2009 - 2010 Mitchell Theatre Season
Mitchell Theatre, housed in the Rupp Communications Arts Building, is home to Taylor Theatre's main stage productions. It is a 317 seat performance space that serves as a "lab" for serious theatre students and a playground for those who have chosen to pursue other majors but just can't stay away. The stage space is a "modified thrust" stage and is suitable for small, intimate theatre experiences as well as major Broadway musicals.
Taylor Theatre '09-'10 Main Stage Season:
The Secret Garden - The Musical - November 13 - 15 & 20 - 22
COMPOSER - Lucy SimonLYRICIST & LIBRETTIST - Marsha Norman
1991 Tony Award Winning Musical based on the novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden follows Mary Lennox as she brings to life not only a garden but also those who surround her. Living in a lonely manor house in 1906 England, Archibald Craven, still grieving over the loss of his beloved wife Lily who died ten years earlier during childbirth and distraught over the condition of his bedridden son, he casts a dark shadow over the manor until Mary comes. The quiet routine is turned upside down when young Mary Lennox, a rich, spoiled child, is sent to live with them following the death of her parents by cholera in India. While living at the manor house, Mary discovers a secret walled garden hidden in the grounds and releases the magic and adventures locked inside, changing their lives forever. A beloved children's story set to rich melodies provide a evening of musical theater not soon to be forgotten.
Hippolytus by Euripedes - Febuary 12-14 & 19 - 21
The first playwright of democracy, Euripides wrote with enduring insight and biting satire about the social and political problems of contemporary Athenian life. While several earlier tragedies involved the passion of love; Hippolytus is the first in which it is central. A man, who lives continuously with the stain of his illegitimacy, finds himself in conflict with the gods Aphrodite, whom he hates and Artemis whom he loves. The play explores classical Greek religion as it illuminates the Greek view of their gods. Do they act within a frame work of forgiveness and mercy or are the worshipers' only pawns to be pushed in and out of life's joys and sorrows? The pain and consequences of life's choices that are real for Hippolytus, Phaedra and Theseus are real for us today and deserve our contemplation. We also, as we explore our religion, find ourselves with questions that surround the sovereignty of our God and the free will of man. "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9
Crimes of the Heart by Beth Henley - April 23 - 25 & April 30 - May 2
Winner of the 1981 Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, Crimes of the Heart is a warm-hearted, irreverent, zany and brilliantly imaginative; the play teems with humanity and humor as it examines the plight of three young Mississippi sisters betrayed by their passions. While this play overflows with infectious high spirits, it is also, unmistakably, the tale of a very troubled family, who finds their hope in a new understanding of what it means to be sisters. "Such is Miss Henley's prodigious talent that she can serve us pain as though it were a piece of cake." -NY Times.
For ticket information, call the Box Office at 765-998-5289.
