Collin Theatre Center announces 2008-2009 season

by Shawn Parikh

If you don't know, Collin Theatre Center (the Theater Department at Collin County Community College) has quite a reputation. Not only have some great TV and Broadway stars come out of this program, but their productions are always ones to be on the lookout for.

Opening this week is their summer Shakespeare show The Comedy of Errors, directed by Joanne Zipay, Artistic Director of the Judith Shakespeare Company in New York City. It is a hilarious story of two sets of identical twins based on the mistaken identities that leads to wrongful beatings, a near-incestuous seduction, an arrest, and accusations of infidelity, theft, madness, and demonic possession.

Since this is the final show of their current season, they have just revealed the lineup of 6 shows for the 2008-2009 season:

• Big Love by Charles L. Mee, based on The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus. From October 9 - 19, 2008. Fifty brides flee their fifty grooms and seek refuge in a villa on the coast of Italy in this modern re-making of one of the western world's oldest plays. The fifty grooms catch up with the brides, and mayhem ensues: the grooms arrive by helicopter in their flight suits, the women throw themselves over and over again to the ground, pop songs and romantic dances are performed. Finally, unable to escape their forced marriages, 49 of the brides murder 49 of the grooms… and one bride falls in love! Directed by Robin Armstrong.
• One Shot, One Kill by Richard Vetere. From October 14 – 19, 2008. Regional Premiere of a new play about The War in Iraq. Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Sergeant Nick Harris has just returned from a dangerous mission during the early days of the Iraq War. During his de-briefing with Major Mark Royce, Sgt. Harris requests to be dismissed from the Corps. What happened on that mission? And who is really to blame? One Shot, One Kill is a searing and uncompromised look at the machinations of war. Written by Pulitzer Prize finalist Richard Vetere. Note: Mr. Vetere will visit Collin College to participate in this production. Directed by Brad Baker.
• The Ruby Sunrise by Rinne Groff. From December 4 - 14, 2008. Southwest Regional Premiere of an inventive new drama. The play begins in 1927. A scruffy teenage girl hides out in a barn in rural Indiana, where she scrounges electronic parts and constructs the first television set. Could this have really happened? If this were the truth, how many people would be allowed to know about it? From the compelling story of young Ruby in Act One, we are suddenly thrust into the world of 1950s New York and the Golden Age of Television. In this world, there are even more surprises. There are also lots of laughs, although these are painful at times. Looking back at the ludicrous conventions of 1950s TV, we wonder what we could have been thinking at the time. Playwright Groff also makes us wonder what we're thinking now, as young Ruby explains how television will change the world. Directed by Gail Cronauer.
• Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, with Music and Lyrics by Roger Miller, book by William Hauptman, and adapted from the novel by Mark Twain. From March 5 – 15, 2009. Follows young Huck in pre-Civil War America. Huck is torn between the choices of living a wild, responsibility-free life with his abusive drunken father versus holding to the strict expectations of the townsfolk who have taken him in. The young Huck also has to deal with his confusion about what is right or wrong in the world. Huck stages his own death so he can seek adventures elsewhere, and he and runaway slave Jim board a raft down the Mississippi. There, they find much conflict and great joy as they encounter a slew of unique characters and situations. They also learn a lot about friendship and themselves. The story of their journey downstream is an American classic. Show is perfect for the entire family. Directed by Mark Mullino and Paula Morelan.
• Don Juan in Chicago by David Ives. From April 30 – May 10, 2009. A sexy new comedy about the search for eternal bliss. Don Juan is a handsome, rich, sexually naïve nobleman in sixteenth-century Spain. His servant, Leporello, urges him to find a girlfriend and lead a normal life, but the Don is more interested in finding the meaning of life through books and alchemy. Afraid he won't have time to find it, Don Juan calls up the Devil and cuts a deal that grants him (and Leporello) immortality ... as long as Don Juan seduces a different woman every day. Four hundred years later, exhausted by endless liaisons, Don Juan and Leporello grapple with the sexual mores of contemporary urban America. Will Don Juan and Leporello be doomed to eternal damnation … or, to eternal bliss? A hilarious comedy from the award-winning author of All in the Timing. Directed by Robin Armstrong.
• Summer Shakespeare TBA from June 18 – 28, 2009. The Collin Theatre Center continues the annual summer tradition of staging one of William Shakespeare's greatest plays. A delightful family event that makes Shakespeare accessible to everyone! Directed by Joanne Zipay, Artistic Director of the Judith Shakespeare Company in New York City.