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Breakdown
MUSICAL- TBA
Performance Space: Mainstage
First Rehearsal: December 31, 2013
Performance Dates: January 29-February 23, 2014
Possible Extension Through: March 9, 2014
I AND YOU (Rolling World Premiere)
By Lauren Gunderson
Director: Eleanor Holdridge
Perf Space: Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab
First Reh: February 4, 2014
Perf Dates: February 26-March 23, 2014
Possible Extension Through: March 30, 2014
Synopsis: Anthony turns up in Caroline’s room one night bearing waffle fries, a beat-up book, and a story about a project they have been assigned to work on together by their lit teacher: to explore Walt Whitman’s use of the pronouns 'I' and 'you' in Song of Myself. Caroline suffers from a rare disease and hasn’t been to school in quite a while, so she’s surprised and a little suspicious, given that she has no recollection of Anthony whatsoever. As the two get to know each other while plumbing the poem’s mysteries, they are unaware that a much deeper mystery has brought them together. I AND YOU is a valentine to youth, love, and the strange beauty of human connectedness.
ANTHONY- a boy, 16. He is neat, poised, mature for his age. African-American.
CAROLINE- a girl, 17. She is in comfy clothing, she is sick but doesn’t look it, she doesn’t go out. She is cynical, over it, does not let a stray feeling near the surface. White.
*Note—the race of each character could be altered with slight adjustment to the text. The only essentiality is that the characters not be the same race.
ONCE ON THIS ISLAND
Book and lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Music by Stephen Flaherty
Director: TBA
Performance Space: Mainstage
First Reh: March 11, 2014
Perf Dates: April 9-May 4, 2014
Possible Extension Through: May 18, 2014
Synopsis: A contemporary, Caribbean-flavored musical by the Tony Award-winning songrwriting team of Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty based upon the book My Love, My Love by Rosa Guy, set in the French Antilles in the Caribbean Sea. The show also includes elements of the Romeo and Juliet story, as well as the fairytale of The Little Mermaid. The story concerns a peasant girl on a tropical island who uses the power of love to bring together people of different social classes.
LITTLE TI MOUNE- Ti Moune as a child, also The Little Girl.
MAMA EURALIE- Ti Moune’s adoptive mother. Very protective.
TONTON JULIAN- Ti Moune’s adoptive father. Loving and courageous.
TI MOUNE- A dark-skinned peasant girl. Earnest and romantic.
DANIEL BEAUXHOMME- a grand homme; Ti Moune’s love interest. Light- skinned. (Beauxhomme means beautiful man.)
ARMAND- Daniel’s stern father, also Armand the ancestor
MADAME ARMAND- Daniel’s mother, also ANDREA, Daniel’s promised wife.
PAPA GE- sly Demon of Death, the main antagonist of the show. He tricks Ti Moune into giving her life for another. He is seen as a skeleton and is very sneaky; the people on the island fear him because of what he represents.
ASAKA- Mother of the Earth; very nurturing.
AGWE- God of Water. Strong, clever, compassionate.
ERZULIE- The beautiful and elegant Goddess of love; the foil to Papa Ge.
STORYTELLERS- Ensemble, will play peasants, gossipers, and guests at the ball.
THE PIANO LESSON
By August Wilson
Director: Jamil Jude
Perf Space: Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab
First Reh: April 15, 2014
Perf Dates: May 7-June 1, 2014
Possible Extension Through: June 8, 2014
Synopsis: The play follows an African-American family in 1937 Pittsburgh struggling to face its past and move into the future. Boy Willie, Doaker, and Wining Boy are among the most enduring characters written for the American stage.
DOAKER CHARLES- 47, Berniece and Boy Willie’s uncle and the owner of the household in which the play takes place. Tall, thin. He spent his life working for the railroad and functions as the play’s testifier, recounting the piano’s history.
BOY WILLIE- 30, Berniece’s brash, impulsive, and fast-talking brother. Coming from Mississippi, he introduces the central conflict of the play.
LYMON- 29, Boy Willie’s longtime friend. Speaks with a disarming straightforwardness, he is an outsider to the family and obsessed with women.
BERNIECE- 35, the strong-willed sister of Boy Willie. A mother and a widow; she blames Boy Willie for her late husband’s death.
MARETHA- 11, Berniece’s daughter who is beginning to learn piano. Symbolizes the next generation of the Charles family.
AVERY BROWN- 38, an honest and ambitious preacher who is trying to build his congregation. Fervently religious. Attempts to court Berniece.
WINING BOY- 56, Doaker’s brother. A wandering, washed-up recording star who relies on Doaker when he finds himself broke. A comic figure, he functions as one of the play’s primary storytellers and as a connection to the family’s history.
GRACE- A young, urban woman who Boy Willie and Lymon each try to pick up.
AVENUE Q
Music and Lyrics by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx
Book by Jeff Whitty
Director: TBA
Perf Space: Mainstage
First Reh: May 13, 2014
Perf Dates: June 11-July 6, 2014
Possible Extension Through: July 20, 2014
Synopsis: An autobiographical and biographical coming-of-age parable, addressing and satirizing the issues and anxieties associated with entering adulthood. Its characters lament that as children, they were assured by their parents, and by children’s televisions programs such as PBS’s Sesame Street that they were special and could do anything. As adults, they have discovered to their surprised and dismay that in the real world, their options are limited, and they are no more special that anyone else. This musical is notable for the use of puppets alongside human actors.
