By Eric Sloss

Elizabeth Bradley, head of Carnegie Mellon's School of Drama, says the 2006-2007 drama season is a collection of plays that will investigate fame and celebrity culture in all its splendor and burden.


"Our upcoming season is a journey through the perilous, dizzying but perpetually fascinating jungle of celebrity," said Bradley. "These plays tell the stories of men and women on the brink of a frightful glory, where every success runs the risk of attracting powerful forces that will change their destinies. With adventurous new works and innovative twists on classic masterpieces, our 2006-2007 lineup explores the sometimes painful, often playful predicament of finding yourself in the limelight. Marilyn Monroe spoke of celebrity as 'a state where a kiss sells for a thousand dollars, but a soul sells for fifty cents.' Our season will find out if the wages of fame are worth the winning, then or now," she said.

The 2006-2007 season includes "House of Blue Leaves," directed by Karen Carpenter; "Side Show," directed by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj; "Romeo and Juliet," directed by Laura Konsin; "The Memorandum," directed by Mladen Kiselov; "The Oresteia Project — The Complete Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Choephorae, and the Eumenides," directed by Jed Allen Harris and associate director Matthew Gray; and "Woyzeck," directed by Dan Rigazzi.

All performances will take place at 7:30 p.m., Wednesday and Thursday; 4 and 8 p.m., Friday; and 2 and 8 p.m., Saturday in the Purnell Center for the Arts. (More information about each production is listed below.)

The School of Drama is one of the nation's most distinguished degree-granting theatre programs and is one of five schools within Carnegie Mellon's College of Fine Arts, a community of nationally and internationally recognized artists and professionals organized into Architecture, Art, Design, Drama and Music, and their associated centers and programs.

For additional information about the upcoming season or ticket purchases, contact the School of Drama box office at 412-268-2407, noon to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday.

About the Performances

"House of Blue Leaves," directed by Karen Carpenter

Preview: Oct. 5-7; Opening: Oct. 10; Closing: Oct. 14. Helen Wayne Rauh Studio Theater

Sad clown Artie wallows in self-pity; he writes terrible songs that no one wants to listen to. He has to manage his loony wife, Bananas, and his manic mistress, Bunny. What's more, the Pope is in town and Artie's psychotic son, Ronnie, goes AWOL in order to attempt to assassinate "His Holiness." Spinning us into an increasingly zany world, some nuns appear next, joined shortly by a starlet. Hilariously poignant, like much of Guare's writing, this surreal, entrancing, beautifully structured comedy is about the lengths to which people will go to find their 15 minutes of fame, and about the predicament of waking from a drug-induced stupor to find that your notion of the whole world has gone askew. To top it all off, your government has dragged you into an illegitimate war — in Viet Nam. We just have to laugh.

"Side Show," directed by Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj

Preview: Nov. 30-Dec. 2; Opening: Dec. 5; Closing: Dec. 9. Philip Chosky Theater

Based loosely on real-life show-business sisters, Daisy and Violet Hilton, conjoined twins and stars of stage and screen who led highly colorful and visible but precarious and violent lives in Depression-era vaudeville. In this musical, the sisters must negotiate the pitfalls of fame and romantic entanglements while attempting to live two very different lives in one body. "Side Show" combines an enchanting score by "DreamGirls" composer Henry Krieger, strong acting and singing roles, and opportunities for amazing design elements in a grime-and-shine, carnivalesque world of both gritty reality and dazzling light. The New York Times called it "tremendously moving" and "daring, enthralling...[with] passion, empathy and directness reflected in the tidal pull of the music and the winning simplicity of the lyrics."

"Romeo and Juliet," directed by Laura Konsin

Opening: Dec. 6; Closing: Dec. 9. Helen Wayne Rauh Studio Theater

This production of the perennially captivating "Romeo and Juliet" calls upon a small company of actors to tell this enduring story with an intense spare ethos that hearkens back to the traditions of Greek tragedy. The play follows the misfortunes of the original star-crossed lovers — children of feuding families in 16th century Verona. The intransigence of their respective clans forces the lovers to marry in secret; but the intrigue leads to murder, banishment, civic unrest and the tragic ending that is cemented in the cultural consciousness of the English-speaking world. The most celebrated work of William Shakespeare, it is considered definitive of the English Renaissance, and is certainly one of the most revived, most translated to film and most imitated plays in history.

"The Memorandum," directed by Mladen Kiselov

Opening: Feb. 7, 2007; Closing: Feb. 10. Philip Chosky Theater

A government office is instructed to conduct all its business in a new official language, never mind that no one can understand it. Tied to the loony lingo, the office workers are unable to determine who is working, arguing, agreeing or flirting. Sinister forces take advantage of the confusion to promote an insidious new order. A minor administrator — our hero — sees the truth and tries to save the company, but the forces against him are diabolical. An early work of a man who would become one of Europe's leading moral, intellectual and political figures, "The Memorandum" combines the cutting social insights of "Woyzeck" with the incisive satire of "Dilbert." This play is a powerful commentary on modern life; but anyone who has worked in an office may see it, alas, as a documentary. Variety magazine said, "Nearly 35 years after its premiere, Vaclav Havel's biting bureaucratic satire rings truer than ever." Next year marks Havel's 70th birthday, an event that will be celebrated internationally.

"The Oresteia Project - The Complete Oresteia: Agamemnon, the Choephorae and the Eumenides," directed by Jed Allen Harris and associate director Matthew Gray

Opening: April 11; Closing: April 28. Philip Chosky Theater

Almost never performed collectively, nor in its entirety, the "Oresteia" is the greatest oeuvre of the greatest playwright of all time and contains all the glories of Aeschylus' genius. Young Orestes must avenge his father Agamemnon's death by slaying his murderer, Orestes' mother Clytemnestra. Either way, he will invoke the immortal punishment of the chthonic demons, the Furies. William von Humboldt wrote of this cycle that "among all the products of the Greek stage none can compare with it in tragic power; no other play shows the same intensity and pureness of belief in the divine and good; none can surpass the lessons it teaches, and the wisdom of which it is the mouthpiece." School of Drama Directing Professor Jed Harris' 10-year research into this play culminates in a multiple-night, multiple-venue, boundary-smashing vision that promises to take this ancient text to new aesthetic heights. See both parts on different days, or join the adventure of the "Oresteia" marathon, and see both shows consecutively—only on Saturdays! But note that it is possible to see either part independently. The production will include improvised seating in and around the Philip Chosky Theater and the Purnell Center for the Arts.

"Woyzeck," directed by Dan Rigazzi

Opening: April 25; Closing: April 28. Helen Wayne Rauh Studio Theater

Unfinished upon Georg Büchner's death, "Woyzeck" is the first tragedy of the common man. Written in 1836, but not performed until 1913, this unique play has set the agenda for the avant-garde theatre since its premiere. At its center is Private Woyzeck, an Army barber who volunteers to be the subject of bizarre medical experiments in order to feed his girlfriend, Marie, and their illegitimate child. When a drill sergeant seduces Marie, Woyzeck comes face-to-face with the emptiness of his existence. Slowly, one humiliation at a time, Woyzeck is reduced to no better than a common animal. What will he do to keep his humanity intact, and thereby offer both him, and us, a kind of redemption?


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