CHESTERTOWN, MD — The Washington College Department of Theatre and Dance presents its fall 2018 schedule of performances, including Dreaming, Brave and True; These Shining Lives; Loot; The Dining Room; and Dancescape 2018. Unless otherwise noted, all performances begin at 7:30 p.m. in the Tawes Theater in the Gibson Center for the Arts. Tickets are available at the door, and reservations, which are suggested, are available through the eventbrite page. All performances are free, but a donation to the Kent County Food Pantry is requested.
“I am so eager for audiences to share in our work this coming fall,” says Department Chair and Associate Professor Michele Volansky ’90. “I am constantly amazed by the breadth and depth of experiences our students choose to explore for their capstone experiences. And, our faculty and alums, represented in both Dreaming, Brave and True and in Dancescape 2018, continue to challenge themselves artistically by making work that speaks to how we live today.”
Dreaming, Brave and True, written by Stephen Spotswood ’99 and directed by Professor Dale Daigle, will be given a rehearsed reading presentation on October 3 and 4. In Dreaming, Brave and True, seven high school students grapple with life, love, and identity in a modern adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
These Shining Lives, by Melanie Marnich, is a Senior Capstone Experience directed by Rachel Treglia which will take place on Friday, November 2, and Saturday, November 3. These Shining Lives chronicles the strength and determination of women considered expendable in their day, exploring their true story and its continued resonance. Catherine and her friends are dying, it’s true; but theirs is a story of survival in its most transcendent sense, as they refuse to allow the company that stole their health to kill their spirits—or endanger the lives of those who come after them.
Loot, by Joe Orton, is a Senior Capstone Experience directed by Colin Higgins that will be performed on Friday, November 9, and Saturday, November 10, 2018. Loot is a scathing attack on money, the police, the Catholic church, and several other of our most sacred institutions. In a front parlor, a young bank robber and his accomplice, an undertaker’s assistant, are using a coffin as the hiding place for their stolen money. The wild adventures that occur among the thieves, a nurse who was with the dead woman at her death, the widowed husband, and a corrupt and brutal police inspector make for a spectacular dark comedy.
The Dining Room, by A.R. Gurney, is a Senior Capstone Experience directed by Katie Peacock, in performance on Friday, November 16, and Saturday, November 17, 2018. A comedy of manners, it is set in a single dining room where 18 scenes from different households overlap and intertwine. Presumably, each story, about White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) families, is focused around a different family during different time periods throughout the 20th and leading into the 21st century. Some scenes are about the furniture itself and the emotional attachment to it, while other scenes simply flesh out the culture. Overall, it tells the story of the dying and relatively short-lived culture of upper-middle-class Americans, and the transition into a much more efficient society with less emphasis on tradition and more emphasis on progress.
Some characters are ridiculed, as is the culture itself, but there is also a genuine longing for the sense of stability, comfort, and togetherness that the culture provides.
Dancescape 2018, which features original dance works by students, faculty, and alumni, will be performed on Friday, November 30 at 7:30 p.m., and Saturday, December 1 at 2 p.m. in Decker Theatre. The second annual dance concert will feature a wide range of choreography by dance minor students, alumni, faculty, and guest artists. This year’s guest artists include Andrew Matte of First State Ballet Theatre, Benjamin Sterling Cannon (whose performance credits include Broadway and North Carolina Ballet Theatre), and Washington College alumna Melissa Walters ’04, who teaches theatre and dance at Kent County High School. Dancescape is directed by A.T. Moffett.
The Gibson Center for the Arts is located on the Washington College campus, 300 Washington Avenue, Chestertown. For more information: drama.washcoll.edu
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