Theatre and Performance Studies Commons^™

A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1973 Summer Theatre

Inspired by the farces of the ancient Roman playwright Plautus (251–183 BC), specifically Pseudolus, Miles Gloriosus, and Mostellaria, the musical tells the bawdy story of a slave named Pseudolus and his attempts to win his freedom by helping his young master woo the girl next door. The title derives from a line often used by vaudeville comedians to begin a story: "A funny thing happened on the way to the theater".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Funny_Thing_Happened_on_the_Way_to_the_Forum

Canterbury Tales, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972-1973 Season

Canterbury Tales is a musical originally presented at the Oxford Playhouse in 1964, conceived and directed by Martin Starkie and written by Nevill Coghill and Martin Starkie. There are two versions of this musical (Canterbury Tales and More Canterbury Tales), each making up about half the story.

The musical took five tales from the Canterbury Tales and told them with song and humour. These were; The Miller's Tale; The Nun's Priest's Tale; The Steward's Tale; The Merchant's Tale; and The Wife of Bath's Tale. In addition, Chaucer's Prologue and Epilogue were spoken. The purpose behind these stories was that Harry …

The Lion In Winter, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972-1973 Season

Betrayal, treachery, and a knife fight: it’s just another normal Christmas celebration for the royal Plantagenet family of Britain. In The Lion in Winter, King Henry II throws a Christmas feast for the newly crowned King of France. Also in attendance for the holiday celebrations are Henry’s three plotting sons, each eager to take the throne, and Henry’s manipulative wife Eleanor of Aquitaine, newly released from house arrest. The Lion in Winter is a play that transcends the historical genre to become a bitingly hilarious family drama.

http://stageagent.com/shows/play/4865/the-lion-in-winter#ixzz4uU6UZnwd

Much Ado About Nothing, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972-1973 Season

Much Ado About Nothing is a comedy by William Shakespeare thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599, as Shakespeare was approaching the middle of his career. The play was included in the First Folio, published in 1623.

By means of "noting" (which, in Shakespeare's day, sounded similar to "nothing" as in the play's title, and which means gossip, rumour, and overhearing), Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into rejecting Hero at the altar on the erroneous belief that she has been unfaithful. At the end, Benedick and Beatrice …

Nathan And Ruth Hale: People, Producers, Playwrights, Performers, Sheryl Lee Wilson

Theses and Dissertations

In this study the following hypotheses are examined: 1. Nathan and Ruth Hale have made significant contributions to the L.D.S. Church and to the theatre; 2. The theatres operated by the Hales have demonstrated that it is possible and profitable to run a theatre in accordance with L.D.S. Church standards and ideals; 3. Theatre of this type has an audience, and in fact, is demanded by communities; 4. Artists in the theatre can be a forceful missionary tool for the Church.
The following methods were used to ascertain this information: the Hales, actors, directors, and members of the community were …

Alice In Wonderland, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972-1973 Season

Alice and her sister Delilah are sitting under a tree when Alice sees the White Rabbit hurry down a rabbit hole. Alice follows the White Rabbit into Wonderland, where she has a series of marvelously imaginative adventures.

https://www.enotes.com/topics/alices-adventures

The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972-1973 Season

“Give me a girl at an impressionable age, and she is mine for life.” So speaks Jean Brodie, a liberated and charismatic schoolteacher. Edinburgh in the 1930s is conservative and respectable, but at the Marcia Blaine School for Girls, Miss Brodie stands out among the drab faculty, with her passionate teaching style.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a gripping, entertaining, powerful drama of adolescence and adulthood, of betrayal and manipulation, and the powerful, lasting effect of a charismatic teacher.

http://stageagent.com/shows/play/2047/the-prime-of-miss-jean-brodie#ixzz4uU7r21X1

Ah, Wilderness!, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972 Summer Theatre

Ah, Wilderness! is a comedy by American playwright Eugene O'Neill that premiered on Broadway at the Guild Theater on October 2, 1933. It varies from a typical O'Neill play in its happy ending for the central character, and depiction of a happy family in turn of the century America. It is O'Neill's only well-known comedy.

Ah, Wilderness!. (2017, September 13). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:37, September 28, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ah,_Wilderness!&oldid=800505034

Summer And Smoke, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972 Summer Theatre

One of Tennessee Williams’ most subtle and tender works, Summer and Smoke explores the conflict between the hedonistic body and the lofty spirit. Set in Mississippi, Alma Winemiller, the minister’s daughter, has grown up loving the boy who lives next door: John Buchanan, the doctor’s son, is a wild, adventurous, mischievous pleasure seeker. He spends the hot Mississippi summers drinking, gambling, and romancing. His only religion is the anatomy chart on his wall, and what it teaches him about man’s needs: food, truth, and lovemaking. Alma, on the other hand, is quiet, eccentric, and high-strung. Her name means “soul” in …

You Can't Take It With You, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972 Summer Theatre

