 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
August Wilson at Summer Rep |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
For many seasons Iowa Summer Rep has pursued a unique focus in American summer theater—making each season a festival of plays by a single contemporary playwright. But the 1999 season also offers something new: For the first time, Iowa Summer Rep has become an Actor’s Equity Company, elevating its status as a professional theater company. Among living American playwrights, Wilson ranks second in honors only to Neil Simon. Wilson’s storytelling draws on the struggles of 20th-century African Americans to explore the universals of human experience. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, directed by Iowa Summer Rep and Circle Rep veteran Mary Beth Easley, is set in a 1927 recording studio, where the interactions of an African-American blues singer with her white managers and the white owner of the studio reveals much about the origin of the blues in black America. Performances of Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom will be at 8 p.m. June 22-26; at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday, June 27; and at 8 p.m. June 29 and 30, and July 1-3. Department of Theatre Arts graduate Mickey Kachingwe returns to direct Fences, winner of not only the Pulitzer Prize but also the Drama Desk Award, the Outer Critics Circle Award, the New York Drama Critics Award, and the Tony Award. Set in 1957, Fences portrays a Negro league baseball player who long ago had to settle for being a garbage man before the sports color barrier was broken. After finding himself fenced in all his life by forces beyond his control, he now finds himself fencing in those he loves. Fences will be performed at 8 p.m. July 6-11, 13, and 14; at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. Sunday, July 18; and at 8 p.m. July 20 and 25. Tisch Jones, former director of UI Black Action Theatre, returns to direct Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, a turn-of-the-century drama in which the sons and daughters of America’s freed slaves are struggling to renounce the past and build an identity for themselves. Performances of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone will be at 8 p.m. July 15-17 and 22-24. The festival also will offer an 8 p.m. July 20 staged reading of Wilson’s first play, Jitney. Wilson drew on the setting of his youth in writing Jitney. The play takes place in early-1970s Pittsburgh, in a neighborhood on the verge of demolition. Tickets are available through the Hancher box office, (33)5-1160. Summer box office hours are 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. weekdays. by Winston Barclay |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
