items tagged with Rachel Stearns

Augustana College’s Wrestling with Angels & Demons approaches race, ethnicity, and racism from a personal perspective, as six people share their experiences – from first arriving at college to returning to one’s homeland – with much humor and grace and very little anger. It’s effective at addressing its issues in a nonconfrontational way, thoughtful, and – while dealing with a touchy subject – also quite enjoyable.

Augustana College opens its 2010-11 theatre season with the student/faculty collaboration Wrestling with Angels & Demons, and true to its title, the play will find its performers doing a fair share of wrestling. Yet rather than physical (or metaphysical) beings, the production’s student actors will actually be grappling with questions: What is democracy? What is the American Dream? And a question that many of us have contemplated this year: Is Rod Blagojevich really blacker than Barack Obama?

At heart, the 1990 tragicomedy The Big Funk is less a theatrical production than a wrestling match, one between its playwright, John Patrick Shanley, and ... John Patrick Shanley.