Alexander Shoemaker, Olivia Hoft, and Jace Mathenia in “Five of Ives" at Scott Community College -- December 6 through 8.
Friday, December 6, through Sunday, December 8
Scott Community College's Black Box Theatre, 500 Belmont Road, Bettendorf IA
A quintet of entertaining works by a lauded Tony nominee enjoys a December 6 through 8 staging at Scott Community College's Black Box Theatre, with director Kevin Babbitt's Five of Fives treating audiences to a brisk night of theatre that finds nine gifted student actors enacting numerous roles created by lauded playwright David Ives.
In Time Flies, two lonely but sweet young mayflies meet at a pond and really hit it off. Unfortunately, Horace and May watch a nature program on this first night out and discover they have a lifespan of only one day—and their lives are half over. Dr. Fritz finds vaudeville reigning as an American tourist in pain seeks medical help from a wacky souvenir seller named Maria who channels an even wackier German surgeon named Dr. Ringsvwandl. The comedy steps up when the doctor recommends an operation. The Universal Language brings together Dawn, a young woman with a stutter, and Don, the creator and teacher of Unamunda, a wild comic language. Their lesson sends them off into a dazzling display of hysterical verbal pyrotechnics—and true love.
Mere Mortals eavesdrops on a lunch hour on a girder 50 stories over the street, as three construction workers share increasingly amazing secrets of their past. And Words, Words, Words recalls the philosophical adage that three monkeys typing into infinity will sooner or later produce Hamlet and asks: What would monkeys talk about at their typewriters?
Directing Five of Ives is SCC theatre instructor Kevin Babbitt, whose previous works for his department have included The Real Inspector Hound, Greater Tuna, Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All for You, and The Laramie Project. Babbitt's on-stage area-theatre appearances, meanwhile, include roles in the Richmond Hill Barn Theatre's Over the River & Through the Woods, Outside Mullingar, and The 39 Steps, as well as the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's On Golden Pond and Tuesdays with Morrie. Included in Babbitt's Five of Ives ensemble are a group of talented student actors: Eli Dezarn, Maesi Geigle, Olivia Hoft, Donovan Keever, MJ Kernan, Dustin Levsen, Jace Mathenia, Perin McGrath, and Alexander Shoemaker.
Five of Ives will be staged in Scott Community College's Black Box Theatre (in downstairs Room #1021 through Door 3) from December 6 through 8, with performances on Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Admission is $10 at the door, and more information is available by calling (563)441-4339 or e-mailing director Kevin Babbitt at KDBabbitt@eicc.edu.
