Our 2022-23 Season

 

Oct. 5 - 9, 2022 | Jerome Mirza Theatre

Appropriate

By Branden Jacobs-Jenkins

Guest director Ashley H. White directs Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ “gut-puchingly honest work” (Time Out Chicago) about three adult siblings sorting through their late father’s mementos at the family's run-down Arkansas homestead. After an unsettling discovery among their father's possessions, the gathering erupts into an explosive turn of events. Winner of the 2014-15 Obie Award for Best New American Play, Appropriate delves into the fractured dynamics of a dysfunctional white family coming to terms with the patriarch's disturbing past.

Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.

Jerome Mirza Theatre

Appropriate is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service collection.

Content disclosure: This play involves loaded language including topics of racism; emotional, physical and substance abuse; as well as sexual assault. This production includes choreographed physical intimacy and physical violence.

 

Oct. 28 - 30, 2022 | E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre

Men on Boats

By Jaclyn Backhaus

This “off-the-canyon-walls funny” (Variety) voyage takes audiences on a rollicking ride through the Grand Canyon. Men on Boats hilariously retells the (mostly) true story of an 1869 expedition down the Colorado River. Between belly laughs lies a satirical interrogation of masculinity, colonialism and rugged individualism. “The tone is comic, but never cute or camp. And ultimately, you feel, the play respects its bold if fallible pioneers, in all their natural bravery and fearfulness.” (New York Times). Directed by Dr. Michelle Gibbs.

Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.

EMJK Laboratory Theatre

Curtain Talks Lecture Series: 

Beyond the Boat: The life and work of John Wesley Powell in Bloomington-Normal

Friday 5:30-7:00 p.m., Beckman Auditorium at Ames Library

Learn more

Men on Boats is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service collection.

Content disclosure: This play contains adult language, the use of simulated and recorded gunshots, and fast-paced, heightened action scenarios. 

 

Nov. 16 - 20, 2022 | Jerome Mirza Theatre

Sunday in The Park With George

Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, book by James Lapine

“Destined to be forever spoken of with misty-eyed bragging rights by anyone who sees it” (The New York Times), Sunday in The Park With George is Stephen Sondheim’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musing on pointillist George Seurat’s most-famous work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Scott Susong directs this two-time Olivier Award-winning, timeless painting-brought-to-life. The reverie centers on a fictional version of Seurat—a wistful, obsessive artist engrossed in creating his masterpiece—and his great-grandson, a modern-day heir to Seurat’s unconventional genius.

Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m., Sunday at 2 p.m.

Jerome Mirza Theatre

Curtain Talks Lecture Series: 

Seurat and Sondheim: How a French artist’s singular approach inspired the intrepid American composer

Thursday 6:30-7:15 p.m., Westbrook Auditorium at Presser Hall

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Sunday in the Park with George is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI.

Content disclosure: Intended for mature audiences

 

Feb. 22 - 26, 2023 | Jerome Mirza Theatre

Much Ado About Nothing

By William Shakespeare

Are gossip and trickery senseless vices? Perhaps not when they provide fodder for Shakespeare’s enduring romantic comedy about two couples’ forays into matters of the heart. Tom Quinn directs one of the Bard’s most beloved and timeless classics.

Curtain Talks Lecture Series: 

Much ado about 'Much Ado'

Please join the production's director, SoTA Professor Tom Quinn, and Dr. Joanne Diaz, Professor of English Literature, for a discussion of this challenging and enduringly popular play.

Thursday 6:30-7:15 p.m. in room 218, Ames School of Art

Post-Show Discussion

Join the 'Much Ado' designers, production team and cast for Q&A after Saturday's performance

Saturday, Feb. 25 in the Jerome Mirza Theatre

Learn more

 

Mar. 24 - 26, 2023 | E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre

Tintypes

Conceived by Mary Kyte with Mel Marvin and Gary Pearle, musical and vocal arrangements by Mel Marvin, orchestration and vocal arrangements by John McKinney

Set amid a wave of immigration and innovation at the turn of the 20th century, Tintypes is a pastiche of Americana set in the shadow of World War I. Guest director Andy Kreiss (BFA Music Theatre ‘86) directs this heart-warming, Tony Award-winning musical revue featuring toe-tapping tunes from the era by John Philip Sousa, Scott Joplin and Victor Herbert, to name a few.

Presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI.

Curtain Talks Lecture Series: 

Post-Show Discussion

Join the 'Tintypes' designers, production team and cast for Q&A after Saturday's performance

Saturday, March 25 in the EMJK Laboratory Theatre

April 12 - 16, 2023 | Jerome Mirza Theatre

Faculty Choreographed Dance Concert

Celebrate spring with our biennial repertory dance concert, featuring SoTA students performing choreography by our talented faculty!