Specialized Indexes > Theatre Chronology

2013-2014 Academic Year

Department of Film, Television, and Theatre

Faculty: James Collins (Chair), Ted Barron, Christine Becker, Christine Burgess, C. Kenneth Cole, Donald Crafton, William Donaruma, Richard E. Donnelly, Kevin Dreyer (Director of Theatre), Anne García-Romero, Karen Heisler, Peter Holland, Scott Jackson, Anton Juan, Michael Kackman, Mary Celeste Kearney, Carys Kresny, Ted Mandell, Olivier Morel, Grant Mudge, Susan Ohmer, Mark Pilkinton, Yael Prizant, Siiri Scott, Gary Sieber, Jeffrey Spoonhower, Marcus Stephens, Pamela Robertson Wojcik

Emeriti: Reginald Bain, Jill Godmilow

Staff: Geoffrey Carter, Lynn Holbrook, Jo Ann Norris, Stacey Stewart

The 2013-2014 theatre season is dedicated to the memory of Frederic Winkler Syburg.

Shakespeare at Notre Dame

Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival

Play: Selected Scenes (ShakeScenes)

Author: William Shakespeare
Dates: Saturday & Sunday, July 20 & 21, 2013, at 2:00 P.M.
Venue: Leighton Concert Hall, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Coordinating Director: Christy Burgess

Play: The Comedy of Errors

Author: William Shakespeare
Dates: Sunday, July 21, through Monday, August 26, 2013, at 7:00 P.M.
Producing Organization: The Young Company
Venue: Various, around the community
Director: Kevin Asselin

Play: Richard III

Author: William Shakespeare
Dates: Tuesday, August 20, at 7:30, through Sunday, September 1, 2013, at 2:00 P.M.
Venue: Decio Mainstage Theatre, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center
Director: Laura Gordon

Play: Othello

Author: William Shakespeare
Dates: Wednesday-Friday, September 18-20, 2013, at 7:30 P.M.
Producing Organization: Actors From the London Stage (AFTLS)
Venue: Washington Hall
Director: Co-directed by the five actors

Play: On The Verge or The Geography of Yearning

Director: Renée Roden*
Stage Manager: Eric McMannon
Costume Designer: Karen Gilmore
Scene Designer: Samantha Schubert*
Technical Director: C. Kenneth Cole

Casts and Crews: to follow

Note: Notre Dame first produced On the Verge in April 1996 as an advanced directing project of student Ruth Diemer under the supervision of Professor Reg Bain. This is the first production of Overmyer's play as part of the regular season.

Source: Program, Department of Film, Television, & Theatre

Play: Cabaret

Authors: book by Joe Masteroff; based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood; music by John Kander; lyrics by Fred Ebb; Broadway production directed by Harold Prince; produced for the Broadway Stage by Harold Prince.
Dates: Wednesday, November 13 through Sunday, November 17, 2013
Producing Organization: Department of Film, Television, and Theatre
Venue: Decio Mainstage Theatre, DeBartolo Performing Arts Center

Artistic Staff:

Production Staff: (more to follow)

Cast:
Emcee: Anthony Murphy
Sally Bowles: Brigid Clary
Cliff Bradshaw: Chris Siemann
Fraulein Schneider: Mary Wheaton
Herr Schultz: Brian Scully
Ernst Ludwig: Samuel Evola
Fraulein Kost: Alexa Monn
Kit Kat Girls:
Rosie: Patricia Fernández de Castro Sámano*
Lulu: Marissa Vos* [dance captain]
Frenchie: Alex Joyce
Helga: Jackie Winsch
Texas: Yana Jones*
Kit Kat Boys:
Bobby: Joseph Binzer*
Victor: John Corr*
Hans: Quint Mediate*
Customs Officer/Max/Sailor 3: Jack Hensler
Sailor 1/Club Patron/Nazi Guard: James O’Connor
Sailor 2/Club Patron/Nazi Guard: Carlos Torres
Kit Kat Pianist: Alec Sievern

Note: With this premiere production of Cabaret at Notre Dame, first produced on Broadway in 1966, the department returns to its long tradition of producing musicals. While musically oriented reviews and exhibitions at Notre Dame date from the 1860s, plays we today call "musicals" apparently first appeared on the Washington Hall stage with hugely popular Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and original student-written efforts of the 1940s. Kiss Me Kate in December 1953, directed by John Tumpane, seems to have been the first departmental production of a "Broadway" musical on campus.

Before The Threepenny Opera in 2007, directed by Anton Juan, the department produced West Side Story in 1986 in O’Laughlin Auditorium as part of the Notre Dame/Saint Mary’s Theatre season. For the preceding two decades, regular musicals occurred on the Saint Mary’s College campus under this arrangement, including How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967), Guys and Dolls (1968), Camelot (1969), Oliver (1971), Showboat (1972), You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (1973), The Fantasticks (1973), Man of La Mancha (1975), I Do! I Do! (1975), Fiddler on the Roof (1977), Kiss Me Kate (1977), The Mikado (1978), Damn Yankees (1979), Cowardy Custard (1980), and Godspell (1984).

