Welcome to the 2021-22 Season!
We’re back! Live and in person!
Welcome to the Department of Theatre’s 2021-22 production season, featuring four in-person shows by our student and faculty creatives made for an in-person audience (CDC willing and the pandemic don’t rise!).
We start off in early October with an out-door production of Migrant X, a new work by guest playwright Georgina Escobar directed by Associate Professor Carlos Cruz with musical direction by Shamou. We commissioned Migrant X in order to explore important questions about the current Latinx immigration crisis, both locally and globally. Using an array of physical theatre styles and techniques (cirque, aerial, commedia), this world premiere will put audiences, sometimes literally, into the heart and soul of the migrant experience. October 2-6 at 7pm in the Arts Quad.
Our second Fall production, Gather: New Works from the Department of Theatre, is a huge warm hug of an event—an open invitation to explore what it means to gather, and why it is so important to our lives (now more than ever). This 70-minute evening of new works is part of the department’s mainstage season and features short plays written, directed and designed by UNCC Theatre students and recent alumni. Assistant Professor Laura Waringer and other Theatre faculty serve as mentors for student creatives (actors, directors, designers and playwrights). November 4-7 at 7:30pm in the Black Box Theatre.
February means surprises, right? And we’ve got a great big surprise of a show coming February 24-27. More information soon.
And to truly celebrate our return to live theatre, we are ending with a BIG splash—our lush production of the Broadway hit Pippin. This time-bending musical (Music and Lyrics by Stephen Schwartz and Book by Roger O. Hirson) tells the story of an actor named Pippin in search of a place in the world. Replete with its classic score and big dance numbers, our production, directed by Professor Dean Adams, also infuses new energy with contemporary circus arts and aerial performance and plenty of magic (of both the theatrical and sleight-of-hand varieties!). A multiple Tony Award winner when it debuted in 1972 and again for the 2013 Broadway revival, Pippin is a big-hearted tale of adventure and self-discovery. April 21-24 in the Belk Theatre.
As always, our skilled faculty directors, designers, dramaturgs, stage technicians and performers will be working together with our talented students to create a wide range of exciting, vital, diverse and socially responsible theater produced in our wonderful theatrical spaces here in the Arts Quad and in Robinson Hall.
The Department of Theatre remains committed to offering our students and members of the surrounding community thought-provoking and entertaining approaches to a wide range of theatrical performance, from the classics to contemporary interdisciplinary work. We encourage all of you to explore and engage with our performances and special events and opportunities, including post-show discussions, master classes, workshop opportunities, guest lectures, theatre-going excursions, internships, and production-related apprenticeships.
See you at the theatre—backstage, on-stage and in the house!