2020-2021 Season 

48-Hour Theatre Project

September 20, 2020 at 6 p.m.
Henry MacCarthy, Faculty Advisor
Streaming Online

On your mark, get set, go! The 48-Hour Theatre Project is a series of student-generated performances created in the span of 48 hours. On Friday evening the participants will be given a theme and they will have to audition, rehearse, and produce a performance to be presented on Sunday evening. Don’t miss this exciting theatre experience!

The Murder Mystery Hour: A double bill of radio thrillers

November 13, 2020 at 8 p.m. | November 15, 2020 at 2 p.m.
Directed by Henry MacCarthy
Streaming Online

From shadows and stillness, mystery weaves a spell of strangest fascination charging the mind with doubts and fears…

Join us for a gripping lineup of thrillers drawn from early radio dramas of passion, sabotage and murder -- tales well-calculated to keep you in suspense. Featuring acoustic and recorded performance, we look at the past to reimagine the tales from the golden age of radio with a digital twist.

Click here for The Murder Mystery Hour photos.

Shared Space: In Flux

December 3 at 7 p.m. and December 6 at 4 p.m.
Co-Directed by Amanda Hoffman ‘22 and Hannah Saunders ‘22
Streaming Online 

As artists, we embrace new challenges and are always altering the way in which we bring dance to audiences. This year, Shared Space will present work specifically created for the camera, showcasing students’ creativity as they choreograph, produce, direct, and perform. 

Click here for Shared Space photos.

Theatre Gallery: Six Short Digital Projects

December 4 at 8 p.m. and December 6 at 2 p.m.
Henry MacCarthy, Faculty Advisor
Streaming Online

Students will devise and produce new works specifically for the camera. Always innovative, unique and eclectic, the theatre gallery showcases the work of our student directors and performers.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

By Tom Stoppard
Directed by Amy Seham

Premiering online Saturday, February 27 at 7:00 p.m.
Reprise performance Sunday, February 28 at 3:00 p.m. 

Stoppard’s Tony award-winning comedy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, flips the script of Hamlet, following two minor figures from Shakespeare’s play. These hapless young lords fill the time between their scenes in the tragedy by flipping coins or in hilarious encounters with a ragtag troupe of actors. Often compared to Becket’s Waiting for Godot, Stoppard’s fascinating script plays in the space between theatre and reality to tease out the meaning of “to be.” Our Gustavus production will also be exploring this “space between.” The existential questions and playful meta-theatre of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern provide exciting possibilities for our creative team, as we experiment with new modes of presenting theatre during a pandemic.

Click here for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead photos.

The Spring Dance Complex

April 22-25, 2021 | 7:30 p.m.
Directed by Melissa Rolnick and Michele Rusinko

Live free performances outdoors; due to Covid, tickets are only available to the campus community. 
Video Premiere: Monday, May 3 at 8:00 p.m.

Throughout this year of enormous loss and adaptation, our sense of normalcy has evolved. What at first seemed bizarre and untenable is now part of daily life. We have reconsidered what is important to sustain ourselves while finding ways to ground ourselves during the upheaval. For dancers and dance makers, movement has been an essential lifeline. Throughout the world dancers have continued to hone their craft using Zoom as a platform for training from their living rooms. We have delved into different ways to present our art form to the world including screen dance and outdoor site work. It has become clear that art and art making is not a luxury, but a necessity for survival. May Sarton wrote, “If you are a writer or an artist, it is work that fulfills and makes you into wholeness, and that goes on through a lifetime. Whatever the wounds that have to heal, the moment of creation assures that all is well, that one is still in tune with the universe, that the inner chaos can be probed and distilled into order and beauty.” During this year of adaptation, we are meeting the challenges of live performance by presenting work (both site specific and filmed) in outdoor spaces south and north of the Schaeffer Fine Arts Theatre building. We invite you to the Spring Dance Complex with works by faculty Jill Patterson, Michele Rusinko, Melissa Rolnick, Sarah Hauss, and selected student work.

Click here for The Spring Dance Complex photos.

Three Sisters (Ruhl)

By Anton Chekhov
A New Version by Sarah Ruhl
based on a literal translation by Elise Thoron
with Natalya Paramonova and Kristin Johnson-Neshati

Video performance premiering online Saturday, May 8 at 7:00 p.m.
Reprise video performance Sunday, May 9 at 3:00 p.m. 
Directed by Amy Seham

Premiering in 1901, Chekhov’s play captured a time when old structures of society were crumbling, and radical change was in the wind. As they face an uncertain future, the three Prozerov sisters feel trapped in the flux with no way out. Over a century later, young people can certainly relate to the frustration of lives “on hold.” In Three Sisters, our actors explore the complexity of an inconsistent world that includes passion and pettiness, hope and despair, comedy and tragedy. We call it realism. Three Sisters was originally envisioned as a stage production, but Covid 19 inspired a revisioning, and we now present it as a filmed play streamed over the internet. Adapting to the time-table and technique required by the camera has been challenging for everyone involved—a stressful but quite wonderful learning experience for all. Please enjoy the result!

Click here for Three Sisters photos.

Take a look at information from the 2019-2020 season.