“Proof,” February 17 through 19

Thursday, February 17, through Saturday, February 19

St. Ambrose University Studio Theatre, Galvin Fine Arts Center, 2101 North Gaines Street, Davenport IA

Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as that year's Tony Award for Best Play, author David Auburn's brilliant, funny, and moving Proof enjoys a student-produced run in the St. Ambrose University Studio Theatre from February 17 through 19, with the New York Times stating that Auburn's drama “has the pace of a psychological thriller” ans is “as accessible and compelling as a detective story.”

In Proof, our protagonist Catherine has inherited her late father Robert’s mathematical brilliance, but is haunted by the fear that she might also share his debilitating mental illness. She has spent years caring for her now-deceased father, and upon his death, she feels left alone to pick up the pieces of her life without him. Caught between a new-found connection with Hal, one of Robert's former students, and the reappearance of her sister Claire, Catherine finds both her world and her mind growing increasingly unstable. Then Hal discovers a groundbreaking proof among the 103 notebooks that Catherine’s father left behind, and the young woman is forced to further question how much of Robert's genius or madness will she inherit in this passionate, intelligent story about fathers and daughters, the nature of genius, and the power of love.

Directing Proof for St. Ambrose is university senior K. Hampton, who has performed in such productions as She Kills Monsters, Admissions, and the radio drama An Enemy of the People. Hampton's four-person cast is composed of Quinnie Rodman as Catherine, Kyle DeFauw as Hal, Peyton Reese as Claire, and Maclane Morton as Robert. And with Corinne Johnson serving as Proof's producer, other members of the play's creative team include technical director Kristofer Eitrheim, stage manages Andrés Garcia, assistant stage manager Megan Rohn, scenic designer Becky Meissen, lighting designer Sam Lange, costume designer Maria Saucedo, props designer Nyssa Wagner, sound designer Cora Schultz, and production photographer Elena Vallejo.

Proof will be presented in St. Ambrose University's Studio Theatre in the Galvin Fine Arts Center from February 17 through 19, with performance on Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday at 3 p.m. Admission is $7, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)333-6251 and visiting SAU.edu.