How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying
Book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock, and Willie Gilbert, based on the novel by Shepherd Mead
Music and lyrics by Frank Loesser
July 10, 11, 16, 17, 18, 22, 23, 24, 25 at 8 p.m., July 19, 26 at 2:30 p.m.

Auntie Mame
by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
directed by Larry Life
Oct. 2, 3 and 9, 10, 1998

Go on a wonderful and heart-warming adventure with the sparkling and scatterbrained Auntie Mame. Mame Dennis Burnside has brightened the landscape of American theatre for many years with her whimsical gaiety, her slightly madcap adventures, and her devotion to her young nephew. Through fortunes that rose and fell and a pleasant but brief marriage to a likeable Southerner (who had the bad luck to tumble down from the Matterhorn) Auntie Mame's chief concem was raising her young nephew. Auntie Mame is a woman of spirit, innate kindness, and undefeatable courage. Our production will feature WPTA Channel 21 Alive anchor Melissa Long in the title role.

Buried Child
by Sam Shepard
directed by Susan A. Robinson
Nov. 6, 7 and 13, 14, 1998
Studio Theatre, Kettler Hall G32

Sam Shepard, playwright, film actor, and screenwriter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1979 for Buried Child, a play critics have described as "American Gothic." Buried Child is a comedy that emphasizes the rootlessness of the American family, its emotional chill, and its capacity for violence. The play is set in a shabby Midwestern farmhouse and focuses on a young man's attempt to rediscover his heritage and his identity within a family in the grip of sordid secrets, betrayals, coercion, infidelity, and exploitation. Buried Child is lyrical in its powerful images, comic in its truthfulness, and tragic in its harsh representation of traditional values and the American family.

Oleanna
by David Mamet
directed by Larry L. Life
Dec. 4, 5 and 11, 12, 1998
Williams Theatre

A college student, Carol, drops by her professor's office in an effort to gain his help to do better in class. John, the professor, in the midst of buying a house to celebrate his nomination for tenure, at first seems distant. As the first meeting progresses, the two discuss the nature of understanding and judgment in society, as well as their very own natures and places in our society. It seems as if a bond has been made. When next they meet we find that a report has been filed to the tenure committee. Carol has joined a "group" and has decided that John sexually harassed her during their first meeting. Their second meeting dissects the first; every word, every nuance of the first meeting has been twisted into something else. Or has it? John's unsuccessful attempts to convince Carol to retract her accusation escalate to a more dangerous level. The third meeting, one the court officers warned against, climaxes violently and leaves John and Carol both physically and emotionally devastated.

As You Like It
by William Shakespeare
directed by Susan A. Robinson
musical direction and original compositions by John Hermes
Feb. 12, 13 and 19, 20, 1999
Feb. 17, 18 (High School Matinees)
Williams Theatre

As You Like It is one of Shakespeare's greatest comedies, and definitely one of his most sublimely serene. It includes dances, weddings, masques, and a wrestling match, yet it is beautifully stylized and philosophically eloquent.
The story begins at the court where enmity prevails. Brother usurps brother for the dukedom, and Duke Senior must flee to the Forest of Arden, where he lives "like the old Robin Hood" with his merry men. Other endangered court-folk follow his lead, and the forest fills up with mismatched lovers, women masquerading as men, brothers bent on revenge, and the infamous cynic Jacques, who asserts that "all the world's a stage.

Our heroine, one of the best women's roles Shakespeare ever wrote, is the indomitable Rosiland, in disguise as the young lad Gannymede. She eventually manages to straighten out all the twisting plots of love, revenge, and usurped dukes, but not before she waxes philosophical on life, love, marriage, and the trustworthiness of young men in love.

As You Like It is a delightful pastoral comedy with something for everyone. In the Forest of Arden, all find respite from the exhausting and corrupting nature of court life, and by the end of the play all are renewed and restored to life.

Mass Appeal
by Bill C. Davis
directed by John Hermes
March 19, 20 and 26, 27, 1999
Studio Theatre, Kettler Hall G32

Father Tim Farley, a lover of the good things in life, is comfortably ensconced as priest of a prosperous Catholic congregation. Almost without realizing it, he has resorted to flattering his parishioners and entertaining them with sermons that skirt any disturbing issues--all in order to protect his Mercedes, his trips abroad, and the generous supply of fine wines which grace his table (and his desk drawer). His well-ordered world is disrupted by the arrival of Mark Dolson, an intense and idealistic young seminarian whom Father Farley reluctantly agrees to take under his wing. There is immediate conflict between the two as the younger man challenges the older priest's secular ways, while Father Farley is appalled by Mark's confession that he had led a life of bisexual promiscuity before entering the priesthood. Their final confrontation is a touching, yet very funny, examination of the nature of friendship, courage, and the infinite variety of love, as the older man is reminded of the firebrand he once was, and the younger comes to realize that forbearance is as vital to the Christian ethic as righteousness.

The Hot L Baltimore
by Lanford Wilson
directed by Craig A. Hurnphrey
April 16, 17 and 23, 24, 1999
Williams Theatre
The scene of this bittersweet comedy is the lobby of a rundown hotel, so seedy that it has lost the "e" from its marquee. As the action unfolds, the residents--ranging from young to old, from the defiant to the resigned--meet and talk and interact with each other during the course of one day. The drama is of passing events in their lives, of everyday encounters, and of the human comedy with conversations often overlapping into a contrapuntal musical flow. In the resulting mosaic each character emerges clearly and perceptively defined, and the sum total of what they are-or wish they were--becomes, a poignant, powerful call to America to recover lost values and to restore itself in its own and the world's eyes.