Slippery Rock University
Department of Theatre
about SRU theatre
faculty and staff
season
current season
past productions
facilities
contact
fall
2006 - spring 2007
fall
2005 - spring 2006
fall
2004 - spring 2005
fall
2003 - spring 2004
fall
2002 - spring 2003
fall
2001 - spring 2002
fall
2000 - spring 2001
fall
1999 - spring 2000
Henry the IV, Part I
By William Shakespere
Directed by David Skeele
King Henry's reign is a troubled one. His health is failing, and rebel troops are conspiring against him. While the rebels have a new star rising in their midst--the fiery young warrior Hotspur--the King's own son, Prince Hal, is spending his days slumming with the drunken Falstaff. Will Hotspur lead the rebels to victory? Or will Hal rouse himself from his stupor in time to stop him? Considered by many to be Shakespeare's greatest play, this one has it all: suspenseful intrigue, uproarious comedy and deeply moving tragedy.
Speaking in Tongues
By Andrew Bovell
Directed by Laura Smiley
In the first act of this psychological thriller two couples in unstable marriages inadvertently exchange partners in a night of adulterous encounters. The situations in the separate hotel rooms are so similar that at times both couples speak the same words. While Leon and Jane go through with the infidelity, Pete and Sonja do not, and the repercussions for both marriages are profound. In the second act we are introduced to a psychologist and her husband. The psychologist has disappeared on a deserted road after her car broke down. Was she murdered and, if so, why? As the play progresses and revelatory details accumulate, these two seemingly disparate stories become linked in a chain of coincidences that leads to an utterly unexpected conclusion.
Little Shop of Horrors
By Howard Ashman and Alan Menken
Directed by Laura Smiley
A down-and out skid row floral assistant becomes an overnight sensation when he discovers an exotic plant with a mysterious craving for fresh blood. Soon “Audrey II” grows into an ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, R&B-singing carnivore who offers him fame and fortune in exchange for feeding its growing appetite, finally revealing itself to be an alien creature poised for global domination! One of the longest-running Off-Broadway shows of all time, this affectionate spoof of 1950s sci-fi movies has become a house-hold name, thanks to a highly successful film version and a score by the songwriting team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken. Charming, tuneful and hilarious, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, “Little Shop Of Horrors” never fails to entertain.
Brave New Plays
Produced by David Skeele
Slippery Rock University Theatre Department new works festival returns to the main stage. New student written and student directed plays will make their debut on the Miller Auditorium stage. Don't miss this oppurtunity to see a great evening of original works.
Tis Pity She's a Whore
By John Ford
Directed by David Skeele
Written in 1630 around the time of Shakespere, Tis Pity She's a Whore is a Jacobean trajedy that tells of a tragic love
affair between a couple that tears society apart and drives others mad with jealousy, rage, desperation and lust.
The story surrounds a young couple, Giovanni and his sister, Annabella.
Stop Kiss
By Diana Son
Directed by Laura Smiley
Stop Kiss follows the erratic, erotic journey of one young New Yorker, Callie, a stressed-out traffic reporter who
lives a cluttered, modern life in her cluttered, modern apartment. Callie's busy but not happy. Her job is just okay,
her social life is just okay, and she maintains a so-so on-again/off-again relationship with George, an actor/waiter she
has known since their college days a decade before. But into Callie's routine blunders Sara, a cheerful Midwesterner newly
arrived in town to teach elementary school in the Bronx. The two women strike up an odd-couple friendship that slowly,
awkwardly moves toward romance, an emotional riptide that's as frightening as it is irresistible.
Loot
By Joe Orton
Directed by David Skeele
A masterpiece of black farce, Loot follows the fortunes of two young thieves. Dennis is a hearse driver for an undertaker.
He and Hal rob the bank next door to the funeral parlor and return to Hal's home to hide out with the loot. Hal's mother
has just died and the money is hidden in her coffin, while the body keeps turning up around the house. With the arrival
of Inspector Truscott, the already thickened plot turns topsy-turvy.
Rosenstrasse
by Terry Lawrence
Directed by Laura Smiley
Rosenstrasse tells the true story of German women married to Jewish men during the Third Reich. Official German counsel
was divorce, but these women didn’t get divorces, they rallied to their husbands prison in peaceful protest. By the end
of the week, the women of Berlin had formed one of the largest peaceful protests in Nazi history — nearly 6,000 wives and
daughters forestalling their loved ones’ departure. Their triumph is the subject of this production.
