Students with an interest in live theater need not look any farther than their own campus. The University theatre arts department will produce plays throughout the school year at the Robinson Theatre, the Arena Theatre and the Pocket Playhouse. All three are located at Villard Hall.
Theater development director Joseph Gilg talked at length about the department and its productions. The 2002-03 season marks a milestone for the department because it will include its 1,000th production.
“This year, the goal is to give ourselves and our community a sense of our history,” said Gilg.
While University Theatre has no set formula for play selection, Gilg said it typically considers mounting productions that are inclusive of minorities and address women’s issues. Although the theater focuses on what Gilg dubbed themes of “western civilization,” in the past the department has segued into various Asian forms of stage productions, including kabuki theater.
Larger productions mounted by the department are performed at the Robinson Theatre. When the school’s dramatic club was founded in 1909, performances were originally hosted in Johnson Hall. The Robinson Theatre opened in 1949 under the moniker “University Theatre” but was rededicated in 1976 after the retirement of one of the school’s premier theater scholar and professor, Horace Robinson.
The Robinson Theatre’s first production of the school year will be the musical “Chicago.” The show, which is based on a book by Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse (music by John Kander), has become immensely popular since its recent revival on Broadway. A feature-length film version is set for release by the end of the year. Co-author Ebb also provides lyrics for the show. The show will premiere 8 p.m. Nov. 8 and play 8 p.m. Nov. 9, 14, 15, 16, 22 and 23, with a 2 p.m. matinee on Sunday, Nov. 17.
“Narenschiff” will be the final play of the season and the University Theatre’s 1,000th production. It will premiere in April and will be based on Sebastian Brant’s novel of the same name. Unlike typical theater productions, this staging will be special because of the interactive approach that will be taken.
Theater professor John Schmor will be directing “Narenschiff,” which translates to “Ship of Fools” in English. He said that the show will be more innovative than a typical University show because of the approach to casting and production.
“We want to show the theater as a tool that not just theater makers use. The students will be way more responsible for basic creative directions,” Schmor said.
There will be an audition open to all University students this term. Schmor hopes the cast will draw from a wide range of academic disciplines. When the cast has been selected, students will read the text, devise the production during winter term and begin rehearsing a week after the end of spring break.
The theatre department also runs a Second Season series of plays, which are performed in the Arena Theatre. These shows are smaller and typically less mainstream than the Robinson’s offerings. The Second Season will kick off in January with a production of Steve Martin’s play “Picasso at the Lapin Agile.”
Students looking to submit their own original material for production have a variety of options. The Arena Theatre hosts an annual New Voices competition, which selects student submissions at the end of every school year for production in the fall. The new productions selected for this year — “The Sea is a Restless Whore” by Brian Boone and “Waiting to be Exiled” by Nathan Bloch — will premiere in October.
The Pocket Theatre is run entirely by University students and accepts student proposals for theater space at the end of every term.
Theatre arts graduate student Eric Maccionnaith said there is no set standard for what students can submit; other than following proposal guidelines, the Pocket board considers almost everything.
“It runs the gamut. There have been poetry readings, performance arts, dance movement and music,” Maccionnaith said.
Six to eight productions are mounted at the Pocket Theatre each quarter. The next submission deadline, for productions mounted in winter term, will be in November.
Ticket information for all productions is available at http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~theatre.