PRINCETON- a fresh-faced kid just out of college, looking for his purpose in life
KATE MONSTER- a kindergarten teaching assistant, a bit older than Princeton. Dreams of finding love and opening a school for monsters.
NICKY- goodhearted, though a bit of a slacker. Lives with Rod
ROD- a Republican investment banker with a secret, lives with Nicky
TREKKIE MONSTER- a reclusive creature obsessed by the Internet
LUCY- a vixenish vamp with a dangerous edge; nightclub singer at the Around the Clock Café.
THE BAD IDEA BEARS- two snuggly, cute teddy-bear types (1M, 1F)
MRS. T- ancient, Kate’s boss
BRIAN- a laid back comedian-turned-caterer married to Christmas Eve
CHRISTMAS EVE- a Japanese therapist, married to Brian
GARY COLEMAN- Yes, that Gary Coleman. He lives on the Avenue, too. He’s the superintendent.
COLOSSAL (World Premiere)
By Andrew Hinderaker
Director: Will Davis
Perf Space: Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab
First Reh: August 12, 2014
Perf Dates: September 3-28, 2014
Possible Extension Through: October 12, 2014
Synopsis: The story of Mike, a college football player who knowingly took a bad hit which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Through the course of four quarters (timed out onstage on a scoreboard), Mike relives the moment (with the help of a squad of football players/dancers onstage) over and over until he’s ready to face the secret he’s been hiding. Hinderaker brings his love-hate relationship with football into conversation with other themes: repressed homosexuality, the narrow macho mindset, the danger of living in the past, the emotional and physical difficulty of rehabilitation.
MIKE- 22, but looks ten years older. Approximately five months removed from a catastrophic football injury that’s left him in a wheelchair.
YOUNG MIKE- 16-21, at various moments in the play. A dancer, a football player, and an extraordinary physical specimen.
DAMON- 40s/50s. Mike’s father. Runs a modern dance company, and still an exceptional mover, though past his prime.
JERRY- 30s. Responsible for Mike’s rehab. A specialist in physical therapy, occupational therapy, and psychology.
MARCUS- 21. Young Mike’s closest teammate and co-captain of the University of Texas football team.
COACH- 40s/50s. Head Coach of the University of Texas football team. Cares deeply about his players and believes deeply in the game of football.
PLAYERS- Early 20s. This is our chorus. At times, they represent Young Mike’s teammates at UT; at times his opponents; at times his teammates in high school. These should be college football player types who are able to both tackle and dance ballet.
AWAKE & SING!
By Clifford Odets
Director: Kimberly Senior
Perf Space: Mainstage
First Rehl: September 2, 2014
Perf Dates: September 24-October 19, 2014
Possible Extension Through: October 26, 2014
Synopsis: This 1935 play about a family in the Bronx during the Depression is an uneasy combination of political idealism and social realism in a domestic setting would affect the early plays of both Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams. Bessie Berger may be one of the best female characters in the American canon—a tiger mom long before the term was coined, so desperate to keep her family together that she unwittingly tears it apart. Its language is so poetic in its specificity, and both that language and the story are fantastic counterpoints to Wilson’s near-contemporaneous The Piano Lesson.
BESSIE BERGER- As she herself states, she is not only the mother in this home but also the father. She loves life, likes to laugh, and is quick in emotional response. She knows that when one lives in the jungle one must look out for the wild life.
MYRON- Bessie’s husband, he is a born follower, but would like to be a leader. He likes people. He likes everything, but he is heartbroken without being aware of it.
HENNIE- A girl who has had few friends, male or female. She is proud of her body and is self-reliant in the best sense. Till the day she dies she will be faithful to a loved man. She inherits her mother’s sense of humor and energy.
RALPH- A boy with a clean spirit. Romantic and sensitive, he is trying to find why so much dirt must be cleared away before it is possible to get to first base.
JACOB- He is an old Jew with living eyes in his tired face. As a barber, he demonstrates the flare of an artist. Aware of justice, of dignity. A sentimental idealist with no power to turn ideal to action.
UNCLE MORTY- A successful American business man with five good senses. He is pleased by attention and lives in a penthouse with a real Japanese butler to serve him. He sleeps with models, plays cards for hours, and smokes expensive cigars. He holds to his own line of life.
MOE AXELROD- Seldom forgets the fact that he lost a leg in the war. He has killed two men in extra-martial activity. Life has taught him a disbelief in everything, but he will fight his way through. He is very proud and fights against his own sensitivity.
SAM FEINSCHREIBER- He is a lonely man, hypersensitive about this fact, conditioned by the humiliation of not making his way alone. He might have been a poet in another time or place.
SCHLOSSER- An overworked German janitor whose wife ran away with another man and left him with a young daughter who in turn ran away and joined a burlesque show. He lost his identity twenty years before.
HOLIDAY MUSICAL - TBA
Director: TBA
Performance Space: Mainstage
First Rehearsal: October 21, 2014
Performance Dates: November 12-December 28, 2014
Possible Extension Through: January 11, 2015
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