Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

The Butter And Egg Man, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2003-2004 Season

The play's title, of course, is Broadwayese of the moment—a generic name for all those gentlemen who come trustingly to Gotham with bankrolls, bent upon either reckless expenditure or equally reckless investment. — From the dust jacket for the first edition of The Butter and Egg Man (Boni & Liveright, 1926)^[

Sander's Family Christmas, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2003 Summer Theatre

Sanders Family Christmas is the sequel to Connie Ray and Alan Bailey’s wildly successful bluegrass gospel musical Smoke on the Mountain. It’s December 24, 1941, and America is going to war. So is Dennis Sanders, of the Sanders Family Singers. Join Pastor Mervin Oglethorpe and the rest of the Sanders family as they send Dennis off with hilarious and touching stories and twenty-five Southern Gospel Christmas favorites.

Blithe Spirit, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2003 Summer Theatre

No abstract provided.

Kiss Me, Kate, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

Egotistical leading man, director, and producer Fred Graham is reunited with his ex-wife, Lilli Vanessi, when the two are forced to play opposite one another in a new production of Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. The battle of the sexes continues onstage and off, as it becomes clear that, as much as this couple profess to hate each other, they are also still in love. Alongside their bickering liaison, the show’s supporting actress, Lois Lane, supports her gambling boyfriend, Bill, as he attempts to evade the the clutches of local gangsters. Throw in a number of cases of mistaken …

The Laramie Project, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

The Laramie Project is a play by Moises Kaufman and the members of the Tectonic Theatre Project. “On November 14, 1998, members of Tectonic Theatre Project traveled to Laramie, Wyoming, and conducted interviews with the people of the town.” The Play is “edited from those interviews, as well as from journal entries by members of the company.” (The Laramie Project, "Introduction") The Play is about the town of Laramie, its citizens, and their reaction to Matthew Shepard’s murder.

A Guy, A Girl, And Gershwin!, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

No abstract provided.

Scapino!, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

Rave reviews from every critic on Broadway! With the first line of the play, we plunge into the situation as Octavio cries, "I am lost! I am ruined! What am I to do? My world is crumbling around me. Disaster after disaster!" Into this comes Scapino who states, "The good Lord has blessed me with quite a genius for clever ideas and inspired inventions which the less talented, in their jealousies, call deceits and trickery!" At one point, with the girl's father hiding in a huge sack, Scapino pretends to be a Japanese waiter shouting, "Ah so—Kung Fu—there is something …

The Mystery Of Edwin Drood, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002-2003 Season

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a hilarious, interactive whodunit mystery musical that allows the audience to enter the action and become the ultimate detectives. The show is based on Charles Dickens’ unfinished novel of the same name. In small town of Chesterham, England, the young and charming Edwin Drood has been mysteriously murdered. But by whom? His leering romantic rival, John Jasper? The infamous purveyor of opium and vice, Princess Puffer? The mysterious Landless twins, newly arrived from Ceylon? Or someone else even more dastardly and villainous? Dickens passed away before he was able to reveal the culprit. Rupert …

Fuddy Meers, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002 Summer Theatre

A sinister and zany comedic romp with a dark domestic drama at its heart, Fuddy Meers illustrates a world in which nothing is as it seems, hardly anyone can be understood, and trusting the wrong person can get you locked in the basement with a foul-mouthed sock puppet, hit over the head with a frying pan, or hauled over the Canadian border. This is especially challenging if you are a sunny amnesiac like Claire, who must contend with kidnapping, family reunion, and intrusive carnival music playing in her head, all before she can figure out whether she prefers juice or …

Smoke On The Mountain, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2002 Summer Theatre

Smoke on the Mountain tells the story of a Saturday Night Gospel Sing at a country church in North Carolina’s Smoky Mountains in 1938. The show features two dozen rousing bluegrass songs played and sung by the Sanders Family, a traveling group making its return to performing after a five-year hiatus. Pastor Oglethorpe, the young and enthusiastic minister of Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, has enlisted the Sanders Family in his efforts to bring his tiny congregation into “the modern world.” Between songs, each family member “witnesses” – telling a story about an important event in their life. Though they try …

