Suffolk University Announces Modern Theatre's Winter/Spring 2012 Season

The Modern Theatre at Suffolk University has announced the programming lineup for its Winter/Spring season, featuring inventive performances by professional local companies, critically acclaimed films and filmmakers, and stimulating conversation with celebrated artists.

Performance, Conversation, and Cinema

SHERMAN’S MARCH BY ROSS MCELWEE
6 p.m. Wednesday, February 8
Filmmaker Ross McElwee is joined by Harvard University colleague Robb Moss and long-time Boston film critic and Suffolk University professor Gerald Peary for a 25th anniversary celebration and viewing of the hilarious and critically acclaimed documentary. In the film, McElwee’s attempt to explore the effects of Union soldiers’ brutal campaign through the secessionist South is continuously thwarted by his yearning for true love. Sherman’s March won the Sundance Film Festival Best Feature Documentary Prize in 1987 and was selected as one of the top 20 documentaries of all time by the International Documentary Association.

AMERICAN REQUIEM
A staged reading co-produced with Actors’ Shakespeare Project
7 p.m. Wednesday, February 15
by James Carroll
directed by Steven Bogart
with Allyn Burrows*, Patrick Carroll*, Paula Langton*, and Robert Walsh*.
This is the first public reading of James Carroll’s play based on his National Book Award-winning memoir. American Requiem tells the story of a son and a father, a priest and his God, the gulf that opened between them during the Vietnam War era, and the love that was a bridge too late. Carroll is a Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence at Suffolk University.

AN EVENING WITH BOB RAFELSON
7 p.m. Tuesday, February 21
Bob Rafelson – director, producer, and writer of such celebrated films as Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Black Widow, and the popular television series The Monkees – will screen and discuss selections of his work. This Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated visionary filmmaker will be joined onstage by Robert Brustein, a Suffolk University Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence and National Medal of Arts Recipient. This event is presented as part of the Department of Communication and Journalism’s Suffolk Cinema Series.

DEPORTED / a dream play
World Premiere Production
Produced by Boston Playwrights’ Theatre in association with Suffolk University
March 8 – April 1
by Joyce Van Dyke
directed by Judy Braha
with Ken Baltin*, Mark Cohen*, Liz Hayes*, Jeanine Kane*, Marya Lowry*, Robert Najarian*, and Bobbie Steinbach*.
Memories and dreams, music and dance interweave in this tale of enduring friendship. A riveting story of the Armenian genocide, Deported celebrates the playwright’s own family history and that of the many Armenian families forever changed. Van Dyke’s previous play The Oil Thief won the 2009 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding New Script. Set design is by Jon Savage, lighting design by John Malinowski, sound design by David Wilson, and costume design by Molly Trainer.

Additional Events Associated with Deported:

7 p.m. Friday, March 16

Armenian dance demonstration with choreographer Apo Ashjian and dancers from the Sayat Nova Dance Company.

7 p.m. Saturday, March 17

“Educating Upstanders: What Can We Learn from the Past about Creating a More Positive Future?” with Adam Strom, Director of Content, Innovation and Research at Facing History and author of Facing History’s Crimes Against Humanity and Civilization: The Genocide of the Armenians.

7 p.m. Friday, March 23

“Coming to Terms with Your Past: How Do Countries and Individuals Respond to Genocide?” with Professor Nir Eisikovits, Director of the Graduate Program in Ethics and Public Policy at Suffolk University; and the Rev. Pamela L. Werntz, Rector of Emmanuel Church, Boston.

TROILUS & CRESSIDA
Produced by Actors’ Shakespeare Project
April 25 – May 20
by William Shakespeare
directed by Tina Packer
with Daniel Berger-Jones*, Danny Bryck, Paige Clark, De’Lon Grant*, Brooke Hardman*, Ross MacDonald*, Johnnie McQuarley, Maurice Emmanuel Parent*, Bobbie Steinbach*, Michael Forden Walker*, and Robert Walsh*.
Renowned director Tina Packer tackles Shakespeare’s reimagining of the Trojan War – with its passionate love stories, fierce battles, ravaged warriors, and archetypal characters Achilles, Hector, Helen, and Agamemnon – in a contemporary perspective.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the union of professional actors and stage managers in the United States

Additional Events Associated with Troilus & Cressida:

An Evening with Tina Packer
7 p.m. Monday, April 9

Tina Packer, founding artistic director of Shakespeare and Company, is considered one of the country’s leading experts on theatre and Shakespeare. Distinguished Scholar-in-Residence James Carroll will moderate this discussion on 21st century Shakespeare production.

Post Show Discussions:
April 29; May 6, 13, and 20
Join us for a discussion with the actors and creative team following each Sunday matinee.

JOYCE CAROL OATES
8 p.m. Tuesday, June 12

Suffolk University welcomes acclaimed author Joyce Carol Oates as the keynote speaker for the second biennial John Updike Society conference. The author of more than 100 novels, volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction, Oates is a National Book Award winner and a Pulitzer Prize nominee. She is a professor of creative writing at Princeton University, where she has taught since 1978.

Tickets
Tickets for all events are on sale at www.moderntheatre.com. Tickets for Deported and Troilus & Cressida can be purchased by phone at 866.811.4111. For all other events call 800.440.7654. The Modern Theatre at Suffolk University is located at 525 Washington Street in Downtown Boston.
All programming subject to change

The Modern Theatre at Suffolk University is the newest performance space in the Washington Street Theater District. The grand facade of the historic theater, Boston’s first designed specifically for showing movies, has been painstakingly restored and reconstructed as part of the Modern Theatre and residence hall development. Inside, an intimate jewel-box theater showcases central design elements that are a modernization of some of the most distinctive historic features of the 1914 theater. The state-of-the-art, 185-seat venue is ideal for live performances, conversations, readings and film screenings and will promote excellence and innovation through all of its programming. For more about these and other programs at the Modern visit: www.moderntheatre.com.

Suffolk University, located in historic downtown Boston, with an international campus in Madrid, is a comprehensive global institution distinguished by the teaching and the intellectual contributions of its faculty. Suffolk University offers a wide range of undergraduate and graduate programs in more than 90 areas of study. Its mission is to provide access to excellence in higher education to students of all ages and backgrounds, with strong emphasis on diversity.