Current Theater Season
2022-2023
SCHOOL OF THEATER PRESENTS
29th Annual Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights’ Festival
IMAGINARY AUDIENCES
by Eryn Elyse McVay
Directed by Molly Donahue
When Lola McIntyre, a twelve-year-old aspiring magician, uploads the home video of her latest act to YouTube and suddenly garners millions of views overnight, her distant dream of performing magic solo on a Las Vegas stage soon becomes a tangible potential reality. Fast-forward fifteen years, and Lola’s still reaching toward that dream, still just on the cusp on true greatness. From betraying a friend to making deals with a demon, Lola will do just about anything to get on that Vegas stage, she has to, because everything she’s done, everything she’s gone through, it has to be worth it, right?
SQUEAKERS
by Steven Strafford
Directed by Sam Nelson
Jane is a new mother of a young baby, who finds herself on an adventure she never wanted to take. She fights through grief, addiction, and what lies beyond this plane of existence, all in pursuit of saving a life. Squeakers asks us what the punchline is for a joke that begins, "A pair of new parents, a clown, an angel, a nurse, and a couple of alcoholics walk into a hospital..."
The annual Ohio University Seabury Quinn, Jr. Playwrights’ Festival held each year at the end of the Spring Semester represents the culmination of the work of Ohio University’s MFA Playwrights. Join us to celebrate and help in the creation of new work!
Baker Theater
April 19-22, 26-29
- Wednesday, April 18, 8:00 PM preview: Squeakers by Steven Strafford
- Thursday, April 20, 8:00 PM opening: Imaginary Audiences by Eryn Elyse McVay
- Friday, April 21, 8:00 PM opening: Squeakers by Steven Strafford
- Saturday, April 22, 2:00 PM performance: Imaginary Audiences by Eryn Elyse McVay
- Saturday, April 22, 8:00 PM performance: Squeakers by Steven Strafford
- Wednesday, April 26, 8:00 PM performance: Imaginary Audiences by Eryn Elyse McVay
- Thursday, April 27, 8:00 PM performance: Squeakers by Steven Strafford
- Friday, April 28, 3:00 PM reading: Mona Quimby: Age 38 by Steven Strafford
- Friday, April 28, 8:00 PM production: Imaginary Audiences by Eryn Elyse McVay
- Saturday, April 29, 3:00 PM reading: How Sweet the Sound by Eryn Elyse McVay
- Saturday, April 29, 8:00 PM production: Squeakers by Steven Strafford
Mentors: Martine Kei Green-Rogers and Aaron Carter
Past Shows
TANTRUM THEATER PRESENTS
Carrie
Book by Lawrence D. Cohen
Lyrics by Dean Pitchford
Music by Michael Gore
Adapted from Stephen King’s Carrie
Directed and Choreographed by Victoria Rae Sook
Adapted from Stephen King's 1974 novel Carrie, the musical focuses on an awkward teenage girl with telekinetic powers whose lonely life is dominated by an oppressive religious fanatic mother. When she is humiliated by her classmates at the high school prom, she unleashes chaos on everyone and everything in her path.
Elizabeth Baker Theater
SCHOOL OF THEATER PRESENTS
1st Year MFA Directors’ Projects
macbitches
Directed by Devin Ty Franklin
When a freshman is unexpectedly given the coveted role of Lady Macbeth, a few upperclassmen actresses invite her over to “celebrate” her casting and reassert their positions at the top of the theatre department’s hierarchy. As the Fireball and Svedka flow, the girls interrogate their own sense of ambition as well as the power structures that have shaped their theatrical education.
PlaySpace, Putnam Hall RM 227
The Secretaries
Directed by Caitlin Lopez
Pretty Patty Johnson is thrilled to join the secretarial pool at the Cooney Lumber Mill under the iron-fisted leadership of sultry office manager Susan Curtis. But she soon begins to feel that all is not right—the enforced diet of Slim-Fast shakes, the strange clicking language between the girls, the monthly disappearance of a lumberjack… By the time Patty discovers murder is part of these office killers' skill set, it's too late to turn back! In the guise of satiric exploitation-horror, The Secretaries takes an unflinching look at the warped cultural expectations of femininity.
PlaySpace, Putnam Hall, RM 227
SCHOOL OF THEATER PRESENTS
Julius Caesar
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Shelley Delaney
Power and Ambition. Friendship and Betrayal. Anarchy and Justice. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare: a fast and furious political tale for our time.
Virginia Hahne Theater
SCHOOL OF THEATER PRESENTS
Doctor Voynich and Her Children
A Prediction by Leanna Keyes
Directed by Tyler Everett Adams
Doctor Rue Voynich and her apprentice Fade travel the American Heartland dispensing herbal medications. They also covertly perform abortions--long ago made illegal. When approached by a local young woman, Hannah, to perform an abortion, Fade must assist her before the sheriff can nail them for the “attempted murder of an unborn person.” This post-Roe v. Wade play about mothers and daughters is poetic, sexy, vulgar, queer, and a little too real.
Virginia Hahne Theater
SCHOOL OF THEATER PRESENTS
what the Gods gave me
By Eryn Elyse McVay
Directed by Molly H. Donahue
Moon magic, man eaters, and matrimony; the women of Nevermoore Inn are preparing for the first night of the rest of their lives, but their carefully crafted mythos is about to catch fire. Written by OU’s own Eryn Elyse McVay, what the Gods gave me is a story about the magic of the family and the power of the individual.
Baker Backstage
TANTRUM THEATER PRESENTS
Hotel Berry
By Jacqueline Lawton
Directed by JaMeeka Holloway
By 1912 Athens’ only Black business owners, Edward and Mattie Berry, have established one of the finest hotels in Ohio, with visitors from all over the country. When former president and now presidential candidate Theodore Roosevelt decides to stay at the hotel, a potential moment of pride and joy unleashes scandal and political upheaval.
Forum Theater
VIBRANCY THEATER PRESENTS
Yerma
By Federico García Lorca
Directed by Ally Poole
A woman in a passionless marriage, who wants nothing more than to have a child. A community that measures a woman’s worth by their ability to bear children. Yerma, for anyone who has ever desperately wanted something and found that it was just beyond their reach.
Forum Theater
April 13-15, 18-22 @ 8:00pm
April 22 @ 2PM
SCHOOL OF THEATER PRESENTS
Midnight Madness
Midnight Madness is part of the MFA Playwriting program consisting of the bi-weekly, informal production of new work. Early each week a different graduate playwright is selected as the week’s producer. The producer chooses a theme, style, or concept as a prompt for that week’s production. Each writer must then write a three to five-minute play based on that prompt. Each play is written, cast, and rehearsed throughout the week in preparation for the Friday night, script-in-hand production.
Madness takes place Fridays at 11 PM in the Hahne Theater. The performances last about an hour and are free and open to the public. Upcoming Madness Schedule is available here: ohioplaywriting.org/madness
Visit the College of Fine Arts calendar often for updates and information about the School of Theater's season.
Visit Tantrum Theater's page for further details about productions, season offerings, workshops, etc.