HU Theatre presents An Evening of Ives Plays
FOR RELEASE: Wednesday, September 14, 2005
Huntington, Ind. "The Huntington University Theatre Company will open this year's theatre season with Sure Thing: An Evening of David Ives Plays. This award-winning evening of comedies combines wit, intellect, satire and just plain fun. The curtain goes up in the MCA Studio Theatre on September 22 at 7:30 p.m. Other performances take place on September 23 at 7:30 p.m., September 24 at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and during Homecoming weekend on October 1 at 2:00 p.m. Directed by Mike Burnett, assistant professor of theatre, Sure Thing: An Evening of David Ives Plays is a critically acclaimed series of comedies. Critics hail Ives' plays as theatre that aerobicizes the brain and tickles the heart. Ives is a mordant comic who has put the play back in playwright.
The evening will include eight plays such as Arabian Nights, where normal Norman walks into ordinary Flora's shop, only to find a whirlwind romance spurred on by a wacky translator. Sure Thing is a classic of contemporary comedy with the meeting of two people in a cafe' who must find their way through a conversational minefield as an off-stage bell interrupts their false starts, gaffes, and faux pas on the way to falling in love.
The Universal Language brings together Dawn, a young woman with a stutter, and Don, the creator and teacher of Unamunda, a wild, comic language. Their lessons send them off into a dazzling display of verbal pyrotechnics "and, of course, true love. Enigma Variations features some zany hijinks as a pair of look-alikes solves an identity crises with the help of Dr. William W. Williams and his nurse Fifi. The Philadelphia presents a young man in a restaurant who has fallen into a Twilight-Zone state in which he cannot get anything for which he asks. His only way out of the dilemma is to ask for the opposite of what he wants.
Words, Words, Words recalls the philosophical adage that three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce Hamlet. This comedy asks, What would monkeys talk about at their typewriters? Soap Opera tells the story of a washing-machine repairman who falls in love with a picture-perfect washer. Captive Audience is a cautionary fable about how Rob and Laura face a menacing television in their living room that talks back to them and threatens to swallow them whole.
The Huntington University cast includes Sharon Voss, Lindsay Stalf, Cassandra Quinn, Josh Dawes, Chris Betz, and Jeff Blossom. Kristen Kohaut and Stephen Wiseheart serve as understudies.
Production staff includes Mike Burnett, director; Hannah Krauskopf, assistant director; Justin Miller, production stage manager; Kylie Edmonds, assistant stage manager; Keeley Lewis, vocal/movement coach; Kari Clark, scenic designer; Brad DeYoung, lighting designer; Laura Feldner, costume designer; Nikki Barger, sound designer; Rebekah Bachman, scroller designer/writer; Zarin Barnes, student technical director; Terry Hurst, props master; Laura Brautigam, assistant props master; Becca Rodgers, master electrician; Josh Christenson, scenic artist; and Amber Patrick, wardrobe mistress.
Tickets for Sure Thing: An Evening of David Ives Plays are $8.00 for adults, $6.00 for seniors and HU faculty and staff, and $4.00 for students. For more information, contact the Merillat Center for the Arts Box Office at (260) 359-4261 or visit www.huntington.edu/mca.
