If any local-theatre venue sets the bar for scenic design, I'd make a case for Augustana College. Anyone who doubts the theatre department's candidacy should see its presentation of The Passion of Dracula, with its set that's the latest in a long line of remarkable constructs.
I am not a fan of the murder-mystery-comedy genre - but make the show a musical, and I'm not only interested, but eager to see it. Such is the case with Augustana College's Something's Afoot, a song-filled, murder-mystery romp reminiscent of an Agatha Christie story. Though not bad, the songs by James McDonald, David Vos, and Robert Gerlach, for the most part, aren't great, nor particularly memorable. But happily, the production as a whole is still amusing from beginning to satisfying-and-unexpected end.
Federico García Lorca's Blood Wedding isn't a play that's "fun" in any traditional sense of the word; you're thrown into complex states of grief and anger within this classic's first few lines of dialogue, and even the infrequent moments of levity are suffused with dread. (By all accounts, the Spanish playwright wasn't exactly a load of laughs, and for understandable reason.)
A preface for those at Sunday's Genesius Guild presentation of The Comedy of Errors: You know that horribly rude woman who talked, and talked loudly, on her cell phone through the first two minutes of the play, even after repeated shushings and one verbal request to shut the hell up? I sat three rows behind her.
As luck - and the Vikings' football schedule - would have it, Augustana College's opening- weekend performances of The Taming of the Shrew coincided with the school's homecoming weekend, which allowed me the chance to reconnect with some fellow theatre-department alumni both before and after Saturday night's show. At several points during the evening, we laughed 'til we cried at stories of shared friends and past Augie productions, and it wasn't until the next day that I realized why this version of Shakespeare's comedy felt like the perfect play for my mood that night: Just like college, it was all about the joy of getting up in front of people and acting like a first-class goof.
Rating its Degree of Difficulty on a scale of one through ten, I'd give Genesius Guild's opening-night performance of Shakespeare's As You Like It... hmm... about a 27.
With Tim Robbins' capital-punishment drama Dead Man Walking, Augustana College's theatre department has crafted a moving and impressive play, and I can't fully express how difficult that task must have been, because it really isn't a play; it's a screenplay. Scene for scene, sometimes even word for word, this 2002 piece replicates Robbins' 1995 movie to the letter, and in doing so, points out the deep chasm that exists between theatre and film. As a stage piece, Dead Man Walking shouldn't work, but director Jeff Coussens and his fiercely committed cast do everything in their power to keep you from noticing, and more often than not, succeed beautifully.
Explaining the decision to turn Tim Robbins' Oscar-winning Dead Man Walking into a work for the stage, Sister Maureen Fenlon begins with six simple words: "A stage play can go anywhere." And she would like the show to be seen everywhere.
The Tempest is one of Shakespeare's most magical offerings - a wildly theatrical concoction set on an enchanted isle populated by fairies, sprites, and spirits, and governed by a benevolent (yet easily enraged) ruler in possession of a supernatural cloak.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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