For tickets to all Conservatory of Theatre Arts productions, call 968-7128

FALL 2011

Top Girls

By Caryl Churchill

Sept 28-Oct 2 and Oct 5-Oct 9

7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:00 p.m.

Emerson Studio Theatre

Marlene is a successful businesswoman with an unsuccessful personal life. She has left her poor life behind to enjoy success. Top Girls opens in a restaurant where Marlene is hosting a dinner party for five friends – the five guests are all women that are either long-dead or are fictional characters from literature or paintings. In much the same way Tony Kushner incorporates dreamlike sequences to explore issues of AIDS in Angels in America, Top Girls explores issues of feminism in the shadow of Margaret Thatcher’s policies in Great Britain.

Carousel

Book and Lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II
Music by Richard Rodgers

Nov 16-20

8:00 p.m., Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

Browning Mainstage Theatre

Carousel is adapted from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play Liliom. The story revolves around carousel barker Billy Bigelow, whose romance with millworker Julie Jordan comes at the price of both their jobs. He attempts a robbery to provide for Julie and their unborn child; when it goes wrong, he has a chance to make things right. The show includes the well-known songs "If I Loved You", "June Is Bustin' Out All Over" and "You'll Never Walk Alone". Remounted on Broadway in 1997 by director Nicholas Hytner, the show was said to be Richard Rodger’s favorite.

Hot L Baltimore

By Lanford Wilson

Nov 30-Dec 4 and Dec 7-11

7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:00 p.m.

Stage III

Opening in February 1973, Hot L Baltimore was the first major success for Wilson and his theater company, the Circle Repertory Company. The Hotel Baltimore is run-down, and slated for demolition. Over the course of one day, the residents who call the Baltimore home, meet, talk, and play out the everyday encounters that make up the human comedy. The play’s journey is a touching, though often hilarious, plea for a return to a kinder and gentler world. Wilson’s play won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for the Best American Play of 1972–73. It also won an Obie Award for best Off-Broadway play.

SPRING 2012

Hello Again

Music, Lyrics and Book by John LaChiusa

Based on La Ronde by Arthur Schnitzler

Feb 15-19 and Feb 22-26

7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2:00 p.m.

Emerson Studio Theatre

Suggested by the classic 1897 play by Arthur Schnitzler, La Ronde, this ingenious musical consists of ten vignettes narrating various sexual encounters, each one linked by a character from the previous scene in a daisy chain that eventually brings together the first and last participants. A study of American mores in the 20th century, each vignette takes place in a different decade, though the play crosses the boundaries of time and space.

Directing Capstone Projects

Stage III

Fri. and Sat. 7:30 p.m., Sat. and Sun. at 2:00 p.m.

Edgar Allan Poe’s Nevermore

Book by Grace Barnes

Music by Matt Conner

Lyrics from the writings of Edgar Allan Poe

Mar 23-25

Take a dark and mysterious journey into the life of Edgar Allan Poe. This imaginative musical uses Poe's poetry and short stories as its base and his shifting obsession with the women in his life as its catalyst. With hauntingly beautiful melodies, Nevermore breathes new life into Poe's work and explores a twisted true-life tale that is as bizarre as his classic stories of the macabre.

100 Saints You Should Know

By Kate Fodor

Mar 30-Apr 1

In 100 Saints You Should Know, a priest who must reconcile his desires with his role in the church, a teenage boy confused about his own sexual identity, and a young woman desperate for spiritual validation, are all brought together on one fateful night in which they will discover the tenuous common ground they share. 100 Saints You Should Know is a compelling and heartbreaking journey in search for self in a discriminatory and alienating world.

Dinner With Friends

By Donald Margulies

Apr 6-8

Gabe and Karen, a happily married couple, have been friends with married couple Tom and Beth for many years. While having dinner at Gabe and Karen's home one night, Beth tearfully reveals that she is getting a divorce from Tom, who has been unfaithful. The story is not just a thoughtful study on divorce, but a turbulent meditation on the minefield of middle age, exposing the same, universal insecurities that people face every time there are shattering changes in their lives. Winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

Webster University Dance Ensemble

Apr 13-15

8:00 p.m., Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

Browning Mainstage Theatre

Lady Windermere’s Fan

By Oscar WIlde

Apr 25-29

8:00 p.m., Sunday at 2:00 p.m.

Browning Mainstage Theatre

On the eve of Lady Windermere's 21st Birthday, she receives from her husband, a new fan with her name on it. Lady Windermere considers leaving her husband when she discovers that he may be having an affair with another woman. She confronts her husband but he instead invites the other woman, Mrs Erlynne, to her birthday ball. The revelations that follow turn Lady Windermere’s world upside down. Lady Windermere’s Fan was Oscar Wilde’s first produced play, and it was an instant success on the London stage. Chronicling a series of misunderstandings and deceptions in the high society world of Victorian London, critics and audiences alike were charmed by Wilde’s trademark wit and intelligence.