UNR Theatre
Presents
The Nevada Repertory Company
2008-2009 Season
Fall auditions: Tuesday, August 26 at 7:00 pm
Redfield Proscenium Theatre
Mini-Rep:
Two contemporary plays with interrelated themes presented in alternating performances
October 2, 4, 8, 10 at 7:30 pm
October 12 at 1:30 pm
Redfield Studio Theatre
by Wendy MacLeod
directed by Rob Gander
Bored of frat parties and second-run movies, a group of college friends challenge each other to have a three-way with the Christian who lives next door. (“It could be the new Survivor.”) In this undergraduate world of irony and internet porn, sex is common but love is the thing that dares not speak its name.
It’s the playwright’s way with language that does the trick, her understanding of the versatile uses these sharp kids find for the idiomatic speech of their generation. Speaking in the intricate dialectics of ‘cool,’ they brandish their brainy, irony-laced wit as both weapon of war and shield of defense. Variety
Audience Advisory: Contains adult language and situations. May not be suitable for all members of the family.
October 3, 7, 9, 11 at 7:30 pm
October 5 at 1:30 pm
Redfield Studio Theatre
by Kenneth Lonergan
directed by Rob Gander
This is Our Youth follows forty-eight hours of three very lost young souls in the big city at the dawn of the Reagan Era: Warren Straub, a dejected nineteen-year-old who steals fifteen thousand dollars from his abusive lingerie-tycoon father; Dennis Ziegler, the charismatic domineering drug-dealing friend who helps him put the money to good use; and Jessica Goldman, the anxiously insightful young woman Warren yearns for. Funny, painful, and compassionate, This is Our Youth is a living snapshot of the moment between adolescence and adulthood when many young people first go out into the world on their own, armed only with the ideas and techniques they developed as teenagers—ideas and techniques far more sophisticated than their parents ever realize, and far less effectual than they themselves can possibly imagine.
A rambunctious and witty play about wayward teenagers and post adolescents that doesn’t turn youthful travails into plastic rap…This is Our Youth—by turns caustic, cruel, and compassionate—is the real world. The New York Times
Audience Advisory: Contains adult language and situations. May not be suitable for all members of the family.
November 14, 15, 19, 20, 21 and 22 at 7:30 pm
November 23 at 1:30 pm
In the Redfield Proscenium Theatre
by William Shakespeare
Guest Directed by Jan Powell
Can we be fooled into loving? In one of Shakespeare’s most delightful yet bittersweet comedies, the sparring, reluctant lovers Beatrice and Benedick find themselves the victims of a practical joke that may, indeed, change their lives forever.
Balanced boldly between comedy and tragedy, Much Ado revels in reversals, exposing the betrayed as traitor and the misogynist as besotted lover. Set in a time of peace at the end of a foreign war, it unmasks the conflict that follows soldiers home: insidious battles hidden deep within souls left silently embittered by society and circumstance.
Likely written just before Shakespeare penned his greatest works, this play takes a traditional tale of love, jealousy and betrayal and transforms it into a captivating exploration of trust, truth, and the unverifiable nature of fidelity. The voice of Shakespeare’s maturing genius can be heard clearly here, emerging in uniquely eloquent wordplay, spoken by deeply complex characters that are neither good nor bad, but merely human.
Jan Powell is the new Artistic Director of the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival. She is a director, singer and actor with a principal focus in Shakespeare, music theatre, and original work. As the founding Artistic Director of the Tygres Heart Shakespeare Company, resident in the Portland Center for the Performing Arts, she has produced and directed a great many Shakespeare productions, including the entire canon of history plays. She is past president of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America, and is currently writing her dissertation on editing Shakespeare to support the actor’s creative process.
Spring auditions: Wednesday, January 21 at 7:00 pm
Redfield Proscenium Theatre
February 27, 28, March 4, 5, 6, and 7 at 7:30 pm
March 8 at 1:30 pm
In the Redfield Proscenium Theatre
by Larry Shue
Directed by Sue Klemp
A touching and intriguing comedy from the author of The Nerd. This award winning play (two Obies and two Outer Critics Circle awards) is “an inspired comic romp” that shows what can happen when deviousness tries to weasel its way past the seemingly oblivious stranger. A British demolition expert brings his friend Charlie to a fishing lodge in rural Georgia as a brief get-away from sitting at his dying wife’s bedside. But Charlie’s profound shyness makes him want to do almost anything BUT meet a new and foreign group of people. To try to keep to himself, he poses as a non-English speaking visitor but things don’t exactly go as planned.
April 24, 25, 29, 30 May 1 and 2 at 7:30 pm
May 3 at 1:30 pm
In the Redfield Studio Theatre
By Mary Zimmerman
Directed by Dr. Jim Bernardi
Mary Zimmerman’s Metamorphoses brings Ovid’s tales to stunning visual life. Juxtaposing the ancient and the contemporary in both language and image this Tony Award-winning play reflects the variety and persistence of narrative in the face of inevitable change. Time
Mary Zimmerman’s beautiful and deeply humane Metamorphoses. . . reanimates [Ovid’s myths] with a combination of agile storytelling and enthralling stagecraft. Funny one moment, achingly sorrowful the next, Metamorphoses somehow manages both to lift you out of the moment you’re living in and speak to it with piercing directness. Wall Street Journal
Audience Advisory: Contains adult situations and nudity. May not be suitable for all members of the family.
Michelle Spencer Davidson
Michael Fernbach
Matthew McKinney
Larry Walters