by Amber Lindsay
The Cameron University Theatre Arts Department announced the upcoming theatre season, “A Year of Masterpieces.”
According to Professor of Theatre Arts Dr. David Fennema, the season will feature four plays, which have gained critical esteem in the theatre world.
Dr. Fennema said the season would begin on the weekend of Oct. 6-9, with Arthur Bicknell’s “Masterpieces,” the first of two shows that Dr. Fennema will be directing.
According to Dr. Fennema, “Masterpieces” is a reconstruction of the life of Branwell Bronte and his sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne. The sisters wrote many successful books including “Jayne Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights,” although the play focuses predominantly on their less successful brother.
Dr. Fennema said that the father of the Bronte family focused all of his resources toward the success of his son, Branwell, who failed at being an artist, a railroad worker and a tutor. Dr. Fennema also said that the rumors had it that Branwell had a relationship with the lady of the house of whom he was tutoring.
“The father’s whole life was built around Branwell who went to London to be an artist and failed, then worked for the railroad and failed at that,” Dr. Fennema said. “He finally became a tutor, but supposedly had a relationship with the wife of the family that he was tutoring for which brought him disgrace. He never completely recovered and developed problems with drugs and alcohol.”
According to Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts Eric Abbott, the second play in the season’s line-up, entitled “The Great Game: Afghanistan,” will take place during Nov. 17-20.
Abbott said that the play consists of five one-act plays and focuses on the troubles in Afghanistan over the past 100 years, beginning with the British occupation and ending with the current NATO campaign.
The third play, according to Dr. Fennema, will be the second that he will direct. He said the play, “Tartuffe” by Moliere, will be presented during Feb. 16-19, and is a French farce about a minor cleric of the Catholic Church named Tartuffe who is really a scoundrel.
Dr. Fennema said that Tartuffe is taken in by a wealthy man who treats him kindly, but that throughout the play the minor cleric tries to seduce the man’s wife, swindle his house away from him, and disrupt the marriage of the man’s daughter.
According to Abbot, the musical, “Grease” will end the season on the dates April 19-22. He went on to say that the play predates the movie by five years and is a bit different from what audiences will be used to seeing.
“Our final show will be the musical “Grease” which predates the movie by nearly five years and is a loving parody of life in the 1950s,” Abbot said.
Dr. Fennema encourages all students to take advantage of the free tickets available to them, saying that he would not want anyone to miss the great season they have planned.
“One of the things that people need to be aware of is that all of our tickets for students are free,” Dr. Fennema said. “Hopefully they will come see the show because it’s a wonderful season that we have planned this year.”
Each play will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, Friday and Saturday and at 2 p.m. on Sunday. Tickets are $10 for military, senior citizens and Cameron faculty and staff, $12 for all other adults and free to students with a valid CU ID.