Current Season
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead
By Tom Stoppard
Tom Stoppard’s dark comedy tells the story of Hamlet from the worm’s-eye view of two bewildered minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Thrust into the spotlight, this Shakespearean Laurel and Hardy navigate a world where reality and illusion blur, and where fate leads them toward a tragic but inevitable conclusion. Celebrating its 60th anniversary this season, Stoppard’s best-known work remains a landmark of modern theatre.
Produced by arrangement with Concord Theatricals,
in partnership with The Mansfield Shakespeare Company
Performances in Founders Auditorium:
Friday, October 23 | 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, October 24 | 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, October 25 | 2:30 p.m.
Monday October 26 | 7:30 p.m.
CATO: The Play that Made a Nation
Staged Readings and Conversations
In the spring of 1778 the continental army endures the harsh winter at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. Smallpox, disunity, and privation threaten the survival of the army and the new nation. In this time of crisis, General Washington defies Congress and orders the performance of a play for his soldiers. This play, Joseph Addison’s and Richard Steele’s Cato, follows the last days of Cato the Younger as he resists Julius Caesar’s rise to power. The popular work offered a model for civic virtue that inspired America’s Founding Fathers.
This abridged version of the original script emphasizes Cato’s themes of liberty, duty, honor, and the conflict between personal conviction and political expediency.
FREE VETERANS DAY CELEBRATION
Performances in Founders Auditorium:
Sunday, November 8 | 2:30 p.m.
Wednesday, November 11 | 6:30 p.m. (Veteran’s Day)
The Play’s the Thing
by Ferenc Molnár adapted by P. G. Wodehouse
Young lovers, a puffed-up theatre star, a zany group of servants, partners, and hotel guests, and a far-fetched scheme to set everything to rights made this witty and fast-moving farce an over-the top hit with New York audiences in 1926. When a young man listens to a romantic encounter between his fiancée and her leading man, his uncle – a business-savvy playwright – has to convince him that what he overheard was just a rehearsal for a play. The uncle then frantically writes and rehearses the new play to seal the deal. The title is a nod to Hamlet, and like Shakespeare’s masterpiece, this comedy delights in stepping over the line between reality and performance.
Performances in Founders Auditorium:
Friday March 5 | 7:30 p.m.
Saturday March 6 | 7:30 p.m.
Sunday March 7 | 2:30 p.m.
Monday March 8 | 7:30 p.m.
Live Long and Prosper
Staged readings featuring excerpts from unproduced scripts of the original STAR TREK series.
To celebrate the 60th anniversary of Star Trek’s first season, faculty, staff, students, and community artists will present selected excerpts from unproduced original series scripts. Drawn from Star Trek: The Original Series Scripts and Writer’s Guides housed in The Ohio State University Rare Books & Manuscripts Library and supplemented by related material and images from the Lawrence and Lee Theatre Research Institute; these readings offer a unique look at the iconic series. A brief discussion will follow the reading.
FREE Performance in Founders Auditorium:
Monday, April 5 | 6:30 p.m.
FREE Performance Thompson Memorial Library, Rm 150 – Columbus Campus
Wednesday, April 7 | 4:00 p.m.