Grandpa Vanderhof and his wacky family, the Sycamores, have been happily living their zany lives in his house by Columbia University in New York for many years. This family (and their friends) are a madcap group of eccentrics, marching to the beat of their own drum, with pride and joy. Their hobbies include collecting snakes, building fireworks in the basement, writing a myriad of plays that never get published, and taking ballet lessons. Things like stress, jobs, and paying taxes to the government are for other people, not for them! But when practical young Alice Sycamore becomes engaged to her …

The Imaginary Invalid, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972 Summer Theatre

This play follows Argan: he hates to spend money and is a hypochondriac. He is seeking a doctor for his daughter to marry so that he can get free treatment. The cast of characters tries to cure Argan from his obsession with doctors. Part of the plan involves him pretending to be dead to find out who cares about him.

http://stageagent.com/shows/play/1939/the-imaginary-invalid#ixzz4u0r4TjtG

Plaza Suite, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1972 Summer Theatre

The play is composed of three acts, each involving different characters but all set in Suite 719 of New York City's Plaza Hotel. The first act, Visitor From Mamaroneck, introduces the audience to not-so-blissfully wedded couple Sam and Karen Nash, who are revisiting their honeymoon suite in an attempt by Karen to bring the love back into their marriage. Her plan backfires and the two become embroiled in a heated argument about whether or not Sam is having an affair with his secretary. The act ends with Sam leaving (allegedly to attend to urgent business) and Karen sadly reflecting on …

Fiddler On The Roof, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1971-1972 Season

Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem. The story centers on Tevye, the father of five daughters, and his attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon the family's lives. He must cope both with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters, who wish to marry for love – each …

Antigone

Taylor Theatre Playbills

The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1972 performance of Antigone by Sophocles, (translated by Jean Anouilh).

In this story, the bold yet cursed princess Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, chooses to confront her unmovable uncle/king about his decision to dishonor her brother by refusing his burial. Her choice to defy him shocks the entire city of Thebes. Ultimately, all concerned, including the audience, are forced to wrestle with the relationship of divine law to human laws.

This is one of three plays performed at Eastbrook Middle School Cafetorium because of the destruction of Shreiner Auditorium in Helena Music Hall. …

School For Scandal, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1971-1972 Season

The middle-aged and wealthy bachelor, Sir Peter Teazle, has married the young and comely daughter of a country squire. The fashionable society of which Lady Teazle through through her marriage becomes a part, occupies itself mainly with malicious gossip whose arrows no one, however chaste, can completely escape. By far the most dangerous of these backbiting cliques is the one led by Lady Sneerwell

http://www.theatrehistory.com/british/sheridan002.html.

Romeo And Juliet, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1971-1972 Season

Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare early in his career about two young star-crossed lovers whose deaths ultimately reconcile their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. Today, the title characters are regarded as archetypal young lovers.

Romeo and Juliet belongs to a tradition of tragic romances stretching back to antiquity. The plot is based on an Italian tale translated into verse as The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet by Arthur Brooke in 1562 and retold in prose …

Cinderella, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1971-1972 Season

Cinderella or The Little Glass Slipper, is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances, that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune. The story of Rhodopis, recounted by the Greek geographer Strabo in around 7 BC, about a Greek slave girl who marries the king of Egypt, is usually considered as the earliest known variant of the "Cinderella" story. The first literary European version of the story was published in Italy by Giambattista Basile in his Pentamerone in 1634; …

The Development Of Structured Situations For Role-Playing In The Lds Department Of Seminaries And Institutes Of Religion, Roy E. Welty

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to:
1. Provide information on the uses of role-playing that show its relationship to religious education.
2. Provide information on how to develop role-playing situations and use them in educational settings.
3. Develop some sample situations which may be used by other teachers.

Life With Father, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1971-1972 Season

Life With Father is a 1939 play by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, adapted from a humorous autobiographical book of stories compiled in 1935 by Clarence Day. Clarence Day wrote humorously about his family and life. The stories of his father, Clarence "Clare" Day, Senior, were first printed in the New Yorker magazine. They portray a rambunctious, overburdened Wall Street broker who demands that everything from his family should be just so. The more he rails against his staff, his cook, his wife, his horse, salesmen, holidays, his children and the inability of the world to live up to his …

The Male Animal, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1971 Summer Theatre

Elliott Nugent scored his biggest stage success with The Male Animal, which he co-wrote with his longtime friend James Thurber. It centers on a college professor who faces dismissal for his defense of free speech. Further complicating matters is the arrival of his wife’s former boyfriend. The play premiered in 1940, with Nugent in the lead role.

