Our Season
2011-12 Mainstage Performances
The Miser by Moliere
Directed by James Crawford
September 28-October 2, 2011
Greer Garson Theatre – Owen Arts Center
First performed by Molière himself in 1668, this rollicking comedy still enthralls with undiminished power almost 350 years later. Jealous fathers, anxious lovers and brilliant servants are trapped in a whirlwind of amorous plotting and strategic revelations. The Washington Post described Magruder’s sparkling new translation as “a saucy serving...for those who like their French fare spicy and au courant.” More details
Will Power Project
October 19-October 23, 2011
Margo Jones Theatre – Owen Arts Center
Recently awarded the Meadows Prize and hailed as “the best verse playwright in America” (New York Magazine), whose work “...combines the complexity of serious drama with the visual and sonic arsenal of MTV” (The New York Times), award-winning playwright and performer Will Power will devise and direct a new piece in collaboration with Meadows student actors and designers. His recent work Fetch Clay (with Ben Vereen) had its world premiere at Princeton’s McCarter Theatre Center. His adaptation of the Greek tragedy Seven Against Thebes, retitled The Seven, enjoyed a successful run off-Broadway and his solo show FLOW was featured at the New York Hip Hop Festival before touring nationally and internationally to critical acclaim. His numerous film and television appearances include The Colbert Report (Comedy Central) and Bill Moyers on Faith and Reason (PBS). More details
Othello by William Shakespeare
Directed by Michael Connolly
November 16-20, 2011
Greer Garson Theatre – Owen Arts Center
O! beware, my lord, jealousy;
It is the green-ey’d monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. (Iago, Act 3, sc. 3)
Shakespearean scholar Marjorie Garber says of this towering tragedy that “its richness records and responds to a world in crisis, a crisis figured in part through emergent categories like race, class, gender – and sexuality.” More details
The Rep: Three Contemporary American Plays Performed in Rotating Repertory
February 21-March 4, 2012
Margo Jones Theatre – Owen Arts Center
Big Love by Charles Mee
Of this modern retelling of Aeschylus’s story of the 50 daughters of Danaus who run away from an arranged marriage with their cousins, The Guardian said, “Chuck Mee shakes up fragments of an ancient Greek trilogy, adds some 21st century preoccupations, and serves it up, with a knowing wink, on the Italian Riviera.” It’s delightful, witty, athletic, coolly ironic, and....fiercely entertaining!
Living Out by Lisa Loomer
Described variously as searingly funny, disturbing, generous, merciless, sympathetic and engrossing, this play explores the complicated story of a Salvadoran nanny and the Anglo lawyer she works for as it open-heartedly examines the prejudices and misconceptions between two cultures. It asks: How do we make someone “the other” and what is the cost of doing so?
To Be Announced
The third play in this series will be announced in the fall.
More details
New Visions, New Voices
Produced by Gretchen Elizabeth Smith
April 14-April 22, 2012
Margo Jones Theatre – Owen Arts Center
The 18th annual festival of new plays will feature scripts written by theatre students and directed as staged readings by a variety of theatre professionals ranging from Meadows professors to members of local Dallas theatre companies. More details
Blues for Mister Charlie by James Baldwin
April 25-29, 2012
Greer Garson Theatre – Owen Arts Center
This extraordinary second play by James Baldwin is dedicated to the memory of murdered civil rights activist Medgar Evers, his widow and his children, and to the memory of the dead children of Birmingham. Its 1964 premiere was praised in The New York Times for its “...fierce energy and passion...like a thunderous battle cry.” Known primarily for his brilliant work as a novelist, poet, essayist and civil rights activist, James Baldwin has written a play of great moral force that dramatizes the compromises of conscience. More details