The Student Productions Association of Lane Community College presents Sarah Ruhl's "In the Next Room or the vibrator play"; November 13-23 in The Blue Door Theater at Lane Community College.
Performances:
Wednesday, November 13 at 7:30PM * Opening Night Gala following the performance.
Thursday, November 14 at 7:30PM
Friday, November 15 at 7:30PM
Saturday, November 16 at 7:30PM
Sunday, November 17 at 2:00PM
Wednesday, November 20 at 7:30PM
Thursday, November 21 at 7:30PM
Friday, November 22 at 7:30PM
Saturday, November 23 at 7:30PM
All performances take place in the Blue Door Theater at LCC Main Campus; 4000 E. 30th Ave., Eugene Oregon 97405.
For Tickets
Call the Box Office to place a reservation; 541.463.5202. Tickets also available at the door prior to performances. Tickets also are available online at lanecc.edu/tickets. All performances are general admission seating.
$8 for Adults
$5 for Students, Staff, & Seniors
About the Play
This laugh out loud, provocative and touching play premiered at Berkeley Repertory and subsequently marked Sarah Ruhl's Broadway debut opening at the Lyceum Theatre on November 19th, 2009.
Short Synopsis:
"In the Next Room or the vibrator play" is a comedy about marriage, intimacy, and electricity. Set in the 1880s at the dawn of the age of electricity and based on the bizarre historical fact that doctors used vibrators to treat 'hysterical' women (and some men), the play centers on a doctor and his wife and how his new therapy affects their entire household.
Long Synopsis:
In a seemingly perfect, well-to-do Victorian home, proper gentleman and scientist Dr. Givings has innocently invented an extraordinary new device for treating "hysteria" in women (and occasionally men): the vibrator. Adjacent to the doctor's laboratory, his young and energetic wife tries to tend to their newborn daughter—and wonders exactly what is going on in the next room. When a new "hysterical" patient and her husband bring a wet nurse and their own complicated relationship into the doctor's home, Dr. and Mrs. Givings must examine the nature of their own marriage, and what it truly means to love someone...
Cast List:
- Justin Warner – Dr. Givings
- Naomi Todd – Mrs. Givings
- Kaitlynn Baugh – Mrs. Daldry
- Bruce Lundy – Mr. Daldry
- Chelyce Chambers – Elizabeth
- Ali Thoreson – Annie
- Anna Parks – Annie (understudy)
Director Bio
Willow Norton is a Director and Teacher focused on new work development. Recent directing projects include; "¡Bocón!", "RENT", and "A Thousand Cranes" for The Majestic Theatre (OR); "S.H.A.V.E.D." at HERE Arts Center (NY) and The Philly Fringe (PA); "Instructions Included" for The Midtown International Festival (NY); REACH for At Hand Theatre Company (NY); "In the Way" for Philadelphia Young Playwrights (PA); and "POP in the Night" for At Hand Theatre Company (NY). Norton is a 2012 Lincoln Center Theatre Director's Lab West Alumni, and in the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society's 12/13 Observership Pool.
She was Assistant Director for "The Understudy" by Theresa Rebeck at The Wilma Theater in Philadelphia; "Continuous City" for The Builders Association at The Kitchen & St. Ann's Warehouse (NY); "Dreams of Friendly Aliens" for Abingdon Theatre Company (NY); "The Man at the Sea" "for Emerging Arts Theater Company (NY); and "Henry V" for Cornish College of the Arts (WA).
As a Teaching Artist, Willow has worked at The Majestic Theatre, Stages for Corvallis High School, ACE Academy, Philadelphia Young Playwrights, Washington Academy of Performing Arts, and Cornish College of the Arts. She has also worked for Culture Project, 3101 Arts, and The Painted Bride. Mrs. Norton received her BFA in Theater; Original Works from Cornish College of Arts in Seattle, WA. She currently resides in New York with her husband and works for The Shubert Organization.
About directing "In the Next Room", she says " It is an honor and privilege to be giving back to my hometown. I have come back to give Eugenians an advantage, and to be a resource from the professional theater field. My hope in being here is to offer access and opportunity to contemporary practices."
Playwright Bio:
Sarah Ruhl's plays include "The Clean House" (Pulitzer Prize finalist, 2005; Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, 2004); "Passion Play, a cycle" (Pen American Award, Fourth Freedom Forum Playwriting Award from the Kennedy Center); "Dead Man's Cell Phone" (Helen Hayes Award for Best New Play); "Melancholy Play", "Demeter in the City" (nine NAACP Image Award nominations); "Eurydice", Orlando", and "Late: a cowboy song". Her plays have premiered at Lincoln Center Theater, the Goodman Theatre, Playwrights Horizons, Second Stage, Arena Stage, Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Cornerstone Theater, Madison Repertory Theatre and the Piven Theatre Workshop, and have been produced across the country. Her plays have also been produced internationally and translated into Polish, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian, Korean, German and Arabic. Originally from Chicago, Ms. Ruhl received her MFA from Brown University, where she studied with Paula Vogel. In 2003, she was the recipient of the Helen Merrill Emerging Playwrights Award and the Whiting Writers' Award. She is a member of 13P and New Dramatists and won the MacArthur Fellowship in 2006. She is a recent recipient of the PEN Center Award for a mid-career playwright.
Reviews from previous productions:
"Insightful, fresh and funny, the play is as rich in thought as it is in feeling...one of the most gifted and adventurous American playwrights to emerge in recent years..."In the Next Room" is a true novelty: a sex comedy designed not for sniggering teenage boys — or grown men who wish they were still sniggering teenage boys — but for adults with open hearts and minds." - The New York Times
"A play that's smart, delicate and very, very funny!" - New York Post
"If Henrik Ibsen and Oscar Wilde had decided to collaborate on a post-modern drawing-room comedy, the hotsy-totsy twosome surely would have turned out something very much like Sarah Ruhl's genuinely hysterical new work" – TheatreMania
"Sarah Ruhl, whose previous work I execrated, has written a smart, charming, iridescently funny-serious jewel...As Ruhl traces it with wit and insight, and without the slightest prurience, the birth of this new era gives rise to colorful events, astute psychological revelations and endearingly apt dialogue." – Bloomberg
"The playwright mines her subject for suitably bawdy humor without resorting to vulgarity. But what really gives the work its distinction is its sensitive exploration of the physical and emotional repression suffered by the women of the era, which has yet to disappear entirely....The play beautifully balances its humor and pathos."
- Hollywood Reporter
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