2014-2015 Augsburg College Theater Season

A Midsummer Night's Dream
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Martha Johnson

October 31, November 1,6,7,8 at 7 p.m.
November 2 and 9 at 3 p.m.
Tjornhom-Nelson Theater, Foss Center
With its potent mixture of love, comedy, lyricism, and stage magic, A Midsummer Night’s Dream has continued to captivate audiences for over four centuries.  Set in a mythical world of ancient Athens, moonlit woods, and fairy kingdoms, the play is a poignant and hilarious look at multifarious forms of human folly. Our production will imaginatively explore the play’s rich and compelling themes (both overt and covert)—love, power, gender, sexuality, marriage, class, patriarchy–through a fresh, contemporary lens, as we mine the play’s poetic, humorous, and magical power.

Egg
By Mark Steven Jensen
Student-directed by Mawrgyn Roper

November 14 at 7:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m.
November 15 at 12:00 p.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
November 16 at 12:00 p.m., 1:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.
The Studio Theater, Foss Center
Bertha and Louise are wandering in an empty wasteland when they both spot an egg at the same time. Bertha wants to turn the egg into an omelet; Louise wants to paint the egg for Easter. They each try to convince the other to give up dibs on the egg. The debate turns more and more violent and events spiral out of control. The production will use highly physical performance techniques with puppetry and clowning to tell the story of two women and an egg.

Trouble in Mind
By Alice Childress
Directed by Dominic Taylor

January 30,31, February 5,6,7 at 7 p.m.
February 1 and 8 at 2 p.m.
Tjornhom-Nelson Theater, Foss Center
Willetta Mayer, a talented, but struggling African American actress, has been cast to star in a Broadway Show, the anti-lynching play Chaos in Belleville. She has paid her dues and is ready for her star turn, but is this play as enlightened as she’s hoping?  Chaos is written by a liberal white male and directed by a white male. Willetta’s journey shows us that theatrical practices often put show business and integrity on a collision course. When this collision also includes race and gender, it is a compelling and potent dramatic brew.  Trouble in Mind, written in 1955 by Alice Childress, creates a theatrical microcosm with real world reverberations.

Def Poetics Vol. 2
Facilitated by Sha Cage and E.G. Bailey

March 11th and March 12th at 7 p.m.
Tjornhom-Nelson Theater, Foss Center
Def Poetic Vol.2  is an evening of spoken word, movement, and dance. The presentation is the culmination of workshops and individual dance rehearsal. The spoken word workshop participants will engage in listening & video sessions along with writing and performing both their own pieces and ‘classic’ work. 

A Babes in Arms
Music by Richard Rodgers, Lyrics by Lorenz Hart
Adapted by John Guare
Directed by Darcey Engen
Musical Direction by Sonja Thompson

April 10,11,16,17,18 at 7 p.m.
April 12 and 19 at 3 p.m.
Tjornhom-Nelson Theater, Foss Center
Babes in Arms, by Rodgers and Hart, is part of America’s Golden Age of the Broadway musical. First performed on Broadway in 1937, the original production, with its assortment of Broadway hits such as “My Funny Valentine” and “The Lady is a Tramp”, reflects the characteristics of the American musical comedy while also addressing social issues that still resonate today. The story circles around a group of young people who find themselves left to their own devices while their parents, who are vaudeville performers, leave to tour a summer show. In order to avoid being sent to a work farm by the local sheriff who finds the unsupervised youth a nuisance, the group decides to write and perform a musical.

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