Shakespeare Festival launches RVC Studio Theatre season

Contact: Dave Costello (Admin), 815-921-4516

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Beginning in 1988, Mike Webb and the Rock Valley College Studio Theatre committed to presenting the entire Shakespeare canon of 38 plays. The Complete Works Project continues this year with RVC’s productions of Coriolanus and Hamlet. After this year’s Shakespeare Festival, only two plays remain to complete the project.

Shakespeare’s final tragedy, Coriolanus, is also considered one of his greatest.  This powerful political drama tells the story of the great Roman general whose arrogance leads to his own downfall.  One of Shakespeare’s most provocative plays, Coriolanus is a mesmerizing tale that unfolds as both personal tragedy and political thriller. Performed October 2, 3 & 7, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. and October 4, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.

In Hamlet, Hamlet, son of the king of Denmark, is summoned home for his father’s funeral and his mother’s wedding to his uncle.  In a supernatural episode, he discovers that his uncle, whom he hates anyway, murdered his father.  In an incredibly convoluted plot—one of the most complicated and most interesting in all literature—he manages to feign (or perhaps not feign) madness, murder the “prime minister,” love and then unlove an innocent who he drives to madness, plot and then unplot against the uncle, direct a play within a play, successfully conspire against the lives of two well-meaning friends, and finally take his revenge on the uncle, but only at the cost of almost every life on stage, including his own and his mother’s. Performed September 30, 2009 and October 1, 4, 8, 9, & 10, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. and October 3 & 10, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.

The 2009 RVC Studio Theatre season continues in December with Christmas with the Conroys. A maniac in a ski cap, brandishing a cookie cutter, bursts into the room.  She demands the candied cherries.  She seizes the sugar sprinkles.  The walls ooze with pine, tinsel and lights.  The furniture is almost visible under quilts, pillows, doilies and streamers.  The Christmas tree looks like a cruise missile.  Welcome to the Conroy’s home as they prepare themselves for “the nicest Christmas ever.”  Join us for the long awaited return of one of Studio’s most popular plays ever. Performed December 2-6, 2009 & December 9-12, 2009 at 8:00 p.m. and December 5, 6, & 12, 2009 at 2:00 p.m.

Cotton Patch Gospel will be the first Studio Theatre performance of 2010. This musical dramatization of the Gospels of Matthew and John uses modern Southern vernacular to tell one of the oldest stories of the Western world.  Mary Davidson’s son, Jesus, is born in an impoverished trailer park in Gainesville, Georgia.  The story ends with his Good Friday lynching and Easter Sunday victory. Folk rock legend Harry Chapin wrote a score which matches the play in beauty and originality. Performed February 3-7, 2010 & February 10-13, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. and February 6, 7 & 13, 2010 at 2:00 p.m.

The Studio season will conclude with another classic Christie, And Then There Were None. In this superlative mystery comedy statuettes on the mantle of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger.  A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten statuettes met his death until there were none.  Eight guests who have never met each other or their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island and, along with the two house servants, marooned.  A mysterious voice accuses each of having gotten away with murder and then one drops dead—poisoned.  One down and nine to go!  The excitement never lets up in this classic Christie. Performed March 24-April 3, 2010 at 8:00 p.m. and March 27, 28 & April 3, 2010 at 2:00 p.m.

For tickets, call (815) 921-2160. Group pricing, meals and transportation for schools can be arranged upon request. For more information, call Tom Hunter at (815) 921-2156.

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