"With a theater department bursting with talented professors, students unafraid to tackle avant-garde projects, ingenious designers creating often jaw-dropping work, UC Irvine has led something of a theatrical revolution over the years. Their consistently bold, risk-taking efforts put to shame the work of just about any other school or theater in Orange County, storefront or professional." OC Weekly
On Stage
| Drama Department Performances at UCI Robert Cohen Festival |
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October 28 & 29, 2011 October 28: 11:00 a.m. Alumni Brunch |
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| Fall 2011 Productions | |
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Waiting for Godot Waiting for Godot opened to scathing reviews in its American premiere in 1956, but in 1999 an international poll of drama critics declared it "the greatest play of the 20th century," Claire Trevor Professor of Drama Robert Cohen's staging of Samuel Beckett's amazing tragi-comedy about two famous tramps waiting for their savior is a fresh take on the play, inspired by a letter the author once wrote to Cohen himself.
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The Misanthrope Molière's delightful 1666 satire of the French aristocracy is perhaps the ultimate Comedy of Manners. Do we really have to call people "friends" when we barely know their names? Must we compliment a woman on her beauty when she cracks mirrors? Shall we greet as an old pal the very snake who disses us behind our back? In Robert Cohen's witty translation, Molière's characters -- among the richest of his writing -- make us laugh at ourselves more than three centuries later!
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In the Red and Brown Water Written by Tarell Avin McCraney Fast, beautiful Oya is a young runner with enormous promise who is forced to choose between her ailing mother and her own dreams. How far will Oya go to make a mark in the world? Celebrating the legacy of African and Caribbean folklore, McCraney's poetic new play crafts an intoxicating journey around young Oya's movement into womanhood and her fall into the murky waters of life.
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Winter 2012 Productions |
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The Merchant of Venice The Merchant of Venice examines and exposes the qualities of morality, racism, and mercy in a world of commerce, competition, and deception. This production, set in the mid-twentieth century, features actor and UCI Drama Professor Richard Brestoff in the singular role of Shylock. Join us for one of the Bard's most controversial and thought-provoking plays in our brand new Elizabethan-style theatrical space, the New Swan Theatre.
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Hello, Again The joys of sex are here for the asking in this adult musical fantasy by Michael John La Chiusa, one of our finest contemporary theatre composers/librettists. Seen through the lens of a combination time machine and old-time kinescope, Hello, Again crisscrosses beds and jumps from decade to decade, intimately examining the painful secrets that drive characters into each other's arms and toward the bruising effects of reckless passion. With a score that saturates the mind, Hello, Again has an unforgettable, dreamlike quality – and all the luxuriance of an insistent seduction. Based on Arthur Schnitzler's controversial play, La Ronde.
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Arcadia When you enter the Coventry family's stately home in Derbyshire, England, you are instantly transported between 1809 and the present in Tom Stoppard’s mystery masterpiece. Chaos vs. order. Romanticism vs. classicism. Mathematics, physics, thermodynamics, chaos theory, lust, madness, and botany are just some of the themes that Stoppard addresses in one of the 20th century's finest theatrical works. Enter Arcadia!
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Spring 2012 Productions |
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Mother Courage and Her Children Originally written in 1939 and now in a new translation by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, Mother Courage is considered by some to be the greatest anti-war play of all time. The story tracks Mother Courage and her children through 12 years of the holy war during the early 17th century. The family follows the armies, pulling their heavy wagon and wares and trading with soldiers in an attempt to profit from the war. But with great profit comes great loss. See their heart-wrenching journey into the heart of war . . . and back.
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The Lost Estate (Le Grand Meaulnes) An adventurous schoolboy gets lost in the woods and finds himself at a great estate, where a party is underway to which he is mysteriously expected. The party abruptly ends; he returns to school, and spends the next year trying to find his way back to the Estate and the perfection he found there. The Lost Estate is a coming of age story about friendship, love, and the loss of innocence in the French countryside of 1901. Annie Loui Project (ALP) is a devised theater work in which a group of actors play hundreds of characters, animals, furniture and architecture. This world premiere is based on the classic early 20th century French novel, Le Grand Meaulnes (The Lost Estate) by Alain Fournier. |
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Dames at Sea Musical theatre salutes Hollywood in this affectionate spoof of film musicals of the 1930s. The scene is Big Time New York. Enter sweet young woman Ruby from faraway Hometown U.S.A., who has come to make it big on Broadway. When lo – who does she meet? Why hometown boy, Dick, a sailor (who, of course, also has ambitions as a songwriter). By the end of the day -- in true, Hollywood fashion -- Dick saves the show with a smash hit tune, and Ruby becomes the tap dancing sweetheart of the entire U.S. Naval fleet. |
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| Robert Cohen Festival | Fall 2011 Productions | Winter 2012 Productions |
| Spring 2012 Productions |