[easyrotator]erc_83_1361565197[/easyrotator]
Photos by Tyler Rosenthal.
Ouachita Department of Theater Arts will present the spring theater production, Harrison, TX, in Ouachita’s Verser Theater on Feb. 21-25.
The series of one-act plays by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Horton Foote will include “Blind Date,” “The Dancers” and “Spring Dance,” all of which are set in the fictional town of Harrison, Texas. Performances will be held at 7:30 each evening, except Sunday, which will feature a 2:30 p.m. matinee. Tickets are $8 each and are available for purchase at www.obu.edu/boxoffice.
Daniel Inouye, assistant professor of theater arts and director of the play, handpicked the three one-acts because he said he enjoys “Horton Foote’s work and his capacity to create nuanced and interesting characters within his plays.”
The common thread for all three one-acts “is the idea of a dance and what it means to people who are trying to connect with others,” Inouye said. “In essence, that is what all the characters in the plays are striving after: connection and intimacy with other humans. Each play looks at this striving, this human connection that we all have, through a slightly different lens.”
The first one-act, “Blind Date,” is the comedy. Set in the 1920s, it’s a touching and funny story of what befalls a fluttery, well-meaning aunt when she tries to arrange a date for her visiting—and uncooperative—niece.
“Boy meets girl; girl doesn’t like boy. Aunt and uncle try to get girl and boy to connect; hilarity ensues,” said Sara Cat Williams, a freshman biology major from Roland, Ark., who plays the aunt, Dolores. She is a “meddlesome but very loving aunt who is attempting to set up her niece Sarah Nancy … with a young man named Felix.”
The cast for “Blind Date” also includes Stacy Hawking, a freshman musical theater major from Sherwood, Ark.; Ben Perry, a senior musical theater major from North Little Rock, Ark.; and Garrett Whitehead, a junior musical theater major from Cleburne, Texas.
The second one-act, “The Dancers,” is the serious drama. Horace is an “almost-off-to-college teenager whose obsessive sister is constantly trying to force him to be involved with people, when he’d rather be reading a book,” said Timothy Drennan, a senior musical theater major from Paron, Ark., who plays the teenager Horace. “She sets him up on a date, which launches him into the world of girls, completely foreign territory to him, and the show focuses on his interactions with one in particular, Mary Catherine Davis.
“He wants desperately to be able to escape his introverted isolation, but he’s scared of conversations,” Drennan added. “Horace is more or less me if I had never come out of my shell in high school.
“People were rather scary to me and I felt a lot safer reading a book than talking to other people. So, playing Horace is, in a weird sense, like visiting an old friend.”
Other cast members include: Mattie Bogoslavsky, a freshman musical theater major from North Little Rock, Ark.; Amanda Murray, a senior musical theater major from Racine, Wis.; Kaylee Nebe, a junior musical theater major from Mesquite, Texas; Alexis Nichols, a senior musical theater major from Sugar Land, Texas.
Others Joe Ochterbeck, a junior theater major from Maumelle, Ark.; Jessica Smith, a sophomore musical theater major from Van Buren, Ark.; Ben Stidham, a sophomore musical theater major from Dallas, Texas; Cami Willis, a junior musical theater major from Flower Mound, Texas; and Betsy Wilson, a senior musical theater major from Katy, Texas.
The final one-act, “Spring Dance,” is the tragedy. Heather White, a senior musical theater major from Houston, Texas, plays Annie, a young housewife who has been confined to a sanatorium. She and the other inmates are completely divorced from reality.
“Her father was shot and killed in front of her when she was younger,” White said. “But, surprisingly, it wasn’t until the birth of her second child that the side effects from the trauma set in.
Her husband did the best he could to take care of her until the problem became too severe and he had to send her to the asylum.
“The play is all about how the people in this asylum are trying so desperately to maintain connection with one another, and there are moments that are just so sweet that they make you want to cry,” White added.
“’Spring Dance’ isn’t just about a bunch of crazy people. It’s about real people that have been brought through difficult circumstances and what it is about them that got them to this point. … I’m excited for the audience to get to come on the ride with these characters and experience and feel the things they feel.”
Tickets for the show may be purchased at the Jones Performing Arts Center Box Office weekdays from 1-5 p.m. and one hour before show times.
Tickets for the show may also be purchased with credit card by phone or online at www.obu.edu/boxoffice.
For more information about the Spring play, call the Ouachita box office at (870) 245-5555 during regular box office hours Monday through Friday from 1-5 p.m. Also, each current Ouachita student may receive one free ticket to the show by presenting his or her student ID at the box office in Jones Performing Arts Center.
