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1996-1997
Season
The Physicists
by Friedrich Dürrenmatt
Directed by Guy Van Swearingen
With: Richard Atwater,
Mary Beth Burns, David Carlson, Richard Cotovsky, Marilyn
Dodds Frank, John Gray, Lawrence Grimm, Steve Juergens, Keith
Kupferer, Lara Phillips, Daniel, Benjamin Silverstein, Marzena
Szajer-Bukowska and Troy West.
The Physicists is a moral play dealing with the advancement
of new and profound theories in the field of science, and
what to do with the information discovered. Science and humanity
must co-exist and any one person's attempt to resolve for
themselves what is the responsibility of everyone is doomed
to fail. The Physicists examines in detail the responsibility
of a scientist who discovers "the principal of universal
discovery"--something that would revolutionize physics
as we know it.
In The Physicists, the characters are three scientists who
navigate through each other's secrets. In order to achieve
the maximum effect in personality conflict, The Physicists
is set in an asylum. This study in compressionism is achieved
by simultaneously separating and insulating the characters
from the outside world. Other classic examples in this style
are The Dance of Death by Strindberg, The Hairy Ape by O'Neill,
No Exit by Sartre, The Chairs by Ionesco, End Game by Beckett,
and several works by Pinter.
The Persecution of Arnold Petch
(World Premiere)
by David Hauptschein
Directed by Dan Sauer
With: Julie Goldstein,
Pat Healy, Ann Jennings, Michael Shannon, Wesley Walker
and Gary Wilmes
Set in an anonymous urban wasteland, The Persecution of Arnold
Petch is an excruciatingly intimate visit with Arnold Petch,
a man who has given meaning to the arbitrary nastiness of
his low-income, dead-end existence by transforming everyday
hassles and odd occurrences into elements of a master plot
designed to prevent him from assassinating the President,
a crime which he, ironically, believes he has no interest
in committing. Avidly documenting each day of his life on
calendars and cassettes, he hopes to come up with enough evidence
to prove the "Secret Police" are, bit by bit, stealing
his reality, his memory, and his sanity.
Trouble ensues when his cracked neighbors decide to band together
and form a committee whose aim is to improve the living conditions
in the squalid tenement building they all share. The arrival
of the President in town, combined with the increasing anxiety
caused by Arnold's nosey neighbors push him to make the "big
decision" which could either end his persecution or end
his life.
'Tis Pity She's a Whore
by John Ford
Directed by Dexter Bullard
With: Dominic Conti,
Paul Dillon, Hanna Dworkin, Steve Juergens, Tracy Letts, Jeff
Mangrum, Marc A Nelson, Erin Philyaw, Matt Robison, Laura
Ruth, Michael Shannon, Guy Van Swearingen, Doug Vickers, Wesley
Walker, and Holly Wantuch
This celebrated Jacobean potboiler concerns the hand of Annabella,
the fairest maiden in Parma. She has many suitors, including
Soranzo, a wealthy and debonair dilettante, Grimaldi, a ruthless
and bitter Roman soldier, and Bergetto, the spoiled and indignant
nephew of a rich nobleman. But none of their loves rival that
of Giovanni, her brilliant and spirited brother. Giovanni
and Annabella nervously but passionately consummate their
love and must not only reckon with their sins before Heaven,
but also dodge the mounting calamity that ensues with their
affair. Breathtakingly restless in its shifting plots, Ford's
'Tis Pity She's a Whore ultimately ponders whether the arbiter
of truth, justice, and beauty is God or ourselves.
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