Although the department produced Godspell in 1976 in the Stepan Center on the Notre Dame campus, the last departmental musical in Washington Hall was The Medium in 1966 directed by Fred Syburg, in whose memory we have dedicated this 2013-2014 theatre season. In his long and illustrious career at Notre Dame, Fred directed The Threepenny Opera (1965) and The Beggar’s Opera (1974) and held artistic, technical, and administrative roles in departmental productions in Washington Hall of Seventeen (1955), Finian’s Rainbow (1956), Good News (1957), Oklahoma! (1958), A Hatful of Rain (1958), The Boy Friend (1959), Babes in Arms (1961), South Pacific (1962), The Fantasticks (1963), and My Fair Lady (1964).

Source: Program, Department of Film, Television, & Theatre

Play: As You Like It

Author: William Shakespeare
Dates: Wednesday-Friday, February 5-7, 2014, at 7:30 P.M.
Producing Organization: Actors From the London Stage (AFTLS), Shakespeare at Notre Dame
Venue: Washington Hall
Director: Co-directed by the five actors
Production Stage Manager: Ryan Stutzman

Cast

Rosalind, Amiens, Audrey, Lord: Jennifer Higham
Duke Frederick, Oliver, Touchstone, Duke Senior: Patrick Miller
Adam, Le Beau, Jaques, Silvium, Hymen: Robert Mountford
Celia, Phebe, Sir Oliver Martext, Lord: Joannah Tincey
Orlando, Charles, Corin, William, Jaques de Boys: Dan Winter

Play: Clybourne Park

Artistic Staff
Director: Grant Mudge
Lighting Designer: Kevin Dreyer
Costume Designer: Richard E. Donnelly
Set Designer: Marcus Stephens
Wig and Hair Designer: Lana McKinnon

Cast
Russ/Dan: John Corr*
Betsy/Lindsey: Sienna Wdowik
Bev/Lindsey: Renée Roden*
Karl/Steve: Joey Doyle*
Francine/Lena: Zuri Eshun*
Jim/Tom/Kenneth: Jonathan Walker
Albert/Kevin: Bryce Wood* (Feb 20-26, Mar 2)
Albert/Kevin: Troy Lewis (Feb 27, Mar 1)

Production Staff: to follow

Note: This is the premiere production at Notre Dame of Bruce Norris's 2011 Pulitzer Prize winning play which debuted at Playwrights Horizons Theater in New York City in February 2010. Other recent productions of Pulitzer Prize winning plays in FTT's mainstage season include Wendy Wasserstein's The Heidi Chronicles (February 1993), Paula Vogel's How I Learned to Drive (November 2002), and David Auburn's Proof (February 2011). Clybourne Park owes its plot line, of course, to Lorraine Hansberry's, A Raisin in the Sun (1959), which was most recently produced by the Department in Washington Hall in February 1994. The 1972 Notre Dame yearbook, the Dome, cryptically suggests a production, probably by a touring company, and in 1984 notes that Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis read scenes from A Raisin in the Sun for Notre Dame's Black Cultural Arts Festival.

Source: Program, Department of Film, Television, & Theatre

Play: Blood Wedding

Artistic Staff:
Director: Anton Juan
Lighting Designer: Kevin Dreyer
Costume Designer: Richard E. Donnelly
Set Designer: Marcus Stephens
Sound Designer: Chau-Ly Phan
Assistant Director: William Pinkham*
Dramaturg: Gabriela Nuñez
Dramaturgy Advisor: Anne García-Romero

Production Staff
Producer: Kevin Dreyer
Stage Manager: Joseph (Tre) Haskins*
Technical Director: C. Kenneth Cole
Costume Shop Manager: Lynn Holbrook
Professional Stitcher: Katherine Werner
Assistant Stage Managers: Virginia Coyne, Sara Gbadamosi*, Samantha Squeri*
Scenic Charge Artist: Samantha Schubert*
Makeup and Hair Designer: Brock Switzer*
Acting and Dialect Coach: Siiri Scott

Cast:
Mother: Natalia Cuevas*
Groom: Guillermo Alonso*
Moon, Woodcutter #2, Young Man #1: Jacob Schrimpf*
Beggar, Woodcutter #1, Young Man #2: David Díaz*
Young Woman #3: Victoria Velasquez
Father of the Bride, Woodcutter #3: Christopher Brandt*
Young Woman #1: Mary Patano*
Leonardo: Adel Nehmeh
Leonardo’s wife: Patricia Fernández de Castro*
Mother-in-Law: Danielle Dorrego*
Neighbor, Young Woman #2: Kate Sanders
Young Girl: Anna Schäffer
Maid: Alexa Monn
Bride: Catherine Baker*
García Lorca: Nino de los Reyes**

Note: Although Notre Dame/Saint Mary's Theatre produced The House of Bernarda Alba just over thirty years ago in spring 1984 in O'Laughlin Auditorium, this production of Blood Wedding appears to be the first time the Department has produced a play by Federico Garcia Lorca (1898-1936) as part of the mainstage theatre season on the Notre Dame campus.

Source: Program, Department of Film, Television, & Theatre

* Film, Television, and Theatre major

** Guest Artist