Man of La Mancha
By Dale Wasserman
Directed by David Skeele
In the darkest days of the Spanish Inquisition, the writer Miguel de Cervantes is thrown into prison for heresy.
There, he stages a performance of his opus Don Quixote that will change his fellow prisoners’ lives forever.
Since it’s opening in 1966, Dale Wasserman’s Man of La Mancha has grown to become one of
the best-loved musicals of the Broadway stage.
The Shape of Things
By Neil Labute
Directed by Desiree Woidil
Well known for his scalding social commentary, playwright Neil Labute offers in The Shape of Things a
disturbing examination of art and sexual politics on a college campus, as a quartet of students become lost
in a maze of betrayal and manipulation.
The Tempest
By William Shakespere
Directed by Laura Smiley
Half tragedy, half romantic comedy, Shakespeare’s wild island tale throws together spirits, drunkards, monsters,
maidens and shipwrecked scheming noblemen for an evening of revelry and magic.
Brave New Plays
Produced by David Skeele
Featuring: A Woman of Rumora, by Adam Kraar, and Missing the 4:55, by Bill McMahon; Plus an evening of student-written
ten-minute plays. with plays directed by David Skeele, John Dropp and a host of talented student directors.
SRU’s underground theatre festival goes mainstage!! Long a cult favorite, the theatre department’s annual
celebration of new dramatic works is finally opening up to the masses. This year, in addition to being
performed in Miller Auditorium, Brave New Plays will also present commissioned work by two professional
playwrights.
Tales of the Lost Formicans
By Constance Congdon
Directed by Laura Smiley
Twelfth Night
By William Shakespeare
Directed by David Skeele
In SRU’s production of Shakespeare’s comic masterwork,
the audience was transported to a winter-wonderland Illyria on the “twelfth night”
of Christmas, where mistaken identities, practical jokes and out-of-control
revelry combined to turn the everyday world topsy-turvy.
Double Bulldog
By David Skeele
Directed by David Skeele
For Denny Davis, being made president of his neighborhood Christian militia is
a dream come true. But the dream quickly becomes a nightmare when his charismatic
second-in-command proposes to raise the stakes with a new mission: the
assassination of a Marilyn Manson-style shock-rock band.
And when Denny suffers an attack of conscience, the two men begin a struggle
for control of the group, a battle with devastating consequences for all of them.
David Skeele wrote and directed this black-comic psychological thriller.
Diana of Dobson's
By Cicely Hamilton
Directed by Laura Smiley
Diana of Dobson’s, first performed in London in 1908, was cleverly labeled as a romantic comedy by its author,
Cicely Hamilton and became instantly popular. Miss Diana Massingbred, a live-in shop assistant for Dobson’s
Drapery Emporium returns to the dormitory after yet another grueling day, working for a starvation salary. She
and her four dorm mates are able to drop their affectedly pleasant demeanors and the neat and trim appearances
of their costumes once they reach this haven, drab as it is. What unfolds are the distinct personalities of
each woman, each able to define her situation. Their choices to gain freedom from this sweatshop labor are few.
What happens for Miss Diana Massingbred is an unexpected windfall and the opportunity to leave this life forever.
The 300£ she gains are the equivalent to 23 years of her salary at Dobson’s. Instead she chooses to live the life
that money can buy: fine food, fancy Parisian dresses, hob knobbing with the rich-but even more than that:
exploring the power that money can buy.
A Midsummer Night’s
Dream
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Lars Tatom
In the Garden of
Live Flowers
By Lynne Conner and Attilio Favorini
Directed by Mirla Criste
Oedipus Rex
By Sophocles
Directed by David Skeele
Comedy Tonight
By Lars Tatom
Directed by Lars Tatom
Boy’s Life
By Howard Korder
Directed by David Skeele
Dancing at Lughnasa
By Brian Friel
Directed by Lars Tatom
Hair
By Jerome Ragni and Galt McDermott
Directed by David Skeele
Beirut
By Alan Lownes and Poster of the Cosmos by Lanford Wilson
Directed by Lars Tatom
Hay Fever
By Noel Coward
Directed by Laura Smiley
Shrew
By Rick Kemp and the Ensemble
Directed by Rick Kemp
Waiting for Godot
By Samuel Beckett
Directed by Rick Kemp
Othello
By William Shakespeare
Directed by David Skeele
Marisol
By Jose Rivera
Directed by David Skeele
What the Butler Saw
By Joe Orton
Directed by Kenneth Harris
Jesus Christ Superstar
Directed by David Skeele
How I learned to Drive
Directed by Kenneth Harris