Brandeis Theater Company Offers Wide Variety for 2010-11 Season

A Chekhov classic and a groundbreaking musical are fall semester features

From a Chekhov classic newly adapted by America’s hottest playwright, to a ground-breaking Broadway musical, and from a play-in-the-making to a satire that will induce nightmares for fans of a classic comic strip, the 2010-11 Brandeis Theater Company season promises artistry, grace and excitement.

The season begins on Sept. 30 with the East Coast premiere of a new adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Three Sisters.” Tracy Letts, the Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award-winning author of “August: Osage County,” has adapted this compelling new version of the 1900 drama that follows three cultured young women trapped in a drab existence in the countryside as they long to return to Moscow society. Directed by Adrianne Krstansky, assistant professor of theater arts, the production features fellow faculty member Janet Morrison and guest artist Craig Mathers.

“I am really looking forward to Adrianne Krstansky's work on the Tracy Lett's adaptation of “Three Sisters,” says Susan Dibble, the Barbara Sherman '54 and Malcolm L. Sherman Director of Theater Arts. “I think doing Chekhov is very important for our students and for the department to have the opportunity to work on a play that is filled with universal themes.”

Even though temperatures will be falling later in autumn, you can still enjoy a warm “Sunday in the Park with George” from Nov. 18 to 21. Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s 1985 Pulitzer-Prize winning musical is a portrait of neo-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat and his pointillist masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of La Grande Jatte.” Under the direction of Elliot Norton Award-winner Scott Edmiston, director of Brandeis’ Office of the Arts, the production will celebrate Sondheim’s 80th birthday.

“For a number of years Scott Edmiston has been on the top of our list as potential directors and we are thrilled that he has agreed to direct this production,” Dibble says. “I love the idea that painting is a metaphor for life questions and resolutions.”

In February, the theater company will raise the curtain on the second season of its partnership with New York’s renowned Primary Stages, a company whose managing director is Elliott Fox ’89.

After staging Rogelio Martinez’ “Cocktail Time in Cuba” last year, the BTC will collaborate with playwright Maria Alexandria Beech on “Little Monsters,” her new work that is still in development. The play focuses on an inspiring poet, Sara, who lives a squalid existence with her mother in a cramped apartment but aspires to much more. Can the way up and out be found through a series of Internet-instigated relationships with men or must she look back and inward to find the way forward?

The workshop format will allow the student-actors to experience the creation of a play firsthand, and will give audiences the opportunity to participate in post-performance discussions with the playwright and other members of the creative team. Dibble says the play will be a good drawing board for both actors and designers, and the Brandeis Theater-Primary Stages collaboration gives her hope that the university can continue to nurture more projects with Brandeis alumni in the theater business.

“The innovation and talents are wide ranging when it comes to our alumni,” she says. “Elliot Fox is one of these people, and it is my hope that we will have more opportunities to work with some outstanding individuals who have graduated from Brandeis.”

Finally, in April, it’s a dark return to the funny pages, with Bert V. Royal’s “Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead.” Beloved characters that audience members will remember are back — but now they’re dealing with issues that would never make it into a cartoon holiday special. And that doesn’t even include the dead beagle.

“The play is bittersweet, as is growing up in the dysfunction of American culture,” Dibble says. “I am thrilled to have Summer L. Williams as a guest director and to be doing an all-undergraduate production. We hope to be doing more undergraduate performances because the talent pool is big, and our department is developing a fresh look at how to take advantage of our young students and their talents.”

Productions will be held on two stages in the Spingold Theater Center on the Brandeis campus. Tickets are $18/$20 for the general public and $9/$10 for students. Tickets for the four-play season are $55/$65.

Contact Brandeis Tickets at 781-736-3400 or order online.

2010-11 BTC season

Three Sisters

By Anton Chekhov
Adaptation by Tracy Letts
Directed by Adrianne Krstansky
Sept. 30 to Oct. 10
East Coast Premiere!

Sunday in the Park with George
Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Directed by Scott Edmiston
Musical direction by Todd Gordon
Nov. 18 to 21

Little Monsters
By Maria Alexandria Beech
Feb. 17 to 20

Dog Sees God: Confessions of a Teenage Blockhead
By Bert V. Royal
Directed by Summer L. Williams
April 28 to May 1

The 2010-11 Brandeis Theater Company season is made possible through generous support from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Laurie Foundation, the Brandeis Arts Council, the Poses Fund, and the Robin, Barbara and Malcolm L. Sherman Endowment for the Performing Arts.