IU Theatre & Dance Presents GROSS INDECENCY: THE THREE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE By Moisés Kaufman

IU Theatre & Dance continues its epic 2022/2023 theater season with Moisés Kaufman's Gross Indecency: the Three Trials of Oscar Wilde.

This compelling play retells the tragic downfall of the great man of letters, Oscar Wilde, whose artistic genius has long been overshadowed by the scandal surrounding his imprisonment. In three short months, the most celebrated writer of Victorian England was toppled from the apex of British society into humiliation and ruin.

Drawing from a dramatically charged trove of trial transcripts, newspaper accounts, interviews, and personal correspondence between key players, Moisés Kaufman ignites an incendiary mix of sex and censorship, with a cast of characters ranging from George Bernard Shaw to Queen Victoria herself. This production is made possible in part by funding from members of the Theatre Circle. IU's production of Gross Indecency: the Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, directed by third year M.F.A. directing candidate Daniel Sappington, aims to stretch institutional limits by creating a unique theatrical language that explores Kaufman's intentions of form. As a queer, Chicago-based director Sappington's passion lies in creating theatre for LGBTQ+ youth. Selected directing credits include Sueño (on the IU mainstage), The Mystery Plays, And Tell Sad Stories of the Deaths of Queens..., Outpost, The Morning After the Fall, and Seminar. He is an Artistic Associate with The Arc Theatre, where he recently adapted Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. This production represents Sappington's thesis. Joining Sappington on the creative team are M.F.A. students Spencer Donovan (Scenic and Projection Designer), Jeremiah Kearns (Lighting Designer), Nicole Hiemenz (Costume Designer), and undergraduate Sound Designer Bella Brown-Sparks; with dramaturgical support by Visiting Assistant Professor Jacqueline Goldfinger.

Donovan's and Kearns' work on this production is in partial fulfillment of their M.F.A. theses. The cast of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde includes M.F.A. acting candidates Gavin Douglas and Bobby Ayala Perez, who are joined by Evan Anderson, Gabriel Armstrong, Matthew Mason Baker, Tatum Boswell, Elijah Carpenter, Seth Cope, Paully Hawthorn, El Hendricks, Nicholas Johnson, Amber Kendall, Aidan Lucas, Zoë Swisher, Malachi Watson, and Sarah Zola. Playwright Moisés Kaufman is a Venezuelan-American, Tony and Emmy nominated, director and playwright known for his plays 33 Variations, Gross Indecency: the Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, and The Laramie Project which are among the most performed plays in America. His film adaptation of The Laramie Project won the National Board of Review Award, the Humanitas Prize, and earned him two Emmy nominations for Best Director and Best Writer. The Artistic Director of Tectonic Theater Project and a Guggenheim Fellow, he was awarded the 2016 National Medal of the Arts by President Obama.

IU Theatre & Dance presents Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde by Moisés Kaufman, Oct 21-29 Tues-Sat at 7:30pm with Saturday matinee at 2:00pm at The Ruth N. Halls Theatre at the Lee Norvelle Theatre & Drama Center at Indiana University.

 

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