All Past DePauw Theatre Seasons

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  Mysteries ... and Smaller Pieces

  Spring 2012
  Mysteries ... and Smaller Pieces is a collective creation by The Living Theatre that changed theatrical history. Mysteries is the first play to be presented on the world’s major stages without fictional characters, plot, scenery or costumes. The virtually wordless composition redefines the nature of theater as pure communication between performers and audience. Relying on nonverbal sounds and improvised actions, Mysteries invokes the Dionysian sources of drama, offering the audience the opportunity of assisting in a series of rituals meant to liberate the actor’s deepest resources.

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  The Crucible

  Fall 2012
  “I have given you my soul, leave me my name!” cries John Proctor, as he rages against the atrocities occurring at Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. This production will be part of a community-wide conversation centered on the question “What are you willing to put your name to?” Described as a “gripping” and “powerful drama,” this Tony-award winning play depicts a dark time in colonial Massachusetts, when fear and greed incited the persecution of innocents accused of witchcraft. Broadway star and 1958 DePauw University graduate David Cryer will portray the fiery Deputy-Governor in a production of The Crucible at his alma mater in November. Cryer and his wife, choreographer and actress Britt Swanson, will join a cast of students and local actors Larry Sutton (DePauw professor emeritus of communication and theatre) and Jack Randall Earles in the Tony Award-winning play by Arthur Miller.

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  The Heidi Chronicles

  Spring 2012
  What has the Women’s Movement done for women? The Heidi Chronicles, the 1989 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Wendy Wasserstein asks this and other questions by tracing the life of a female art historian. Wasserstein’s main character, Heidi Holland, comes of age during the pivotal years of the Women’s Movement. Through her relationships with both men and women, we watch her struggle to determine what women have really gained and at what cost. The play has a wonderful mixture of probing intellectual questions and old-fashioned theatrical humor. Come see what the New York Daily News called, “not just a funny play, but a wise one.”

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  At the Diner

  Spring 2011
  Loosely based on the Greek myth of Io, At the Diner tells the story of a young woman waitressing at a Midwest diner, who has decided to break away from her going nowhere existence and forge ahead at the life she’s always wanted. Io's plans go drastically awry, however, when she becomes the prey of Zeus and nemesis of his wife, Hera. With no recourse, Io is swiftly enveloped in the couple’s tragic cycle of lust, secrecy, and revenge. This first play by senior Emily Terrell examines the classic Greek theme of fate versus free will within an imaginative modern context.

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  Hedda Gabler

  Fall 2011
  In 1890 Henrik Ibsen created what many think is his most interesting and revealing study of a woman’s character – Hedda Gabler. The play is traditional in structure but breaks away from overly sentimental plays of the earlier 19th century and presents a world in which traditional social convention and morality appear inconsistent and irrelevant. The character of Hedda is a study of a frustrated, isolated woman striving to assert herself and control the world around her. Although she appears clever, assured, and proud, she lacks the inner strength to live independently of the world’s social and moral conventions.

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  Lady Windermere's Fan

  Spring 2011
  As the play opens, the young and happily married Lady Windermere, a “good woman,” receives two items for her birthday: a lovely antique fan and the startling news that her husband may be having an affair with an older woman, the beautiful and famously promiscuous Mrs. Erlynne. But is the hold Mrs. Erylnne has on Lord Windermere of the adulterous kind? And why is she so interested in Lady Windermere? At the play’s crisis, Lady Windermere has risked her reputation and her happy life to obtain revenge upon her husband, only to be saved by none other than Mrs. Erylnne, the true exemplar of a “good woman.” First produced in 1892, Lady Windermere’s Fan, like many of Wilde's comedies, is a stinging satire on the morals of Victorian society, particularly the institution of marriage.

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  Urinetown

  Fall 2011
  The 2002 Tony award-winning Urinetown depicts the harshness of life in a society that has depleted its natural resources. Following a 20-year drought, the worldwide water shortage has led to a government ban on private toilets, and all of the "public amenities" are controlled by one powerful company that profits – by charging admission. A young hero emerges to inspire the desperate poor to rebel. Musical numbers in Urinetown parody famous songs from Broadway hits, including Les Miserables, Evita, West Side Story and Annie. One critic notes, “ Of course, you’re not supposed to like that title – that’s part of the big, good-natured and remarkable successful joke that is Urinetown.” You won’t want to miss this “… terrifically spirited send-up of musicals and their conventions.”

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  Because the Universe Tends Toward Entropy

  Spring 2010
  The horrifying things that we do to one another, and the lengths to which we go to try to repair them, take center stage in this assemblage of one-act plays from Modernist masters. Chekhov's riotous farce, The Marriage Proposal, is followed by Strindberg's exploration of infidelity in The Stronger. Pablo Picasso's only play, Desire Trapped by the Tail, offers a funny, abstract take on personal relationships. The stories conclude with Dust of the Road by Kenneth Sawyer Goodman, where we encounter Judas eternally wandering the earth, trying desperately to undo the damage he has done.