Productions & Facilities
2009-2010 Academic SeasonCOMING NEXT!
Quake by Melanie Marnich
DEC. 3-5, 10-12 at 7:30 p.m. and DEC. 6 at 2:00 p.m.
University of Idaho Kiva Theater
Quake is a story of a woman’s cross-continental journey in search of true love. This hilarious and moving production showcases a female playwright of growing prominence.
Quake tells the story of "Lucy", who traverses the continent in search of an elusive balance between independence and commitment, career and family, extraordinary achievement and ordinary existence. In a succession of surreal, contorted affairs, she fails to reconcile her driving need for ideal love with the realities of modern romance. On her way, she is distracted by an obsession with “That Woman,” a notoriously brilliant serial-killer and astrophysicist -- America’s Most Wanted Woman. “That Woman” coaches Lucy as she zags across the continent and zigs through her many relationships in search of “The Big Love.”
Strange Attractors by Mattie Rydalch*
FEB. 3-6 at 7:30 p.m. and FEB 6 & 7 at 2:00 p.m.
University of Idaho Kiva Theater
Layne, a motion-sick freelance chaotician, and Brynne, an amateur science fiction novelist, meet en route to Brynne’s mother’s house on the Washington coast in Brynne’s motor home and hope to develop a meaningful relationship despite threats from Brynne’s controlling boyfriend and her mother’s seemingly endless questions.
Strange Attractors was work-shopped in the fall of 2008 under the mentorship of Robert C. Caisley in a studio setting at the University of Idaho. In May of 2009 it was given a First Look chamber reading (directed by M.F.A. candidate Anthony Brinkley) by Sixth Street Productions in association with the University of Idaho. It was also read in the 2009 Play Lab at the Last Frontier Theatre Conference in Valdez, Alaska (coordinated by Dawson Moore) in June.
*Maddie Rydalch is a M.F.A. student in Dramatic Writing.
Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout by Tomson Highway
MARCH 4-6, 11-13 at 7:30 p. m. and MARCH 7 at 2:00 p.m.
University of Idaho Hartung Theater
Historically based on a deposition signed by fourteen Chiefs of the Thompson River Basin on the occasion of a visit to their lands by Canadian Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier in 1910, Ernestine Shuswap Gets Her Trout is a ritualized retelling of how the Native Peoples of British Columbia lost their rights. Enacted by four women whose stories follow each other like the cyclical seasons they represent the play is written in the spirit of Shuswap, a “Trickster language” in which the hysterically comic spills over into the unutterably tragic. Playwright, Highway is widely recognized for his tremendous contribution to the development of Aboriginal theater both in Canada and around the world.
Chamber Readings
MARCH 31 - APRIL 3 at 7:30 p.m. and APRIL 3 & 4 - 2:00 p.m.
University of Idaho Kiva Theater.
Chamber readings of thrilling new world premieres, written by University of Idaho students in the Dramatic Writing Program. Part of the ongoing departmental efforts in the development of new plays and in developing the writing voices of new playwrights.
Grease by Jim Jacobs & Warren Casey
APRIL 23-24, 30 & MAY 1 at 7:30 p.m. and APRIL 25 & MAY 2 at 2:00 p.m.
University of Idaho Hartung Theater
The musical, set in 1959 Rydell High School follows ten working-class kids as they navigate the complexities of love, cars, and drive-ins. The score attempts to re-create the sounds of early rock and roll. Grease became (for a time) the longest-running show in Broadway history, musical theatre historian Stanley Green attempted to explain its success by concluding, “But obviously the musical hit a nerve. Though the air was primarily one of parody, Grease let us see with unerring authenticity and total lack of sentimentality the way kids actually looked and acted and felt during those . . . days that we look back on as somehow being both placid and plastic.” Notable songs: Greased Lightnin’; Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee; Summer Nights; Freddy, My Love; Beauty School Dropout.
EARLIER THIS SEASON
Some Girl(s) by Neil LaBute
SEPTEMBER 23-27, 2009 - University of Idaho Kiva Theater
SEE PRODUCTION SLIDE SHOW
Dracula: The Untold Story by Mary Lynn Dobson SEE PLAYBILL
OCT. 22-25 & OCT. 29-31 - University of Idaho Hartung Theater
SEE PRODUCTION SLIDE SHOW