American Classics Summer Theatre (Series VIII)
Bye, Bye Birdie
Book by Michael Stewart, Music by Charles Strouse, Lyrics by Lee Adams
Directed and Choreographed by Larry L. Life Musical Direction by Stephen W. R. Sheftz

Bye, Bye, Birdie is one of the most captivating musical shows of our time. Set in the 1950's, It tells the story of a rock and roll singer who is about to be inducted into the army. Conrad Birdie will bid a typical American teen-age girl goodbye with an all-American kiss on the Ed Sullivan Show. Bye, Bye, Birdie is a satire done with the fondest affection. IPFW's production will feature the outstanding high school and middle school talent in the area. All high schools and middle schools are invited to send their top musical performing students to the auditions on Sunday May 20th at 1:30 p.m. in the Williams Theatre. High school teachers are also invited to audition. The Department of Theatre will also offer a Musical Theatre Workshop specifically for high school students and teachers on Saturday, May 19 from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The all-day workshop will feature classes in acting, singing, and dancing for students and directing and choreography for teachers. Tuition for the workshop, including lunch, is $15.00. The workshop is offered to prepare students and teachers for auditions for Bye, Bye, Birdie.

Bye, Bye Birdie features invited community guest artist Susan Domer in the role of Mae Peterson and faculty artist Craig A. Humphrey in the role of Harry McAfee.
July 13, 14, 19, 20, 21 at 8 p.m. July 15, 22 at 2:30 p.m.
Williams Theatre

Bye Bye Birdie featured at IPFW during Three Rivers Festival

The IPFW Department of Theatre presents the American Classics Summer Theatre Series featuring the musical Bye Bye Birdie at the Williams Theatre from July 15 - 22. Set in the 1950's, Bye Bye Birdie tells the story of a rock and roll singer who is about to be inducted into the army.

Conrad Birdie will bid a typical American teen-age girl goodbye with an all-American kiss on the Ed Sullivan Show. Bye Bye Birdie is a satire done with the fondest affection. IPFW's production will feature outstandin g high school talent in the area.20 Bye Bye Birdie features invited community guest artist Susan Domer in the role of Mae Peterson and faculty artist Craig A. Humphrey in the role of Harry McAfee. Unforgettable musical numbers from the show include "The Telephone Hour," 'Put On a Happy Face," "Kids," and "One Last Kiss."

The IPFW production of Bye Bye Birdie, directed and choreographed by Larry L. Life, with musical direction by Stephen W. R. Sheftz, will feature Mark Dunn as Albert Peterson, Leslie Beauchamp as Rose Alvareza, Bridgett Bannec as Kim MacAfee and Daniel Ambrose as Conrad Birdie The cast is comprised of IPFW students, community actors and area high school students as the Sweet Apple, Ohio teenagers. (See cast list)

The musical begins at 8:00 p.m. on July 13, 14, 19, 20, 21, and at 2:30 p.m. on July 15, 22 in Williams Theatre. Admission prices are as follows:
$12 Adults
$10 Faculty/Staff/Alumni/Arts Advocates
$8 Seniors
$8 All other students with ID
$5 IPFW Students with ID
$10 Groups of 10 or more

For more information, call the department of theatre, at 219-481-6555.

Cast List for Bye Bye Birdie at IPFW
Albert Peterson...Mark C. Dunn
Rose Alvarez...Leslie Beauchamp
Ursula Merkle...Ericka Anderson
Kim MacAfee...Bridget Bannec
Mrs. Doris MacAfee...Gloria McDowell
Mr. Harry MacAfee...Craig A. Humphrey
Mrs. Mae Peterson...Susan Domer
Conrad Birdie...Daniel P. Ambrose
Hugo Peabody...Pat Fruchey
Teen Chorus...Deidre Bentz, Melissa Dowty, Jacob Dahm, Ali Darley, Brock Graham, Laife Anne Janovyak, Zac Lehman, Lindsay MacLeod, Brian James Porter, Jake Stackhouse, Emily Sites, Martin Sorge, Bryan Young
Mayor...Reuben Albaugh
Mayor's Wife...Georgeanna Spelvin
Mrs. Merkle...Brenda Porter
Randolph MacAfee...Mason Hunter
Gloria Rasputin...Jane Rebekah Frazier
Adult Chorus...David Boggs, John Crewdson, Christine M. Feay, Kasey Foster, Jane Rebekah Frazier, Jonathan Matthew Gilbert, Jim Nelson, Micah Thomas