The Secret Garden, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

When young Mary Lennox loses her parents to a cholera outbreak in India, she is sent to live with her uncle, hermit Archibald Craven, who lives in an imposing, secluded manor on the British heath. Inside the haunting house upon the hill, Mary finds a reclusive, long-suffering collection of souls. Surrounded by spirits from the past, who both warn and welcome her, determined Mary begins to peel away the layers of sadness that cover the house and the garden, showing us the power that “one small girl” can have when she “wants things to grow.”

https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/1435/the-secret-garden

Ctrl + Alt + Delete, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

Tech whiz kid Eddie Fisker joins forces with a new technology leader to create what amounts to a billion dollar house of cards. Surrounded by corporations that remember books as “little paper websites” and remind each other of various characters from the Muppets, the two try to survive the shockwaves, real and imagined, that threaten to topple their new product’s success.

https://www.broadwayplaypub.com/the-plays/ctrl-alt-delete/

The Mikado, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

Since its premiere in 1885 at the Savoy Theatre in London, The Mikado (or The Town of Titipu) has become one of the most-performed pieces of musical theatre in history. As with many of Gilbert and Sullivan’s productions, the show satirizes aspects of Victorian Britain’s politics and aristocracy; in The Mikado, however, the duo cleverly cloaked these criticisms behind a charming story set not in Britain, but in exotic Japan. Nanki-Poo, the son of the Mikado (the Japanese emperor), has fled in disguise to avoid marrying a much older suitor, and to find and marry his own beloved, the …

Book Of Days, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

When murder roars through a small Missouri town, Ruth Hoch begins her own quest to find truth and honesty amid small town jealousies, religion, greed and lies. This tornado of a play propels you through its events like a page-turning mystery.

https://www.samuelfrench.com/s/13099/book-of-days

A Midsummer Night’S Dream, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001-2002 Season

In one of the most famous of literary love quadrangles, A Midsummer Night’s Dream tells the tale of Hermia, Demetrius, Lysander, and Helena; four misguided lovers whose journey into the woods lands them in even more trouble, as members of the fairy kingdom decide to use them as veritable pawns in their own love games. Against the backdrop of the wedding of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta, and the fiery battle of wills between the Fairy King and Queen, Oberon and Titania, the four lovers are challenged by magic and trickery to finally work out what love is all about.

https://stageagent.com/shows/play/450/a-midsummer-nights-dream

Stop Kiss, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001 Summer Theatre

"A poignant and funny play about the ways, both sudden and slow, that lives can change irrevocably," says Variety. After Callie meets Sara, the two unexpectedly fall in love. Their first kiss provokes a violent attack that transforms their lives in a way they could never anticipate.

https://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/single.asp?key=2871

Witness For The Prosecution, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001 Summer Theatre

Leonard Vole stands accused of murdering a rich widow. The stakes are high with shocking witness testimony, impassioned outbursts from the dock and a young man’s fight to escape the hangman’s noose. Generally regarded as one of Christie’s most accomplished plays, this suspenseful thriller keeps audiences guessing until the very end.

https://www.samuelfrench.com/p/1060/witness-for-the-prosecution

Women Who Steal, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2001 Summer Theatre

Carter W. Lewis' new play introduces us to Peggy and Karen, the latter of whom has recently commited, as they say, adultery with the former's husband. Women Who Steal is about the aftermath of that revelation, and it's a hilarious, tightly constructed joy ride, complete with squealing tires and tequila-chugging and Meat Loaf -- yes: Meat Loaf! -- blaring from the car radio. How these women deal with each other as they attempt to resolve the resultant conflict and stress, how they interact with the different men in their lives, is played out in a story that reaches the fullness …

Oklahoma!, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000-2001 Season

The first collaboration of famed partners Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Oklahoma! set the American musical theatre standard. Set in Western Indian Territory just after the turn of the 20th Century, the spirited rivalry between the local farmers and cowboys provides the backdrop for the love story between Curly, a handsome cowboy, and Laurey, a beautiful farm girl. The road to true love is anything but smooth, but there is no doubt that these two romantics will succeed in making a life together. As the road to romance and the road to statehood converge, Curly and Laurey are poised …

