Department of Performing Arts

In addition to the core productions that make up the 2010-11 Georgetown University Theater and Performance Studies Program’s A Season Named Desire, there are numerous interdisciplinary collaborations, guest residencies, professional partnerships and student-produced theater throughout the year.
____________________________________________________

Kennedy Center Page-to -Stage Festival
Scared of Sarah
Written by Laura Brienza (COL ‘10)
Directed by Professor Maya E. Roth
Monday, September 6/KENNEDY CENTER/FREE
In Scared of Sarah, Lily and Sam are expecting their first child, and neither one feels ready—terrified of their genes, their student loans, and not being “fully formed” human beings. Scared of Sarah explores the fear that sets in when two people make a third. This very funny and complicated family play will invite lively reflection and laughter on the art and politics of “choice” in parenting. Visit www.kennedy-center.org for details

DAH Teatar
THE STORY OF TEA/Friday, October 1 at 8 p.m
DEVINE STUDIO THEATRE

CROSSING THE LINE/Saturday, October 2 at 8 p.m
GONDA THEATRE
$20 GENERAL/$15 FACULTY, STAFF, SENIOR/$5 STUDENT
Building on our ongoing commitment to engaging and presenting vital, cutting-edge performance from around the world (as in last year’s residency with Belarus Free Theater), we are proud to welcome to campus the Belgrade-based experimental theater company DAH Teatar (dah means “breath”), for a residency which will include two of their most acclaimed and ground- breaking productions, as well as open workshops with students. Founded in 1991 during great political turmoil, this collective of Serb theater artists creates work that is at once acutely personal and profoundly political. DAH received the Otto Award for Political Theatre and the New York Times has written about the “poignant intensity” of their aesthetics. The Story of Tea is a variation on a theme of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, exploring the meaning of memory in relation to harsh truth. Crossing the Line is based on women’s authentic testimonies about wars that took place on the former republic of Yugoslavia’s soil from 1991–1999.

Dear Harvey
a staged reading
Written by Patricia Loughrey
Music by Thomas Hodges
Directed by Professor Susan Lynskey
Featuring top DC professional actors, GU faculty, alumni, and students
Monday, October 11 at 7:30 p.m.
GONDA THEATRE/$5 general
Presented in partnership with GU’s LGBTQ Resource Center, Office of the Provost, Center for Multicultural Equity and Access, GU Pride, and Health Education Services
Performed in celebration of National Coming Out Day, Dear Harvey is a tribute play to Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to a major public office in the United States. Drawn from more than 30 interviews, the work weaves together the personal and political writings of Milk with stories from the people he knew and the lives he changed, painting a portrait of a leader and a vision for equality.  Dear Harvey celebrates the stories not often found in history books: stories that reach beyond fear and stereotyping to honor the positive contributions of the members of our LGBTQ community.

 
The Underpass
a workshop production
Written by Christine Evans
Directed by Joseph Megel
Interactive video design by Jared Mezzocchi
Friday and Saturday, November 19 and 20 at 8 p.m.
DAVIS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, GONDA THEATRE
$10 general/FREE student
A ghost story for the digital war age, The Underpass is an interactive multimedia work combining live and video-game elements inspired by the increasing use of immersive, virtual-reality and video game technology -- both to train U.S. soldiers for battle and to rehabilitate those suffering post-traumatic stress disorder upon their return. The Underpass pits the cyclic structure of both video games and traumatic memory against the struggle of its protagonist Michael, a head-injured Iraq war veteran, to break these cycles and move on. This ground-breaking work-in-progress has most recently been developed and workshopped with American Repertory Theater, and continues its development here at Georgetown with intensive student involvement.

THEATER AND PERFORMANCE STUDIES
SENIOR THESIS PROJECTS

Watermelon Season
Conceived, adapted, and directed by Courtney Ulrich (COL ‘11)
Advised by Professor Derek Goldman
Friday and Saturday, December 3 and 4 at 8 p.m.
DAVIS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER,DEVINE STUDIO THEATRE /$5 general
Drawing from contemporary accounts and ethnographic research of the migrant workers in our fields today, as well as accounts of injustice through history from Steinbeck, Agee, and others, Watermelon Season is an exploration of the displaced, hard-working people toiling in America’s fruit and vegetable fields. Engaging urgent questions surrounding immigration
law and policy, Watermelon Season depicts a troubling and enduring tendency to devalue the very workers upon whom we depend.
 