Special Added Event: An Alternative Theatre Production
The arts in the new millennium are controversial and, often, confusing. Old and new forms are combined with new technologies to create what some people think are exciting new directions for the arts, but what others call a trivializing of the traditions of the past. The last 30 years have at the very least spawned heated dialogues over where the arts are headed, including a sensationalized trial in Cincinnati over a group of allegedly pornographic photographs in a museum of art. The IPFW Department of Theatre, as an educational theatre program, feels it has a responsibility to expose both its students and audiences to that which is thought provoking and that which can give a vigorous and new dynamism to the contemporary theatre.

Corpus Christi
By Terrence McNally
Directed by Jonathan Matthew Gilbert

The most controversial and talked about play of the 1998 New York theatrical season. Corpus Christi is a serious, even reverent retelling of the Christ story in a modern idiom. The essential truth at the heart of Corpus Christi cannot be dismissed: If today a gay man arrived bearing the same gifts Christ brought to the world, his journey might end just as terribly. To view this play after Matthew Shepard was crucified on a Wyoming fence merely for being gay is to experience a jolt of recognition. McNally uses the Christ story to tell a contemporary tale of the fight against cruelty, division, hatred, and above all, hypocrisy. His plea is that we look upon all souls as equal in the sight of God.
Limited Run - Two Performances Only!
August 10, 11 at 8 p.m. Studio Theatre

The Rivals
By Richard Sheridan
Directed by Craig A. Humphrey

The Rivals is among the wittiest and most urbane plays in the English language and is part of the grand tradition of English comedy generally referred to as the "laughing comedies." For many years The Rivals has regaled audiences with its bawdy plot, licentious characters, amoral theme, and sexual innuendo. The play is a commentary on social behavior in which lifestyles of town and country are contrasted, leading the characters to ask themselves which of the two they prefer. The manners of the characters are also contrasted: the older generation and the younger, pretended wits and truly clever individuals, those who are honest in love and those who aren't, users and abusers of social rules, aristocrats and citizens. The IPFW production will take a slightly different turn on the play by setting it in the 1920's.
September 28, 29 October 4, 5, 6 at 8 p.m.
Williams Theatre

Atlas's Cigar
By Betsy Breitenbach
Directed by Larry L. Life

IPFW Department of Theatre, junior theatre major Betsy Breitenbach won first place honors with this play in the One-Act Playwriting Competition at the 33rd annual Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival regional competition in Milwaukee in January, 2001. Atlas's Cigar was one of six finalists in the regional competition comprised of Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin. The Department of Theatre has been invited back to the regional competition in 2002 to present a fully staged production of Atlas's Cigar. The play was given its first staged production by the department in Studio Theatre in the Summer of 2000. The production will be coupled with another original production and will be presented in preparation for taking it to the 34th American College Theatre Festival. Atlas's Cigar deals with the lack of responsibility and lack of understanding on behalf of educator's that begets school violence.
November 2, 3, 8, 9, 10 at 8 p.m.
Studio Theatre