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Elliott-Nugent

Camelot, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970-1971 Season

Lerner and Loewe’s majestic Camelot brings the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table to life with an extraordinary score and a story that poignantly dramatizes the human conflict at the heart of this classic tale. Based on T.H. White’s novel, The Once and Future King, Camelot tells the story of Arthur, a young squire who becomes King after extracting the sword Excalibur from its legendary rock. Camelot opens in the midst of the battle that destroyed King Arthur’s kingdom, and goes back to tell the story of how the battle came to be. The …

Othello, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970-1971 Season

Othello (The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice) is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in 1603. It is based on the story Un Capitano Moro ("A Moorish Captain") by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565. The story revolves around its two central characters: Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army and his unfaithful ensign, Iago. Given its varied and enduring themes of racism, love, jealousy, betrayal, revenge and repentance, Othello is still often performed in professional and community theatre alike, and has been the source for numerous operatic, film, and …

The Chalk Garden, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970-1971 Season

The Chalk Garden is a play by Enid Bagnold that premiered on Broadway in 1955. The play tells the story of Mrs. St. Maugham and her granddaughter Laurel, a disturbed child under the care of Miss Madrigal, a governess. The setting of the play was inspired by Bagnold's own garden at North End House in Rottingdean, near Brighton, Sussex, the former home of Sir Edward Burne-Jones. The work has since been revived numerous times internationally, including a film adaptation in 1964.

The Chalk Garden. (2017, July 2). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20:51, September 28, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Chalk_Garden&oldid=788642084

An Experimental Theatre Approach To A Mormon Theme Using The Work Of The Open Theatre As Prototype, Dionis C. Spitzer

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to discover those experimental theatre techniques which can best express a Mormon theme: that one must become as a child to enter the kingdom of God. This thesis concludes from the resultant production, An Afternoon's Work, that certain theatrical techniques are powerful tools for the expression of any theme; that the work of the Open Theatre can be used for Mormon ends as long as the actor and director know exactly what they want to say and refine the techniques for that purpose.

The ideology behind experimental theatres such as the Open Theatre …

Heidi, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970-1971 Season

The orphan child Heidi first lives with her aunt Dete, but Dete would like to concentrate on her career. So she brings Heidi to her grandfather, a queer old man living in an alpine cottage far from the next village (he is therefore called Alm-Uncle. Alm-Uncle is good-hearted but mistrusts anybody and wants to keep the child from all evils of the world. So he refuses to send Heidi to school; instead she goes to the pastures, together with Peter, a shepherd boy looking after the goats. This (all too harmonious) apine idyll finds a sudden end when aunt Dete …

Arsenic And Old Lace, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970-1971 Season

Mortimer Brewster is living a happy life: he has a steady job at a prominent New York newspaper, he’s just become engaged, and he gets to visit his sweet spinster aunts to announce the engagement. Mortimer always knew that his family had a bit of a mad gene -- his brother believes himself to be Teddy Roosevelt and his great-grandfather used to scalp Indians for pleasure -- but his world is turned upside down when he realizes that his dear aunts have been poisoning lonely old men for years! When Mortimer’s maniacal brother, Jonathan. (who strangely now resembles Boris Karloff) …

Harvey, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970 Summer Theatre

Harvey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy by Mary Chase, is the story of a perfect gentleman, Elwood P. Dowd, and his best friend, Harvey -- a pooka, who is a six-foot tall, invisible rabbit. When Elwood begins introducing Harvey around town, his embarrassed sister, Veta Louise, and her daughter, Myrtle Mae, determine to commit Elwood to a sanitarium. A mistake is made, however, and Veta is committed rather than Elwood! Eventually, the mistake is realized, and a frantic search begins for Elwood and the invisible pooka, which ends with Elwood appearing, voluntarily, at the sanitarium. In the end, however, Veta …

The Miser, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970 Summer Theatre

Satire and farce blend in the fast-moving plot, as when the miser's hoard is stolen. Asked by the police magistrate whom he suspects, Harpagon replies, “Everybody! I wish you to take into custody the whole town and suburbs” and indicates the theatre audience while doing so. The play also makes fun of certain theatrical conventions, such as the spoken aside addressed to the audience, hitherto ignored by the characters onstage. The characters of L'Avare, however, generally demand to know who exactly is being spoken to.

The Miser. (2017, July 19). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 21:08, September 26, …

Picnic, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970 Summer Theatre

Hal Carter is a drifter whose life thus far hasn't amounted to much. He got as far as third year in college and since then has tried his hand at a number of things, all without success. He decides to head for Kansas to find his old college buddy, Alan Benson the son of a wealthy man. It's Labor Day and most of the town is preparing to go to the annual picnic. Hal finds his old friend but is immediately taken with Alan's beautiful girlfriend, Madge Owens. Madge's mother very much wants her to marry Alan and while Madge …

Black Comedy And The Tiger, Otterbein University Theatre And Dance Department

1970 Summer Theatre

Black Comedy - Black Comedy is a one-act farce by Peter Shaffer, first performed in 1965. The play is written to be staged under a reversed lighting scheme: the play opens on a darkened stage. A few minutes into the show there is a short circuit, and the stage is illuminated to reveal the characters in a "blackout." On the few occasions when matches, lighters, or torches are lit, the lights grow dimmer. The title of the play is a pun.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Comedy_(play)

The Tiger - The Tiger is one of two short plays written by Murray Schisgal and published in …