Ithaca College Theatre's 2008-09 season featured the demanding, “sung-through” musical A New Brain.
Ben Fankhauser '11 talks about IC's musical theater program and his experience as the lead in A New Brain. Audio slideshow by Nick Deel '09.
Now, the 2009-10 season promises not a new brain but six new productions, more new talent, and a newly renovated Dillingham Center!
Expect to see a refurbished lobby, elevators, updated classrooms and studios, and a large new rehearsal space. Even the ever-popular Dillingham fountains have been spruced up!
Susannah Berryman, associate professor of acting and directing, says, “It's exciting to look forward to working in the renovated space. The new configuration of the classroom and rehearsal spaces will greatly enhance the class and production processes and the face-lift aspects are energizing!”
The season will begin with British playwright Caryl Churchill’s Top Girls. This critically acclaimed play questions a woman's ability to combine a successful career with a thriving family life.
Next to grace the stage will be the fall musical Children of Eden. Composer Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, Godspell) brings musical life to familiar characters as they struggle to raise families and do what’s right in a complex and conflicted world.
Wrapping up the fall semester will be, well, a surprise, say department staff. Watch for an announcement soon!
After winter break the Department of Theatre Arts will collaborate with the School of Music in a production of Rachel Portman’s popular opera The Little Prince. Children and adults alike will enjoy this show.
The spring musical Floyd Collins tells the true story of the death of the “greatest cave explorer ever known” near Cave City, Kentucky, in the winter of 1925.
“I have wanted for years to direct Floyd Collins because the story is compelling and the music absolutely beautiful. This year it was finally a good fit in the season, and I am thrilled,” Berryman says.
The season will conclude with Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, a screwball comedy filled with some of the bard's most memorable comic characters.
With a larger-than-ever, first-year class this fall, the theater department is also looking forward to new talent and diversity.
“We are all looking forward to finding out what unique qualities and capacities [incoming first-year students] bring to the Department of Theatre Arts, both in class and production. It is always rewarding to see the ways in which the interaction between the new and continuing students enriches them both as they get to know each other's work,” says Berryman.
Department chair Lee Byron adds, “I am extremely excited about the incoming freshman class. This class will be the largest in the history of the department, yet it is chock-full of incredibly talented, committed, and smart students!”
New students, new shows, and newly renovated facilities … this is one IC Theatre season you won’t want to miss!
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Fuse is a student produced publication about the Ithaca College experience. All content in the print and web versions of Fuse is developed by current Ithaca College students in a breadth of different areas of study.
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