Our Country's Good, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000-2001 Season

A leading London critic describes it as "highly theatrical, often funny and at times dark and disturbing, it sets an infant civilization on the stage with clarity, economy and insight [as] it relates the true story of the first theatrical performance in Australia." In June 1789 in the penal colony that was later to become the city of Sydney, a marine lieutenant decides to put on a play to celebrate the king's birthday. He casts the play with the English convicts who populate this distant Australian prison camp. Few of them can read, let alone act, and the play is …

Charlotte's Web, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000-2001 Season

This exciting, musical version of Charlotte's Web brings a new dimension to E.B. White’s beloved classic. All the enchanting characters are here: Wilbur, the irresistible pig who desperately wants to avoid the butcher; Fern, a girl who understands what animals say to each other; Templeton, the gluttonous rat who can occasionally be talked into a good deed; the Zuckerman family; the Arables; and, most of all, the extraordinary spider Charlotte who proves to be a “true friend and a good writer.” With music and lyrics by Charles Strouse (Annie, ‘Bye, ‘Bye Birdie) and book by Joseph Robinette (national award-winning children’s …

Blood Brothers, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000-2001 Season

Set in Britain, Willy Russell's Blood Brothers tells the story of fraternal twins who are separated at birth. One brother is raised in a family of great privilege and one brother is raised in poverty. Even with their different socioeconomic backgrounds, the two boys end up becoming best friends -- until a misunderstanding leads to a tragic end.

https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/1640/blood-brothers

Selected Comic Plays From All In The Timing & Mere Mortals, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000 Summer Theatre

Otterbein closes the summer season with a collection of six one-act plays.

Mere Mortals eavesdrops on the lunch hour of three construction workers on a girder 50 stories above the street as they share increasingly amazing stories of their lives.

In Foreplay, Chuck, a self-styled Don Juan, and his girlfriend are on a date at the miniature golf course. As he moves through the next few holes, Chuck appears to age as his date gets younger.

Degas, C'est Moi follows the story of a man who wakes up one morning and decides to be the French artist Degas. To …

Hay Fever, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

2000 Summer Theatre

Hay Fever is one of Noel Coward’s most durable comedies, continuing to delight audiences with its astute observations on family relationships and rivalries. The action takes place in the house of the Bliss family over the course of a weekend. https://stageagent.com/shows/play/1744/hay-fever

Ginger, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

No abstract provided.

West Side Story, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

A musical in which a modern day Romeo and Juliet are involved in New York street gangs. On the harsh streets of the upper west side, two gangs battle for control of the turf. The situation becomes complicated when a gang members falls in love with a rival's sister.

Dance 2000 (Damn Yankees), Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

No abstract provided.

Twelfth Night, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

Duke Orsino of Illyria is in love with Olivia, but his advances are rejected. A shipwrecked Viola arrives on his shores, and with the help of a Captain,disguises herself as a boy, calling herself Cesario, and enters Orsino's service. Orsino takes to Cesario, and sends 'him' to woo Olivia for him. https://www.playshakespeare.com/twelfth-night/synopsis

Our Country's Good, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

Based on the Thomas Keneally novel, The Playmaker, Our Country's Good follows the true story of these first citizens of Australia. The prisoners are all too familiar with barbaric punishments, shortages of food, and impending death. Morale is at its lowest. However, the newly appointed governor of the New South Wales prison, Captain Arthur Phillip, seeks to build a community within the penal walls and orders the prisoners to produce a play.

Narnia, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1999-2000 Season

During the World War II bombings of London, four English siblings are sent to a country house where they will be safe. Lucy, one of the children, finds a wardrobe that transports her to a magical world called Narnia. After coming back, she soon returns to Narnia with her brothers, Peter and Edmund, and her sister, Susan. There they join the magical lion, Aslan, in the fight against the evil White Witch.