Avant-garde to classic Broadway musical

Men and women vocalizing in togas, a yodeling urban saint, a bedroom farce in the French countryside, and an Indiana idiot savant with a special talent will take the Rose Theatre stage in the 2002-2003 theater season planned by the Southeast Department of Theatre and Dance. In addition, two dance performances still being created were inspired by the belief that art doesn't necessarily belong behind a proscenium arch.

The department expects to be able to offer students a new bachelor of fine arts degree by the fall and has designed a two-year rotation of productions that will expose them to various genres, among them period classics, avant-garde, musicals, children's theater and comedy.

The most famous of the productions in 2002-2003 will be Stephen Sondheim's musical comedy "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," to be staged in 2003 and directed by Dr. Kenn Stilson, chairman of the Department of Theatre and Dance.

Stilson praises "Forum" as "one of the funniest musicals ever written -- almost a perfect musical comedy."

The first production on the schedule, "Ste.-Carmen of the Main," qualifies for the avant-garde category.

"A lot of people are going to get very excited about it when they see it," Stilson says. "I hope will attract a large arts audience."

Director Dr. Robert Dillon Jr. describes "Ste.-Carmen of the Main" as a Greek tragedy set in the 1970s. The original script was written in French.

Another play with French-language origins is the sex comedy "Don't Dress for Dinner," to be directed by Dennis C. Seyer. The fourth play on the schedule is "The Diviners," which Stilson describes as "a cross between a gospel song and the blues." Dr. Sharon Bebout-Carr will direct.

In the first of two dance productions, choreographers Josephine and Paul Zmolek will collaborate from the very beginning with costume designer Rhonda Weller-Stilson, technical designer C. Kenneth Cole and composer Dr. Robert Fruehwald. Traditionally, the designers come in after the fact. "We are inverting the process, so to speak," Paul Zmolek says. The collaborators are scheduled to meet today for the first time.

The dance is titled "Zaum: Beyond Significance."

The second dance performance, "Site Works," will put student-choreographed works in unconventional environments.

The season will include the following productions:

"Ste.-Carmen of the Main," a contemporary play by Michel Tremblay, first performed in Montreal, Quebec, in 1976. A Canadian woman, Carmen, goes to Nashville to take singing lessons and returns to Montreal to perform in a country music nightclub in the seedy part of town. She pays for uncompromisingly insisting on singing her own songs, which attempt to rile people up to do the right thing. The Greek chorus is composed of the underside of this night life.

"Don't Dress for Dinner," to be directed by Dennis C. Seyer, is a sex comedy involving six people spending a weekend at a French farmhouse. People don't know who's sleeping with whom. Doors slam.

Seyer calls "Don't Dress for Dinner" "a recipe for hilarious confusion."

The play premiered in Paris and had a successful run in London but has never been produced on or off Broadway.

"Zaum: Beyond Significance" is theatrical dance was inspired by early 20th century Russian theater, an exciting period in experimental theater. One group, the Cubo-Futurists, expressed early Modernist ideas and promoted unannounced performances and street theater.

"They were interested in subverting the bourgeois mediocrity and the mechanization of civilization," Josephine Zmolek says.

The title is a name given to language made up by a group of poets working at the time.

The designers, Weller-Stilson and Cole, will provide the framework for the choreographers. "We want to allow them to go wild and create something we react to rather than the other way around," Paul Zmolek says.

"We want them to create a set our dancers can play on," adds Josephine Zmolek.

"A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." First produced on Broadway in 1961, it was written with the comedian Phil Silvers in mind, but he refused the role until a later staging. Zero Mostel starred in the original production instead.

The show is based on the 2000-year-old comedies of the Roman playwright Plautus. The book was co-written by Larry Gelbart (creator of "MASH"). Songs include "Lovely," "Comedy Tonight," "Bring Me My Bride" and "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid."

"The Diviners," a play about the relationship between a mentally disturbed young man with a talent for finding water and a man who no longer wants to be a preacher. Set in southern Indiana in the 1930s, the highly theatrical drama was a winner at the American College Theatre Festival.

"Site Works," a series of student-choreographed dances to be performed at the Rose Theatre, in Old Town Cape and at the River Campus. Josephine Zmolek is the artistic director.

She says "Site Works" will attempt to get students to go to another level in their work.

"We want them to expand what they think is possible ... and also to bring the community into that environment," she said.

Zmolek will take the place of Dr. Marc Strauss during his year-long sabbatical, during which he will work on books he is writing about dance.

The 2001-2002 season was one of the most eventful in the history of Southeast theater. It included the formation of a new department, the Department of Theater and Dance, and the addition of three new faculty members: Stilson, Weller-Stilson and C. Kenneth Cole.

The Black Mask Honorary Dramatic Society presented the Davis-Barnett Awards for the past season at its recent banquet. Winners are:

Dan Graul, Outstanding Contribution in Theatre Performance.

Marcus Stephens, Outstanding Contribution in Design/Technical Theatre.

Sue Johnson, The Judy Award for Career Achievement in Theatre and Dance. The award is named for the late Judy Crow, longtime theater critic for the Southeast Missourian.

Sue Johnson, Academic Achievement Award. Johnson maintained a 4.0 GPA in her major and is graduating summa cum laude.

Meagan Edmonds, Unsung Hero/Heroine Award.

Katie Stricker, Outstanding Contributions in Dance Award.

Dr. Roseanna Whitlow, the Tommy Award voted by the University Players.

Lydia Blades, a Jackson High School student, received the Jim and Antoinette Biundo Theatre and Dance Scholarship. Dan Graul received the Frank Loesser Music Theatre Scholarship.

The department's new BFA has passed through all the steps necessary for a new degree and is now before the state Coordinating Board of Higher Education. Stilson expects approval could occur in a matter of weeks.

If so, students will be able to begin taking classes in the core curriculum in the spring. The BFA doubles the amount of curriculum offerings now available to theater majors.

The BFA will offer specialties in dance, theater or design tech, but everyone who goes through the program will be cross-trained in the other areas. Other universities in the state offer a BFA in dance or in theater, but cross training does not occur. "In many ways this is a unique degree," Stilson says.

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182