2018 Productions

Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again.

October 25, 26, 27, 2018 at 8:00 p.m.
Powerhouse Theater

  • By Alice Birch
  • Directed by Miranda Cornell ’19

Senior Project Members: Miranda Cornell ’19, Samantha Leftt ’19, Kaitlin Prado ’19
A wildly experimental and inventive new play that does not behave. Playwright Alice Birch has put together a grouping of vignettes that ask how to revolutionize language, relationships, work, and life in general while bursting at the seams of conformity.

Campus Guests Only - Reservations required

Sponsored in part by the E.J. Safirstein 83 Memorial fund

The Effects of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-moon Marigolds

November 15, 16, 17, 2018 at 8:00 p.m.
Powerhouse Theater

  • By Paul Zindel
  • Directed by Lily Berman ’19
  • Senior Project Members: Lily Berman ’19, Katie Scibelli ’19, Jake Shepherd ’19, Yael Haskal ’19

In the Hunsdorfer home, the windows are covered with newspaper, the children tiptoe around their mother, and flowers bloom in the dark. The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is a play about trying to grow under radioactive circumstances. Frowzy, acid-tongued Beatrice Hunsdorfer, supporting herself and her two daughters by taking in a decrepit old boarder, wreaks a petty vengeance on everybody around her.

Campus Guests Only - Reservations Require

A Little Night Music

Open to the Public - Free/Ticketed assigned seats - Reservations required - email boxoffice@vassar.edu

Thurs. March 1 7:30pm, Sat., March 3 2:00pm, Sun., March 4 2:00pm
March 1, 3 and 4 2018 (Note: NO performance on Friday, March 2!)

  • Original Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Book by Hugh Wheeler
  • Orchestrations by Jonathan Tunick, Suggested by a Film by Ingmar Bergman
  • Originally produced and directed on Broadway by Harold Prince
  • Stage Direction by Christopher Grabowski, Music Direction by Miriam Charney
  • Choreography by Teddy Kern

Presented by The Experimental Theater and the Music Department of Vassar College. These performances are in honor of the Inaugural year of Elizabeth H. Bradley as Eleventh President of Vassar College Special arrangements to produce provided by Music Theatre International (MTI)

In turn of the century Sweden, trysts abound. The lawyer Fredrik Egerman has married the virginal 18-year old Anne, with whom Fredrik’s son, the melancholy academic Henrik, has fallen in love. Desiree Armfeldt, a stage actress of great beauty (and a reputation for taking on as many lovers as she does is involved with the buffoonish Count Carl Magnus Malcolm, the husband of the cynical and wryly comedic Countess Charlotte Malcolm. When Desiree spots her old flame Fredrik Egerman in the audience of her most recent production, however, her interest in him is immediately rekindled. All parties meet for a “Weekend in the Country” at Desiree’s mother, Madame Armfeldt’s, estate, where the tangled web of romantic involvements continues to surprise us with its twists and turns.

This production is supported in part by The Joan Kostick Andrews 52 Fund for Musical Theater

The White Moth - A devised piece by senior project members

April 12, 13, 14 2018 at 8:00 p.m. Campus only
Powerhouse Theater

  • A senior project in Drama: Caleb Featherstone ’18, Rebecca Slotkin ’18, and Matt Stein ’18
  • Co-Directed by Darrell James and Alexandra Hatch ’20

Callie and her best friend Benson were together at the hospital over Winter Break when his mother died, but their friendship seemed unsalvageable when Callie avoided the funeral. Back at college, however, a dream visit by a ghost convinces her: she must reach out to Benson again, at all costs.

The Taming of the Shrew

Reservations are required. Open to the Public
Online reservations available at vassardrama.tix.com

April 5, 6, 7, 2018 at 8:00 p.m.
Martel Theater, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film

  • By William Shakespeare
  • Presented by Actors from the London Stage Artists in Residency Program

About the Actors From The London Stage: Actors From The London Stage is one of the oldest established touring Shakespeare theater companies in the world. Housed and workshopped in England with academic tours booked through the auspices of Shakespeare at Notre Dame (housed in the Marie P. DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts at the University of Notre Dame), this program is truly unique. Offering a tour in the spring and another in the fall, we visit approximately 16–20 universities in a year, giving students and faculty around the country a chance to experience our dynamic and enriching performing arts program.

Sponsored by The Office of the Dean of the Faculty, the Drama Department, and the English Department

White is not Default

A staged reading

April 28, 2018 at 7:00 p.m.
Martel Theater, Vogelstein Center for Drama and Film

  • an original play by Alexandria Smalls ’18 senior project in Drama

White is Not Default revolves around a Black, female, college junior who is struggling with her identity as a minority at a predominantly white institution. By way of an advanced poetry course that is focused on social justice and artistic expression in the age of the Black Lives Matter Movement, led by her professor and mentor, she is able to put voice to her feelings of anger, despair, and confusion about racial issues in America.

(essay)e

No reservations necessary / First Come-First Serve

April 20, 21 2018 at 7:00 p.m.
Old Bookstore in College Center

  • A senior presentation in Drama by Sofia Gutierrez ’18

As a core team of three, we are creating performance pieces and spaces to facilitate collective encounters. we will use music, poetry, dance, visual art and more in a freeform manner to develop a pedagogy that encourages the exploration of half-formed dreams. ‘essay e’ is an interactive, continuous reflection on aesthetic and visceral modes of communication. we will practice different ways of existing and resist dominant methods of knowledge production. this will be a space of encounters!