Category: Theatre

The Tech Theatre Company presents “The Winter’s Tale” by William Shakespeare this week.

One of the Bard’s later plays, it is a comedy which also provides intense psychological drama. “The Winter’s Tale” follows the story of two kings, childhood friends Leontes and Polixenes. The plot involves jealous rages, seeming betrayals, accusations of infidelity and Leonte’s refusal to accept his wife’s child as his own. Eventually, love reunites the characters in the end and all are redeemed.

“The Winter’s Tale” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights, with a 2 p.m. Sunday Matinee at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts.

Tickets are $15 for adults, $6 for youth and Michigan Tech Students are free with the Experience Tech Fee.

From Tech Today, by VPA.

“The Winter’s Tale” Opens Tonight

The curtain will go up tonight for the Tech Theatre Company’s latest production, “The Winter’s Tale,” in the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts.

Curtain time is 7:30 p.m. tonigh (April 7, 2016)t, tomorrow (April 8) and Saturday (April 9) with a 2 p.m. Sunday (April 10) matinee.

Published in 1623, “The Winter’s Tale” is one of Shakespeare’s later plays. Considered a comedy, it is also sometimes labeled one of the Bard’s late romances.

Providing both intense psychological drama and comedy, “The Winter’s Tale” leaves audiences with a romantic and happy ending as it follows a story of two kings who are childhood friends. There are violent storms, an insistence to abandon a child and even 16 years pass before love reunites the characters in the end and all are redeemed.

According to Director Roger Held, “The dreary English days twixt November and March are invariably cold, dark and damp. While snowfall is light, the east wind blows very cold and the wind from the south and west brings chilly rain. During the English Renaissance, the lack of central heating encouraged early bed times under multiple covers. Not-sleepy-children may have prompted the development of traditional Winter Tales … stories most often set in the long ago and far away and were cautionary tales, warning against bad behavior. The romantic writers and the Grimm brothers are descendants of this folk tradition that Shakespeare borrowed for [this] play.”

General admission is $15, youth tickets (17 and under) are $6, and Michigan Tech student tickets are free with the Experience Tech fee.

To purchase tickets, call the Central Ticket Office 7-2073, go online or visit Ticketing Operations at the SDC.

Tickets will also be available at the Rozsa box office two hours before each show.

From Tech Today, by Bethany Jones.

What’s a great idea for a night out with your valentine? Join Tech Theatre as they present “Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music” in the McArdle Theatre on Thursday, February 18 – Saturday, Feb. 20 and Thursday Feb. 25 – Saturday Feb. 27. Show time is 7:30 p.m. each night.

“Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music” is a play by Lee Blessing. A fun, romantic comedy, featuring a country bar-owner, a nun with a funny way of shouting out obscenities at the wrong moment, her aunt and the hilarious, unlikely romance that unfolds. Learn more about the show and get ticket information online.

From Tech Today, by Bethany Jones.

Kent Cyr joins the Department of Visual and Performing Arts as an assistant professor. Before joining Michigan Tech, Cyr worked as the coordinator of theatre, technical director and an assistant professor at York College. Cyr received his Master’s in Technical Production from Boston University and a bachelor’s from Indiana University.

He has worked on the PRAXIS II Subject Assessment in Theatre for the Educational Testing Service. Since 1991, he has worked in the industry.

Read more at Tech Today.

The Tech Theatre Company presents “Haroun and the Sea of Stories.” The chldren’s classic by Salman Rushdie is in the tradition of “Alice in Wonderland” and “The Wizard of Oz.”

“What’s the use of stories that aren’t even true?” This is the question Haroun asks her father, the famous storyteller Rashid Khalifa, when her mother Soraya runs away with another man. Rashid then loses his unique talent, the ability to tell stories, and Haroun decides she must help her father recover his powers. She sets off on a remarkable journey to the fabled Sea of Stories, where many of Rashid’s outlandish yarns turn out to be not only true but alive.

“Haroun and the Sea of Stories” opens at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, November 12, 2015, in the McArdle Theatre in the Walker Building. Additional performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday with a 2 p.m. Sunday matinee.

Tickets at $13 for adults, $5 for youth and Michigan Tech students are free with Student ID/Experience Tech Fee.

From Tech Today, by Tech Theatre.

