Monmouth College - Department of Theater Arts

09/02/2014

Emily Rollie, assistant professor of theatre at Monmouth College, proposes an interesting question: What will happen when her students create and stage a play in just 24 hours? Better yet, what will happen when they stage four plays?

That question will be answered Sept. 5-6, when the theatre department introduces the first annual FusionFest. Four 10-minute plays will be written, staged and performed in 24 hours. The public performance will be staged on Sept. 6 at 7:30 p.m. at the Fusion Theatre, MC’s new downtown theatre, located at 230 S. Main St. Tickets for FusionFest are $5 for adults and $3 for students, seniors and patrons with a Monmouth College ID.

Blind drawings will kick off the festival on Sept. 5 at 7:30 p.m., as the playwrights will draw for their directors and actors. From that point, the playwrights will have until 7:30 a.m. on Sept. 6 to write their 10-minute plays. Then, hot off the press, the plays will be handed to their directors and actors, who will have until 7 p.m. to rehearse, memorize and stage them.

Rehearsals beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 6 are free and open to the public. The theatre will be cleared by the evening and will re-open at 7 p.m. One half-hour later, the audience will be able to watch the controlled chaos come alive on the stage.

“We are excited that this is the first FusionFest,” said Rollie, “and we hope that it will be such a success that it will continue in the coming years. Festivals like this are great opportunities to get the creative juices flowing and to get to see new theatre in its raw and exciting form, testing the directors, actors, technicians, designers and playwrights alike.”

On February 25-28, the Harold Pinter masterpiece of family warfare “The Homecoming” will be staged in the WIT Theater. The theater will be reconfigured into a thrust stage for the drama, directed by Doug Rankin. Curtain times will be 7:30 pm on February 25--27 and 2 pm on Feburary 28.

The popular Sondheim musical "Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” will close out the mainstage season on April 15-17 at 7:30 PM and April 18 at 2 pm. Janeve West will direct the dark melodramatic production.

On April 25 at 7 pm, students will have one more chance to show off their work with the Spring Showcase in the Wells Theater.

The 2009-10 season promises to be a challenging, somewhat dark, but very entertaining year for Crimson Masque which will be starting its 85th year.