 

The Orphan Play
Written, conceived, and adapted by Miranda Hall (COL ‘11)
Directed and advised by Professor Maya E. Roth
Friday and Saturday, January 21 and 22 at 8 p.m.
DAVIS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER,GONDA THEATRE /$5 general
Haunted by conflicts of parenthood and race, The Orphan Play juxtaposes the plight of a contemporary Arizonan family with stories from a small Arizona mining town in the early 20th century. Weaving together tales of birth, adoption, kidnapping, and feud, the play examines who has the right to motherhood in America, and who has the right to citizenship. Inspired by Linda Gordon’s book The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction and stories from our current historical moment, this play launches a cross-cultural ballet of history, dreams, and family, examining the relationship of parenthood and immigration in the fabric of American identity.

ARENA STAGE PARTNERSHIP
Now in its fifth year, our partnership with Arena Stage features numerous events throughout the season, highlighting our shared commitment to the development of new work, to community engagement, and to deepening dialogue on issues of importance to the American theater.

The Arena Stage-Georgetown partnership is made possible thanks to the generosity of Andrew R. Ammerman and the family of H. Max and Josephine F. Ammerman.

Among the many partnership events:

Two Men of Florence
By Richard Goodwin
Directed by David Dower
Monday, September 27/DAVIS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER,GONDA THEATRE
Written by a speechwriter for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, Two Men of Florence illuminates the intertwined lives of Galileo and Pope Urban VIII in 17th-century Florence. The two younger men’s mutual respect shifts as Galileo’s theories of the earth’s rotation and movement gain momentum. This play grapples with the battle between discovery and faith: Can people change their understanding of the world? If so, how?


One Arm
By Tennessee Williams
Adapted and directed by Moises Kaufman
Saturday, December 18, 2010 at 8 p.m.
Sunday, December 19, 2010 at 7 p.m.
DAVIS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, GONDA THEATRE
We are thrilled to kick off our season of Tennessee Williams events by welcoming back Tectonic Theater Project and celebrated playwright/director Moises Kaufman (Laramie Project, Gross Indecency), whose play 33 Variations was workshopped at Georgetown before its acclaimed runs at Arena Stage and then on Broadway. This workshop of Kaufman’s adaptation of Williams’ sexually charged potboiler One Arm (which premiered at Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago), is in advance of its New York premiere this coming Spring. Kaufman will return in the Spring as a featured participant in our Williams’ Centennial Weekend Festivities (March 24–27). This event is part of Georgetown University Theater and Performance Studies Program’s partnership with Arena Stage.
DAVIS PERFORMING ARTS CENTER, GONDA THEATRE
Free, but ticketed. Reserve online:

Or visit the Davis Performing Arts Center box office M-F 11 a.m.-3 p.m., or call us at (202) 687-ARTS.

HEATHER RAFFO RESIDENCY
Heather Raffo, playwright and actress of the award-winning one-woman show 9 Parts of Desire, will return to Georgetown for a residency in the Davis Center this February. In addition to her work with Theater & Performance Studies Program classes, Raffo will participate in interdisciplinary forums, including a public Q&A linked to the development of her new work about Iraq’s maqam musical culture as a window into the ghosts of the country’s past and present, and its search for human rights.

Tennessee Williams Centennial Festival

Throughout the spring, the Davis Performing Arts Center and the Theater and Performance Studies Program, in partnership with the American Studies Program and Arena Stage, host Tenn Cent Fest, an expansive celebration of this American master on the occasion of his 100th birthday. Featuring fully staged productions, readings and workshops, and additional contributions from those whom Williams has influenced and those who have influenced him, the Festival will feature material from the celebrated plays and the obscure and overlooked ones, as well as from short stories, memoirs,letters, essays, screenplays, biographies, parodies, poetry, and musical treatments. On the Centennial Weekend (March 24–27), a diverse array of many of the world’s leading writers, directors, scholars, and thinkers converge with Georgetown students and members of the campus and DC communities
for three days of wall-to-wall events.

Look for additional updates throughout the year.