Theatre Simpson mounts three faculty directed productions and a festival of student directed one-acts each year. The theatre department is housed in Blank Performing Arts Center which has two performance spaces: Pote Theatre, a 500-seat combination thrust and proscenium and the Barnum Studio Theatre, a 125-seat, flexible black box. 

THEATRE SIMPSON 2008-09 SEASON
(subject to royalty/permission clearance) 

Necessary Targets by Eve Ensler 

Directed by Ann Woldt
Based on interviews conducted by Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues) with numerous women who survived the civil war in the former Yugoslavia, Necessary Targets is a timely reminder of how America struggles to define its relationship to the rest of the world.
October 24-25 at 7:30 pm, October 26 at 1:00 pm, October 30-31 at 7:30 pm, March 1 at 7:30, and March 2 at 1:00;  Barnum Studio Theatre 

A Year with Frog And Toad
Music by Robert Reale, Book and Lyrics by Willie Reale
Based on the books by Arnold Lobel
Directed by Jennifer Ross Nostrala
Good pals, Frog and Toad, wake from hibernation to share adventures as only the best of friends can: swimming, flying kites, telling scary stories, sledding and eating lots and lots and LOTS of cookies.  Arnold Lobel’s classic children’s stories of two mismatched friends comes to life in this charming musical.

November 20-23 (including school matinees); Pote Theatre

Times to be announced 

The Servant of Two Masters
Carlo Goldoni, adapted by Constance Congdon
Directed by Jennifer Ross Nostrala 
  “...madcap farce, heroic romance, operetta and dramatic dueling with a feminist slash. Goldoni's simple but convoluted story turns on two sets of lovers, two impossible fathers and manipulative servants....As adapted by Constance Congdon, this SERVANT jumps from formal language and fractured Latin gags to familiar phrases (`sweet bird of youth' and `a palpable hit') to American slang...a silly, stylish tour of comedy's infinite variety.”  Malcolm Johnson, The Hartford Courant

February 27-28 at 7:30 pm, March 1 at 7:30 pm; Pote Theatre.  In conjunction with 12^th annual High School Theatre Festival on March 2

 

“’Between the Wars:’  American Theatre in the 1920’s and 1930’s”
Theatre Seminar/Festival of Short Plays
Instructor/Producer-Tom Woldt
An examination of the period when the American Theatre matured from a fledgling sideshow of sentiment and uninspired ‘entertainments’ to a serious, powerful, commanding force in the Western theatre.  A renaissance in serious drama, experimentation, actor training and theatre-as-serious-artistry characterized this period on the American stage, as did an explosion in the development of ‘short’ and ‘one-act’ plays.
April 3-4 at 7:30 pm, April 5 at 1:00 pm; Barnum Studio Theatre