Theatre & Performance
Georgia Southern Theatre Explores the Touch in a World where you can’t
STATESBORO, GA – Georgia Southern Theatre second production of the fall is a devised piece based on the idea of what touch means in a world where you cannot. Created entirely by the cast and production team, this piece is a collection of sketches, dances and songs that are a reflection of the lived experience of the cast and they have navigated life in the world of COVID 19.
The students began the process with discussions about what touch meant, how it has changed, what the experience of living in a pandemic has meant for them. Affectionately referring to the process as one in which they threw a bunch of ideas at the wall to see what would stick, the resulting performance is both funny and heartfelt. Original poetry, dance and song work next to sketches performed over the medium of zoom.
Touch will be streamed starting on Nov. 11th and will run through Nov. 15th. To access the streaming video go to http://georgiasouthern.edu/Theatre.
The production is available free of charge and will begin at 7:30 on Nov. 11th.
For more information email theatre@georgiasouthern.edu.
Adjustment to Fall Theatre Season
Dear Students,
We anticipate you are wondering just what this coming year is going to look like. Honesty, so are we. While the university is still working out how the return to campus will happen and how classes can be held safely, we have made some decisions about the season.
These decisions are based on our desire to offer you opportunities to do the creative work you are here to learn how to do and, at the same time, not put you or our audiences at unnecessary risk.
For the fall we have made several changes to the season. At this point Spring will happen as planned, with the caveat that nothing in these times happens as planned so be prepared to adapt. We have been discussing several options for presenting your work, and would like to give a nod to the directing class for their great ideas this spring, which have informed our conversations.
The Fall semester will start with Wham! Bam! Play Slam! as normal on the first weekend after classes start, August 21&22. Instead of a live event, it will be a virtual 24-hour play creation and party. Theatre South will hold a socially distanced gathering at the sweetheart circle where groups will be assigned before creating readings of new plays designed to explore the possibilities of video conference style live performance.
On the Statesboro Campus Riders to the Sea will be performed on August 28th; we will stream it live or record it and are looking at creating viewing parties.
Urban Rabbit Chronicles will be postponed until some future date. Nick will be directing Social Creatures by Jackie Sibblies Drury. Social Creatures is a dark comedy about a group of survivors hiding out in a theatre building from a pandemic which turns the infected into . . . Zombies. When someone (Who happens to be African American) enters the camp, he is placed into quarantine, and the survivors are forced to face who they really are and the things they have had to do to survive. We have worked out a deal with the playwright to record and present the play “Blair Witch” style with actors rehearsing and performing mostly in isolation against the backdrop of our own theatre building. It will go live on Oct 7 and will run through 11 as a streamed event.
Dancing at Lughnasa will also be postponed to some future season. Instead Lisa will be doing a devised piece centered around the idea of touch in a world where that is one of the things we can’t do. We will either do a live stream Zoom approach or will stream a rough edit of pre recorded material. Depending on what we create. This will be streamed Nov. 11 to 15.
The directing class will be creating scenes on some kind of virtual platform.
On the Armstrong Campus, Cabaret will be postponed until some future date and Pam will be directing an adaptation of The Every 28 Hours Plays with additional student-written scenes. This will be curated, recorded and streamed on November 5-8. A student-directed, streamed performance will run October 1-4 and the Last Laugh Improv troupe will have a streamed (and/or outdoor) performance during the 3rd or 4th week of October.
Information on auditions will be coming soon.
The faculty is working to create the best educational and creative opportunities for you in this uncertain environment. Your ideas, skills and engagement are so important, and we encourage you to continue to share them with us. We are all in this together; theatre requires collaboration and we welcome you as collaborators in this unprecedented time.
Please contact us at theatre@georgiasouthern.edu if you have any questions.
Your Faculty
Auditions for Spring Shows Nov. 27
(callbacks Nov. 28)
Auditions are open to all students. The two shows are Bug by Tracey Letts (2W/3M) this show contains strong language, violence, and drug use.
Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov (a cast of 20) Performance is over the Easter weekend – no performance on Easter.
Georgia Southern Theatre & Performance Senior Directs ‘K2’
Opening the spring semester on stage at the Center for Art and Theatre will be a production of “K2” by Patrick Meyers. Directed by senior David Jackson as part of his senior honors project, “K2;” a play of harrowing physical action and a compelling drama explores the depth of friendship in the face of tragedy.
K2, the world’s second-highest mountain, situated in Pakistan’s Karakoram Range, is considered by many to be far more challenging than Everest. Two American climbers, Taylor (a physicist) and Harold (a district attorney), are stuck 27,000 feet high on K2. They have survived a near-fatal fall, lost most of their supplies, and must determine how to get themselves off the mountain before the sunsets. What happens when you are literally on the edge and time is running out?
Serving as Jackson’s honor thesis, this production features Will Cox and Ryan Beverly. Jackson and the cast have spent the fall semester in rock climbing labs through Southern Adventures training for the climbing demands of the production.
“K2” runs Friday, Jan. 19 and Saturday, Jan. 20, 2018. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. All admission is $5. All seating is general admission. The house opens at 7 p.m., and we encourage audience members to arrive no later than 7:15 p.m. to ensure good seats. The balcony will serve as late and overflow seating. Call the Box Office at 912-478-5379 to make reservations.
The box office is open from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday for ticket purchases and reopens at 6 p.m. on performance days.
Blackface Meets Whiteface and Urges Viewers to Question Race: Georgia Southern Theatre & Performance to Present ‘An Octoroon’
What happens when you are an African-American playwright who wants to write a comedy about slavery by adapting the 19th-century abolitionist melodrama The Octoroon, and most of your white actors bail on you because they “don’t feel comfortable”? The answer? An Obie Award-winning, radical adaptation of Dion Boucicault’s 1859 melodrama “The Octoroon,” where the antebellum south and 21st-century cultural politics collide. The Georgia Southern Theatre & Performance Program presents “An Octoroon,” written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and directed by Nicholas Newell.
Jacobs-Jenkins highlights the politically insensitive language and character constructions found in the old melodrama and turns the audience’s discomfort to laughter as he deconstructs the ideas of race. As the family of the Terrebone plantation faces foreclosure and fight for their survival quixotic characters like the drunken Irish ghost of the original writer and a mysterious bunny join the crowd on stage.
Stimulating, yet still entertaining, “An Octoroon” cleverly highlights the disparities of an entire race with it’s use of language and powerful racial metaphors. In 2014, “An Octoroon” won Best New Play at the Obie Awards. “Jacobs-Jenkins writes brilliantly about race in America, and the cultural legacy employed in the service of tyranny since the earliest days of this nation. He knows how to curse through stereotypes and rip apart the fault lines of representation,” says the Chicago Tribune.
“An Octoroon” opens Wednesday, Nov. 8, and runs through Wednesday, Nov. 15. All shows begin at 7:30 p.m. with a matinee performance on Sunday, Nov. 12 at 2 p.m. There will be no show on Monday, Nov. 15.
“An Octoroon” features mature themes and language.
Student and youth tickets are $6. Faculty, staff and community tickets are $12. All seating is general admission. Group prices are available, contact the box office for information. The house opens at 7 p.m., and we encourage audience members to arrive no later than 7:15 p.m. to ensure good seats. The balcony will serve as late and overflow seating. Call the Box Office at 912-478-5379 to make