New Hampshire Theatre Project's Youth Repertory Company to Present RHINOCEROS, 5/15-24

New Hampshire Theatre Project's Youth Repertory Company will present Eugene Ionesco's absurdist classic, Rhinoceros, on May 15-24. One day, the residents of a small provincial French town begin to experience unsettling brushes with a rampaging rhinoceros. While others find these attacks shocking and problematic, the simplistic, kind-hearted protagonist Berenger is seemingly disinterested. Events begin to take a strange turn as Berenger's friends, co-workers, and his romantic interest become tangled in this web of "rhinocerotic" intrigue and he is forced to choose sides.

Directed by Robin Fowler, Rhinoceros is a play that from its inception has challenged the status quo. One of the major influences of absurdist theatre, Ionesco's play still resonates with its themes of blind conformity, totalitarianism, metamorphosis, love, despair, and death. The illogical comedy of Rhinoceros hits on many touchstones of the human experience, feeling both familiar and incredibly alien at the same time.

Established in 1999, the NHTP Youth Repertory Company is an auditioned company which offers intense acting training, master classes with guest artists, and the opportunity to perform in a professional production of classical dramatic literature. As preparation for Rhinoceros, Youth Repertory Company actors have studied the work of a number of absurdist playwrights along with Ionesco, including Samuel Beckett, Harold Pinter, and Tom Stoppard.

Rhinoceros features actors Joshua Goldberg, Sebastian Logue, Corrie Owens-Beauchesne, Annika Strand, Bailey Weakly and Van Wile - all of Portsmouth - along with Maria Christian of Eliot, Jemma Glenn Wixson of Kittery, Sophie Jordan of Epping, Daelen Kenney of Hampton Falls, and Isabel Smith of Stratham.

Production staff for Rhinoceros includes director Robin Fowler, a Youth Repertory Company alumni, set and lighting design by Meghann Beauchamp; costume design by Rachel Vilandre; and board operation by Brennan Donnell, also an alumni.