Mainstage productions are directed by department faculty and professional guest artists. Performed in one of three Theatre Center venues, Mainstage productions are cast from the student population, and designed by student design majors in collaboration with other departments in the college, particularly in the use of new technologies.
The spirit of the avant-garde flows through this season, from Sam Shepard's 1970s rock driven, pop-art "smash up" Operation Sidewinder, in which counter-culture embraces native American lore within a web of political intrigue, to the gleefully outrageous yet passionately serious dissection of Black Identity Politics in Young Jean Lee's The Shipment (2009). Our perceived notions of gender in contemporary and historical communities are challenged in Splendora and Celestial Bodies, while Rent transforms a traditional opera into the sonic drive of popular music, as young rebels run howling to their art.
Our season title, Band of Outsiders, links the protagonists of all five works, each perceiving themselves as outside of the mainstream of society. At the same time, it pinpoints the moment when the authors of these works were themselves breaking into the theatrical mainstream, and in the process exploding traditional concepts of theatrical style.
October 26 – November 5, 2011
Book by Peter Webb
Based on the Novel by Edward Swift
Music by Stephen Hoffman
Lyrics by Mark Campbell
Directed by Michael Ryczek
Musical Direction by Philip Caldwell
New Studio Theatre, 72 East 11th Street