IPFW Department of Theatre
1999-2000 Season

Assassins
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by John Weidman
Based on an original idea by Charles Gilbert
Directed by John C. Hermes
October 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 1999 at 8 p.m., Sunday Matinee October 10, 1999 at 2:30 p.m.
WILLIAMS THEATRE

Assassins is one of American Musical Theatre's most brilliant and dazzling achievements. Assassins is part history lesson, carny show, and vaudeville all Swirled into one. It is a controversial and surreal dissection of political assassination in America – a schizophrenic journey from John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald and beyond. Assassins is provocative entertainment that illuminates as it shocks and educates as it entertains. A work of unimpeachable craftsmanship and integrity, it views America's history of assassination as a perverse tradition, but an American one nonetheless. Instead of viewing the assassins as freaks and misfits outside the American experience, Sondheim and Weidman see them as products of it, victims of it, people who misread the guarantee of the right to pursuit of happiness as the right to be happy.

Spike Heels
By Theresa Rebeck
Directed by Kendra Clauser
November 5, 6, 12, 13, 1999 at 8 p.m.
STUDIO THEATRE, Kettler Hall G32

Spike Heels is a modern-day Pygmalion attempt that goes awry in this contemporary comedy of manners which explores sexual harassment, misplaced romance and the endless possibilities in a four-sided love triangle. The characters are a volatile young woman named Georgie from the wrong side of the tracks, a writer with Professor Higgins tendencies, a less-than-ethical lawyer, and a fiancée in sensible shoes. Georgie's spike heels are her weapon to gaining the upper hand. By slipping into some shoes that give her height and show off her legs, Georgie takes charge and demands that the characters reevaluate assumptions about gender, work and class. "Spike Heels is a modern satire in which the battle of desire waged between the sexes finds redemption in affectionate equality." (from New York Times)

You Can't Take It With You
By Moss Hart and George S. Kaufmann
Directed by Larry L. Life
December 3, 4, 10, 11, 1999 at 8 p.m. Sunday Matinee December 12, 1999 at 2:30 p.m.
WILLIAMS THEATRE

Begin the holiday season with a bang! Bring the entire family to see the most successful and popular comedy ever written for the American Theatre. Let your family join the delightful Sycamore family on the maddest romp ever to hit the stage. The zany cast of characters include Grandpa who doesn't believe in income tax; Boris Kolenkhov, a Russian ballet dancer who is teaching Essie to dance even though he knows she stinks; Penny, who paints and is trying to write a play; Alice, who is in love with Tony Kirby whose parents are outrageous snobs; and Paul and Mr. DePinna, who are making fireworks in the basement if this group doesn't sound crazy enough, throw in an inebriated actress who keeps having hallucinations and a grand duchess who has defected from Russia and you have non-stop laughter. You Can't Take It With You is a warm and wonderful holiday delight that celebrates the joys of nonconformity.

Arcadia
By Tom Stoppard
Directed by Craig Humphrey
February 11, 12, 18, 19, 2000 at 8 p.m.
WILLIAMS THEATRE

"The unpredictable and the predetermined unfold nature creates itself on every scale...the ordinary-sized stuff which is our lives, the things people write poetry about clouds, daffodils, waterfalls, and what happens in a cup of coffee when the cream goes in these things are full of mystery, as mysterious to us as the heavens were to the Greeks." (from Arcadia) This brilliant play takes us back and forth between the 19^th and 20^th centuries and explores the nature of truth and time, the difference between the classical and romantic temperament, and the disruptive influence of sex on our orbits in life.

How I Learned to Drive
By Paula Vogel
Directed by John C. Hermes
March 17, 18, 24, 25, 2000 at 8 p.m.
STUDIO THEATRE, Kettler Hall G32

How I Learned to Drive, the recipient of 1997 Lortel, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, New York Drama Critics and OBIE awards for best new play is the story of a young woman's coming-of-age in the 1960s and '70s. In flashback, Li'l Bit recounts growing up in a small Maryland town. Trapped in a comically dysfunctional family, Li'l Bit turns to the only person she feels she can trust – her Uncle Peck. Peck takes the young girl under his wing, listens to her, gives her driving lessons...and sexually abuses her. What follows is a complex and very troubling portrait of how this "relationship" changes over the years, and, ultimately, how it damages both people involved.

Edith Stein
By Arthur Giron
Directed by Larry L. Life
April 21, 22, 28, 29, 2000 at 8 p.m.
WILLIAMS THEATRE

Edith Stein is a powerful and moving story of a remarkable Jewish woman who converted to Catholicism, became a Carmelite nun, achieved remarkable success in the male-dominated world of German philosophy, and was sent to a Nazi death camp when she refused to deny her Jewish heritage. A prayerful woman of deep spirituality and authentic mystical experience, Edith Stein remained an influential, active philosopher all her life. She vigorously opposed Nazism from the outset. A model Catholic, a brilliant intellectual, yet a profoundly humble soul, she affirmed her solidarity with her suffering Jewish people no matter the cost. Edith Stein was arrested by the Nazis at a Carmelite convent at Echt in Holland and sent to her death at Auschwitz. On October 11, 1998, Pope John Paul II canonized Edith Stein making her the first Jewish-born woman saint of the Roman Catholic Church since the Virgin Mary.

SPECIAL HIGH SCHOOL MATINEES

We will feature two high school matinees of Edith Stein on April 26 and 27, 2000 at 10:30 a.m. High schools bringing groups will receive a special group rate of $4.00 per student, and teachers who accompany the group will be admitted free.

Babes in Arms 1937
Rodgers & Hart's musical comedy
July 7-9 and 13-16, 2000

Performances are 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, and 2:30 p.m. Sunday in Williams Theatre, unless otherwise noted, on the campus at 2101 Coliseum Blvd. E.
Single tickets for nonmusicals are $10 adults, $8 senior citizens and groups of 10 or more, $7 non-IPFW students and $5 IPFW students.
Musicals are $12 adults, $8 students and senior citizens.
Call (260) 481-6555 for more information.