Aquila Theatre is returning to Michigan Tech with the world’s greatest love story, Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet.”

The story is so well known—star-crossed lovers who are doomed from the start—so why is this production special? This minimal adaptation is a joy of the senses: simple, pared-down and shadowy, Aquila’s “Romeo and Juliet,” directed and adapted by Desiree Sanchez, is a completely new way to experience one of the Bard’s most iconic plays. Shakespeare’s eight-plus actors are cut down to five, the original seventeen roles reduced to eight. The story is condensed, focused and chiseled away at until it stands out in uncluttered relief.

Experience the beauty of Aquila Theatre’s new production of “Romeo and Juliet,” at 8 p.m. Thursday, October 22, 2015, at the Rozsa Center for the Performing Arts. There will be a pre-performance discussion with Aquila Theatre tour members at 7 p.m. in the Rozsa lobby. Tickets for Romeo and Juliet are on sale now, $24 for adults, $10 for youth and no charge for Michigan Tech students with a student ID via the Experience Tech fee.

Click here for more information or to order tickets.

From Tech Today, by the Rozsa Center.

Aquila Theatre to present “Romeo and Juliet” Oct. 22 at Rozsa

According to a recent review by Sam Hall, of DC Metro Theater Arts, “This is a very real and very serious production, full of shadows and chiaroscuro light. Romeo and Juliet step onstage as more than horny teenagers or conventionally doomed lovers. They are two young persons come together burning ardently within the flame of life, snuffed out in heedless misunderstanding…. We have here a remarkable fusion of design, text, and performance; of consciousness, scenery, sound, light, space, meaning, and movement. This is Romeo and Juliet as high tragedy, a balletic dream sculpted in moonstone ghost; a lighted candle melting in wax from mise-en-scène to mise-en-scène; a grandeur of poetry and high art. It is beautiful and disturbing. Deeply moving, without a trace of sentimentality.”

Read more at Keweenaw Now.

“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” a play by Rajiv Joseph, explores how the lives of two American Marines and an Iraqi translator are forever changed by an encounter with a quick-witted tiger who haunts the streets of war-torn Baghdad attempting to find meaning, forgiveness and redemption amidst the city’s ruins.

“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” will be performed by Tech Theatre in the McArdle Theater for six performances, Thursday, October 15, 2015, through Saturday, October 17, 2015, and October 22 – 24, 2015. Curtain time is 7:30 p.m. each evening.

“Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” examines both the power and the perils of human nature.

From Tech Today, by Tech Theatre.

Tech Theatre Company to perform “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo” Oct. 15-17 and 22-24 in McArdle Theater

The New York Times writes, “Set in the chaotic first days of the American invasion of Iraq, this boldly imagined, harrowing and surprisingly funny drama considers the long afterlife of violent acts, as well as the impenetrable mysteries of the afterlife itself.”

According to Director Roger Held, “While depicting a devastatingly cruel and venal world [the tiger] offers hope of redemption and meaningful life after a history of complacency and compliance. What we must do is not easy; we must find and risk being ourselves…”

Read more at Keweenaw Now.

What is a Violapalooza? Lollapalooza with violas? Come to the 4^th Keweenaw String Festival starting at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, October 10, 2015, at the Rozsa Center and find out.

Picture a host of young Kurt Cobains, playing classical music instead of Nirvana. We’ll have stars of the Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra, special guests, along with emerging, talented violists of the Keweenaw—all on stage at the Rozsa.

For more information, see the Michigan Tech event page.

From Tech Today.

Rozsa Center to host “Senses of Land” Gallery exhibit, Keweenaw Symphony Orchestra “Violapalooza” concert Oct. 10

What is a Viola you ask? According to Wikipedia: “The viola is a bowed string instrument that is slightly larger than a violin, with a lower and deeper sound.” The KSO’s Violapalooza this Saturday will feature many, many violas!

Read more at Keweenaw Now.

Lisa Johnson (VPA) presented poems from her collection, “Addition and Subtraction,” in July at the Second International Poetry Festival of Aguacat’n in Huehuetenango, Guatemala. The Aguacat’n International Poetry Festival was initiated by the Macondo Literary Group of Guatemala and is supported by the Editorial Ediciones Caffeine and Converged Voice Literary Magazine. Poets from Mexico, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Germany and the US presented their work during the three-day event.

From Tech Today.