Harvey
By Mary Chase
Directed by Jane Purse-Wiedenhoeft

It is hardly necessary to say more than Harvey about this celebrated perennial favorite. Our family holiday production has enchanted audiences for years with the loveable Elwood P. Dowd who starts to introduce his imaginary friend Harvey, a six-and-a-half foot rabbit to guests at a dinner party. Elwoods sister, Veta Louise, has had as much of his eccentric behavior as she can tolerate and decides to have him committed to a sanitarium to spare her daughter, Myrtle Mae, and their family from future embarrassment. Problems quickly arise, however, when Veta herself is mistakenly assumed to be on the fringe of lunacy when she explains to doctors that years of living with Elwood's hallucination have caused her to see Harvey also! Harvey is a sure-to-please, holiday romp for the entire family.
November 30, December 1, 6, 7, 8 at 8 p.m.
December 2, 9 at 2:30 p.m.
SPECIAL HIGH SCHOOL MATINEES
December 5, 6 at 10:30 a.m.
Williams Theatre

Picasso at the Lapin Agile
By Steve Martin
Directed by Jane Purse Wiedenhoeft

Did you know that the "Wild and Crazy Guy," Steve Martin was a playwright? Well, he is and this sublimely ridiculous comedy shows Martin up to his usual form. Picasso at the Lapin Agile a long-running Off-Broadway comedy places Albert Einstein and Pablo Picasso in a Parisian café in 1904, just before the renowned scientist transformed physics with his theory of relativity and the celebrated painter set the art world afire with cubism. In Picasso at the Lapin Agile. his first comedy for the stage, the popular actor, comic and screenwriter plays fast and loose with fact, fame and fortune as these two geniuses muse on the century's achievements and prospects as well as other fanciful topics with infectious dizziness.
February 15, 16, 21, 22, 23 at 8 p.m.
Williams Theatre


Special Added Event: Two Performances Only
Tennessee Williams: Foolish Dreamer
Devised and Directed by Larry L. Life

A gratifying and provocative portrait of the extraordinary life and career of one of America's greatest playwrights. Five men and women play Tennessee Williams and show his immense appeal and great complexity through his poetry, quotes, anecdotes and plays. Tennessee Williams: Foolish Dreamer reveals a fascinating personality that could be alternately tender, generous, bitchy, profound, exasperating, paranoid, or wholly endearing, whether he is discussing his early years, his family, his love life, or his critics. This piece was originally created in February 2001 for the Fort Wayne Museum of Art and was presented for one performance only to a great response. The piece has been expanded and will be performed by the original cast including Carole Bugelwicz, Susan Domer, Larry Life, Brian Schilb and Brian Wagner, with original music by Chris Till. Now is the chance for all who know and love Tennessee Williams to see it.
March 1, 2 at 8 p.m. (This production is offered to FlexPass Members at no cost)
Williams Theatre


THE COLOR OF AUGUST
By Paloma Pedrero
Directed by Betsy Breitenbach

The Color of August is a moving and heartfelt exploration of two women's relationship, artwork, and their relationship with the art. Tackling questions of inspiration, love, hate, and jealously, Paloma Pedrero's modern Spanish masterpiece uses poetic imagery to tell the story of where these two women have been and where their love-hate relationship is heading.

March 29, 30 April 4, 5, 6 at 8 p.m.
Studio Theatre


On The Town
Music by Leonard Bernstein
Book and Lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green
Based on an idea by Jerome Robbins
Directed and Choreographed by Larry L. Life
Associate Choreographer Brittney Coughlin


The New York, New York Musical. It's a Helluva Show! It's 1943 New York, during WW II. Three sailors on a 24-hour shore leave take a carefree tour of Manhattan in search of, what else, women! Plenty of young men were going off to war, worried they would not return, and plenty of young women wanted to give them a great sendoff. On The Town features a classic Bernstein score, and a lighthearted, but endearing and very realistic wartime plot. A very original and risqué musical for its time, let's face it, these three boys are looking for sex before they are shipped-out. The wonderful score includes blues, jazz, and ragtime with a classical structure. Using the natural exuberance of sailors, and the jazzy rhythms and syncopation of Bernstein's music the show features dances that are not only comfortable within the show's dramatic fabric, but grow out of it organically. On The Town created and established the greatest of all American contributions to the theatre: American Theatre Dance.

April 26, 27 May 2, 3, 4 at 8 p.m.
April 28 May 5 at 2:30 p.m.
Williams Theatre

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