Worlds in Motion:
Politics and Citizenship in Flux
The 2008-2009 Georgetown University Theater and Performance Studies Season
The season builds on our commitment to daring and socially-engaged work with a much-anticipated World Premiere civic-theater project engaging the current Presidential election, DC premieres from one of England’s leading playwrights and from one of America’s hottest young talents, and a bold new re-visioning of one of the world’s oldest, funniest, and still most radical plays. The season will also feature interdisciplinary collaborations, guest teaching artists and student-centered professional partnership events with Arena Stage, Synetic Theater, Sojourn Theatre and more, all substantively integrated with our expanding and nationally distinctive theater and performance studies curriculum.
October 16-18 at 8 p.m., October 19 at 2 p.m., October 22-25 at 8 p.m.
…And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi
In collaboration with Black Theatre Ensemble
By Marcus Gardley, Directed by Reginald Douglas (Col ‘09)
In the Devine Studio Theatre
DC Premiere
...And Jesus Moonwalks the Mississippi is a poetic retelling of the Demeter myth set in the American South during the Civil War. This play from one of America's hottest young playwrights examines how we shape ourselves in the face of history as it deconstructs ideas of identity, family, and race. Lyrical, musical, and magical, the play takes us to a world where trees preach, rivers dance, and Christ moonwalks.
October 30-November 1 at 8 p.m., November 2 at 2 p.m., November 5-8 at 8 p.m.
The Race
Conceived and Directed by Michael Rohd
In the Gonda Theatre
World Premiere
Co-produced with the American Studies Program, in association with Sojourn Theatre. Co-created by Visiting Professor Rohd, Founding Artistic Director of Sojourn Theatre, Portland, Oregon, one of the nation’s leading practitioners of civic-theater, with GU students and professional guest artists.
The Race is a living piece of ethno-fiction, a suspenseful tall tale, and a civic theater process engaging with the issues and dynamics of the 2008 Presidential election as it moves towards its dramatic conclusion. Who will vote for who? Who won’t? Why? The Race follows the Presidential election through a historic Fall leading up to November 4th. Opening before election night and continuing after the votes are tallied, this unique, responsive performance event finds ways across campus and the larger DC community to ask: What does leadership mean today?
Watch for dynamic political symposia, a special election night performa-palooza, and other ongoing events.
March 26-28 at 8 p.m., March 29 at 2 p.m., April 1-4 at 8.p.m. in the Gonda Theatre
April 9- 26, 2009 at Synetic Theater (Rosslyn Virginia Spectrum)
Lysistrata
By Aristophanes
A co-production with DC’s celebrated Synetic Theater
Adapted and Directed by Derek Goldman
Choreographed by Irina Tsikurishvili
Athens and Sparta have been at war for years with no end in sight, and Lysistrata has the answer: she unites the women of Athens to barricade the public funds building and undertake a general sex strike to force the men to come to their senses. Synetic Theater, nominated in 2008 for 16 Helen Hayes awards, now brings its unique blend of movement, dance, text, and music to Aristophanes’ timeless political satire, in this unique co-production with GU’s Theater and Performance Studies Program.
April 23-25 at 8 p.m., April 26 at 2 p.m., April 29-May 2 at 8 p.m.
Pentecost
By David Edgar
Directed by Tim Raphael
In the Gonda Theatre
DC Premiere
The history of art and the future of Europe are called into question by events that transpire in an abandoned church in a Balkan country just after the fall of the Berlin Wall. David Edgar’s celebrated play is both a darkly comic political parable and a riveting thriller, a theatrically potent incitement to imagine anew the cultural basis for the European Union and the moral implications of globalization.
Special Events
November 13-15, at 8 p.m.
Love is No Laughing Matter
By Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Directed by Barbara Mujica
In the Devine Theatre
An Interdisciplinary Project with the Department of Spanish and Portugese
Who doesn’t know someone like Don Alonso? Cynical, self-absorbed, and boastful, Don Alonso is a confirmed bachelor with no time for love. Then he meets Beatriz and this time he will have to take love seriously, because, as he himself must finally admit, “love is no laughing matter.” A classic comedy of the Golden Age.
December 4-6 at 8 p.m.
The T Party
Created by Natsu Onoda and her TPST-250 Gender and Performance Class
In the Devine Theatre
Come be our guest at this gender-bending, gravity-defying, common-sense-subverting mad T Party! Inspired by stories from Washington DC’s transgender community and staged with a spirit of experimentation, this performance event will transgress not only your gender norms but also your expectations of what can happen in a theatre space. CAUTION: The T you are about to enjoy is extremely hot...
Look for numerous special events, interdisciplinary collaborations, student-produced shows, partnership projects with Arena Stage and more.
