FAU Announces the 2015-16 Theater and Dance Season
Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Theater and Dance in the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters presents a season of thought-provoking and entertaining theater and dance. The season includes four plays and a dance production. All plays take place on FAU’s Boca Raton campus. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at www.fauevents.com or by calling 1-800-564-9539. A package of all five productions is $80 and can be purchased by calling 561-297-2971.
“We are looking forward to a season that both entertains and challenges our audiences,” said Des Gallant, chair of FAU’s Department of Theater and Dance. “Our talented student-actors work hard to put on a quality performance and this season should be particularly engaging.”
The first show of the season is “The Pillars of Society” by Henrik Ibsen. In the first of his revolutionary prose plays, Ibsen turns his unrelenting critical eye to the hypocrisies of society creating a timeless play that illuminates the same hypocrisies at work today. When his past threatens to explode, Karsten Bernick, a shipping magnate and “pillar of society,” willingly places his reputation and business interests above the lives of the passengers of the American ship, The Indian Girl. When his plot goes disastrously wrong, truth and freedom become the pillars that save society. The show runs from Friday, Oct. 2 through Sunday, Oct. 11.
The second show is “Agnes of God” by John Pielmeier. The winner of a Tony Award, this riveting Broadway hit thrillingly dramatizes the shocking story of a young nun accused of murdering her newborn after insisting that the child was the result of a virgin conception. As the truth of what happened is investigated, the three women of the play are forced to re-examine the meaning of faith and the power of love as it leads to a dramatic and compelling climax. This play runs from Friday, Nov. 13 through Sunday, Nov. 22.
The spring season opens with “The Country Wife” by William Wycherley. Often banned from the stage because of its outrageous and scandalous nature, this rollicking, bawdy farce interweaves multiple plots including a licentious young gentleman’s trick of pretending impotence so as to safely bed married women, and an inexperienced “country wife’s” discovery of the joys of town life and fascinating London men. This play is for mature audiences. It runs from Friday, Feb. 19 through Sunday, Feb. 28.
Repertory Dance Theatre Ensemble, which runs from Thursday, March 3 through Sunday, March 5, is an engaging program of diverse dance works by emerging and established artists. The dancers, classically trained, multi-generational and contemporary focused, perform an array of dance genres with technical and artistic merits. The mixed-bill program includes solos, duets and dance for the camera.
“King Lear” by William Shakespeare runs from Friday, April 15 through Sunday, April 23. Considered to be one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, this incredibly electric tale of an old monarch’s tragic descent into madness and personal hell is the ultimate family drama and political thriller. With depictions of greater cruelty and greater tenderness than perhaps any of Shakespeare’s other plays, king and kingdom are scorched, human nature scrutinized, and the wise made fools.
– FAU –
About Florida Atlantic University:
Florida Atlantic University, established in 1961, officially opened its doors in 1964 as the fifth public university in Florida. Today, the University, with an annual economic impact of $6.3 billion, serves more than 30,000 undergraduate and graduate students at sites throughout its six-county service region in southeast Florida. FAU’s world-class teaching and research faculty serves students through 10 colleges: the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, the College of Business, the College for Design and Social Inquiry, the College of Education, the College of Engineering and Computer Science, the Graduate College, the Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, the Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine, the Christine E. Lynn College of Nursing and the Charles E. Schmidt College of Science. FAU is ranked as a High Research Activity institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. The University is placing special focus on the rapid development of critical areas that form the basis of its strategic plan: Healthy aging, biotech, coastal and marine issues, neuroscience, regenerative medicine, informatics, lifespan and the environment. These areas provide opportunities for faculty and students to build upon FAU’s existing strengths in research and scholarship. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.
