NEWS RELEASE

Contact: David West (west@nsula.edu )
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466

2/6/2007

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NATCHITOCHES - The Northwestern Theatre will perform its first full-length dance program in more than a decade when it presents Reconstruction Feb. 14-15 at 7:30 p.m. in the A.A. Fredericks Auditorium.

The dance concert is one of four NSU Theatre productions in the spring semester along with a presentation of Jane Eyre by The Acting Company, a national touring repertory of classical productions, on Tuesday, March 13 at 7:30 p.m. in the A.A. Fredericks Auditorium.

Wintertime will be performed Feb. 23-24 and Feb. 27 through March 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Theatre West followed by The Exonerated on March 14 ­17 in Theatre West. Something's Afoot will be performed April 18-21 in the A.A. Fredericks Auditorium.

Admission for each production is $10 and $5 for non-Northwestern and Louisiana School for Math, Science and the Arts students. NSU and Louisiana School students are admitted free.

Reconstruction will be directed by Barry Stoneking with choreography by NSU faculty and students along with a guest appearance by dance students from the Louisiana School.

The concert will include jazz, tap, modern and Broadway numbers along two new works. One of the works will be presented at the American Collegiate Dance Festival in Fort Worth.

Wintertime written by Charles Mee is a bittersweet romantic comedy. A young man and his girlfriend hope to have a romantic getaway in a secluded cabin hidden amidst a snow covered forest. Unfortunately, the young man's mother and her French lover have the same idea, arriving at the cabin a little earlier. Things immediately go down hill and the young man's dream turns into a surreal nightmare.

The Exonerated, by Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen, is the most basic kind of theatre with no sets, no costumes, no songs or no spectacle. Culled from 40 interviews and thousands of affidavits, depositions, police interrogations, and court transcripts, The play documents the lives of five men and one woman sentenced to death row and subsequently freed. The six individuals represent 89 former death row prisoners and the harrowing stories of those who have spent up to 22 years on death row before walking free. Put together from interviews and from public record, the play is performed by 10 actors, whose lines bear witness both to the ineptness of the American judicial system and to the poetry of ordinary citizens.

"It is dangerous to dwell too much on things," says the African-American Delbert, who was wrongly charged with murder by police in Florida. "To wonder who or why or when, to wonder how, is dangerous." But this is precisely what the play dares to do; its stories are stark and riveting and cunningly orchestrated.

Pia Wyatt is the director.

The Exonerated is being presented in conjunction with the NSU School of Social Sciences, the Student Activities Board, the Office of Cultural Diversity and the Office of Counseling and Career Services.

Something's Afoot will be directed by Perry Morgan. Book, music and lyrics are by James McDonald, David Vos and Robert Gerlach. Additional music by Ed Linderman.

The play is a zany, entertaining show that takes a satirical poke at Agatha Christie mysteries and musical styles of past years. Ten people are stranded in an isolated English country house during a raging thunderstorm. One by one they're picked off by cleverly fiendish devices. As the bodies pile up in the library, the survivors frantically race to uncover the identity and motivation of the cunning culprit.

Jane Eyre is Charlotte Bronte's coming-of-age story of one of literature's most independent and strong-willed women. The play is a startlingly modern blend of passion, romance and suspense.

For ticket information on the Northwestern Theatre, call (318) 357-4483.

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