film

The White Moth - A devised piece by senior project members

a senior project in Drama: Caleb Featherstone '18, Rebecca Slotkin '18, and Matt Stein '18
Co-Directed by Darrell James and Alexandra Hatch '20
Callie and her best friend Benson were together at the hospital over Winter Break when his mother died, but their friendship seemed unsalvageable when Callie avoided the funeral. Back at college, however, a dream visit by a ghost convinces her: she must reach out to Benson again, at all costs.
8:00pm
Campus only

April 12, 13, 14 2018
Powerhouse Theater

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

by WIlliam Shakespeare
presented by Actors from the London Stage
Artists in Residency Program
About the Actors From The London Stage: Actors From The London Stage is one of the oldest established touring Shakespeare theater companies in the world. Housed and workshopped in England with academic tours booked through the auspices of Shakespeare at Notre Dame (housed in the Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Notre Dame), this program is truly unique. Offering a tour in the spring and another in the fall, we visit approximately 16-20 universities in a year, giving students and faculty around the country a chance to experience our dynamic and enriching performing arts program.
Sponsored by The Office of the Dean of the Faculty, the Drama Department and the English Department
8:00pm
Reservations are required. Open to the Public
Online reservations available here: https://vassardrama.tix.com

April 5, 6, 7, 2018
Martel Theater, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film

WHITE IS NOT DEFAULT

an original play by Alexandria Smalls '18
senior project in Drama
A staged reading
White is Not Default revolves around a Black, female, college junior who is struggling with her identity as a minority at a predominantly white institution. By way of an advanced poetry course that is focused on social justice and artistic expression in the age of the Black Lives Matter Movement, led by her professor and mentor, she is able to put voice to her feelings of anger, despair, and confusion about racial issues in America.
7:00pm

April 28, 2018
Martel Theater, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film

(essay)e

A senior presentation in Drama by Sofia Gutierrez '18
as a core team of three, we are creating performance pieces and spaces to facilitate collective encounters. we will use music, poetry, dance, visual art and more in a freeform manner to develop a pedagogy that encourages the exploration of half-formed dreams. ‘essay e’ is an interactive, continuous reflection on aesthetic and visceral modes of communication. we will practice different ways of existing and resist dominant methods of knowledge production. this will be a space of encounters!
7:00PM
No reservations necessary / First Come-First Serve

April 20, 21 2018
OLD BOOKSTORE in College Center