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OREGON
STATE UNIVERSITY THEATRE TO PRESENT
THE
AMERICAN PREMIERE OF
TREEHOUSES
by
Elizabeth Kuti
April, 7,
8, 9 & 14, 15, 16, 7:30 PM
April 17,
2:00 PM
Withycombe
Lab Theatre
The Oregon State
University Theatre will produce the American Premiere of Treehouses
by Elizabeth Kuti April 7-9, 14-16 at 7:30 with a matinee
on Sunday April 17 at 2:00. Three story lines are interwoven
in the play. One part takes place in a nursing home in present-day
Dublin; the second is in a burned-out treehouse where a young
woman tries to write a eulogy for her deceased father; the
third is in World War II war-torn Hungary where a young woman,
against her boyfriend’s wishes, tries to harbor a young boy,
a Jewish refugee. Treehouses is
a haunting story of love lost and found. Old Magda is in a
Dublin nursing home and she remembers her time in World War
II Hungary when she tried to protect a young Jewish boy. In
a parallel to the present time, we see a young woman Eva remembering
her father as she struggles to come to terms with his life
and death..
Although Kuti has studied and worked in Dublin, she is of
Anglo-Hungarian ancestry. Prsently, she is on the faculty
of the University of Essex in England. Treehouses
is a prize-winning script having won the Stewart Parker Trust
BBC Award and receiving an Honorable Mention from the Susan
Blackburn Smith Awards given for the best play written in
the English language by a woman.
In the cast
of Treehouses are Arin Dooley as
Eva. Vreneli Farber as Old Magda, Valerie Tibbets as Young
Magda, David Richard Fox as Stephen, Carrie Sigloh as Ger,
and Reilly Ferrell as the Boy. Tibbets, Sigloh, and Ferrell
are making their University Theatre debuts in Treehouses.
The Sunday April 17 matinee will be a benefit for the Holocaust
Memorial Week. All ticket sales are by donation on this day
and all donations will go to the Holocaust Memorial Week fund.
There will be a post-show discussion immediately following
the matinee performance.
The artistic staff for Treehouses
include George Caldwell as scene designer, Kendra Thysell,
a freshman in apparel design as costume designer, and Dan
Koetting of Texas A&M University is the guest lighting
designer. Koetting has a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University
and has designed all over the United States. Clif Bevers is
the stage manager for the production and Charlotte Headrick,
whose special research interest is Irish Drama, directs.
Box office hours are W-F noon to five o’clock during the two
weeks of the production opening on April 6-9 and April 13-15
at the Main Box Office, Withycombe Hall; the Lab Box Office,
East Entrance, Withycombe Hall opens again at 6:30 on evenings
of performances and at 1:00 on the day of the matinee. During
daytime hours (W-F), please call the Theatre Box Office at
(541)737-2784. One hour prior to each performance please call
the Lab Theatre Box Office phone at (541)737-3050. Tickets
for specific performances may be reserved although there is
only festival seating in the Lab Theatre (no specific reserved
seats, sit where you want). Because of the nature of the Lab
Theatre space, latecomers cannot be seated.
Also coming
to the lab theatre Spring 2005. . .
Another American
Premiere at OSU!
Infinite
Variety: A Showcase of Shakespeare’s
Women, Real and Imagined
April 22 at
7:30 PM and April 24 at 2:00 PM
The
April 22nd – 24th Production of “Infinite Variety” is one
of three International Performances in 2005
40 of Shakespeare’s best
known and loved female characters in under 45 minutes? It
may not seem possible, but according to the director and creator
of Infinite Variety, Scott Palmer,
the production by the Oregon State University Theatre is only
half as long as the original, which premiered in Wellington,
New Zealand almost a year ago.
“The script was a co-commission
between the National Drama School of New Zealand and the National
Shakespeare Theatre of Scotland and originally featured 65
female characters from Shakespeare in just under one hour
and thirty minutes,” says Palmer, now directing a more condensed
version for OSU’s annual Shakespeare’s Birthday celebrations
from April 22 – 24th, 2005.
Called “a rollercoaster
of verse and vice” by The Scotsman Newspaper and “a funny,
poignant and emotionally charged new script” by the New Zealand
Herald, Infinite Variety enjoyed
significant international success before making its way to
the stage at OSU.
First performed at Toi
Whakaari (the National Drama School of New Zealand) on Shakespeare’s
Birthday in 2004, the script (and director) then traveled
to Glasgow, Scotland where the piece was featured at Scotland’s
national outdoor Shakespeare festival in June of 2004. The
performances were so successful that new productions of the
play are being performed in Scotland and New Zealand again
in 2005.
“The show at OSU is one
of three productions of the script on three different continents,”
said Palmer, the founding Artistic Director of Glasgow Repertory
Company who currently works as a freelance director and Instructor
at OSU. “I’m thrilled that the OSU theatre has invited me
to do the show here in Corvallis. It is a wonderful way to
celebrate the breadth and depth of Shakespeare’s genius.”
Palmer, who is originally
from Oregon and completed his Masters degree at OSU in 1993,
has been living abroad and working as a director for the past
7 years. “I have to say being in Corvallis is a real change
from living in Glasgow or Wellington,” said Palmer, “But it
is great to be back and to be working with the OSU theatre
again.” Palmer will be directing Infinite Variety
for Oregon State before turning his attention to a different
sort of Shakespeare adaptation: The Complete Works of
William Shakespeare Abridged for Salem Repertory Company
in May of 2005.
“Shakespeare has always
been a passion of mine. My first experience of Shakespeare
was a production of King Lear at the Oregon Shakespeare
Festival and since then, I’ve been hooked,” Palmer said. He
is also working on a new version of Shakespeare’s rarely seen
play, King John which he hopes will be seen in production
in 2006.
Tickets
for Infinite Variety are $4.00
and
will be available at the door only.
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