Georgetown University Theatre & Performance Study to Present DOUBT & INSURRECTION , Begin. 3/27

Wrapping the Georgetown University Theater & Performance Studies Program's 2013-14 mainstage "Remember Me: A Season of Spirits and Ghosts," two works run in repertory at the Davis Performing Arts Center's Gonda Theatre March 27-April 12: Doubt, A Parable and Insurrection: Holding History.

Department of Performing Arts Chair and Theater & Performance Studies Program Director Prof. Maya E. Roth directs John Patrick Shanley's Doubt, A Parable, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. This contemporary classic takes place in a parochial school in the Bronx in 1964-set on the cusp of radical social change. The play layers a subtle, complex story of a nun who as school principal harbors suspicions about a charismatic priest and the personal interest he takes in his young male students. What emerges in this taut, absorbing drama is a riveting clash of cultures and wills. Fast and unnerving, this four-character play keeps audience perspectives shifting, provoking a powerful meditation on the nature of certainty and doubt. Roth notes that "religious figures are haunted at different junctures by the ghosts of sins and silence, possible cover-ups and broken vows." A series of discussions related to the play's themes will be offered in conjunction with the production.

Moving like a bullet through time, Robert O'Hara's Insurrection: Holding History, directed by alumnus Guest Artist Isaiah Matthew Wooden (COL '04) and co-produced with the Black Theatre Ensemble, offers a wickedly witty romp through America's history. A contemporary African-American graduate student confronts the specter of his 189-year-old great-great grandfather, as well as Nat Turner, the subject of his graduate school thesis on American slave insurrectionists. Engaging questions about who has the right to tell history and what kinds of stories get remembered and recorded, this challenging and provocative work has been hailed by Tony Kushner as "a gorgeous, fresh and vital play from a very exciting playwright."

Wooden says, "At its core, Insurrection is a play about the ghosting of history. Indeed, O'Hara calls on spirits in the play to disturb conceptions of the infallibility of the archive, to unmake presumptions of what is history, and, most significantly, to agitate what is."

Director Wooden and playwright Robert O'Hara also participated in a February symposium, "Playing with the past, (W)righting the future," at Georgetown's Davis Center including discussions and a reading from O'Hara's play Bootycandy, directed by Wooden and offered in conjunction with this production of Insurrection. Exploring how black playwrights and artists remember the past in order to imagine the future and hosted by the Theater & Performance Studies Program's newest faculty member, alumna Prof. Soyica Colbert ('01), the symposium included additional readings and discussions with Daniel Beaty, Actor, Singer, and Writer; Faedra Carpenter, University of Maryland, Assistant Professor of Theater; Lydia Diamond, Playwright; Meta D. Jones, Howard University, Associate Professor of English; Jacqueline Lawton, Playwright; Dominique Morisseau, Writer, Actress; Monica White Ndounou, Tufts University, Assistant Professor of Theater and Film History, Director; Jennifer Nelson, Director, Georgetown University, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Theater; Robert Patterson, Georgetown University, Director of African American Studies, Assistant Professor of English; Evie Shockley, Rutgers University, Associate Professor of English, Poet. The event was offered as part of the Georgetown University/Arena Stage/Ammerman Family partnership.

To order, visit performingarts.georgetown.edu or call 202-687-ARTS (2787) Monday through Friday, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Georgetown University's main campus is located at 3700 O St. NW, in Washington, D.C.