Going Mad

Every semester at Georgetown brings another season of exciting, innovative productions from the variety of university programs and theater groups on campus. This fall is no exception, offering a plethora of plays and musicals that are sure to entertain and stimulate.

"Six Characters in Search of an Author" After his highly acclaimed adaptation of "Lysistrata," Professor Derek Goldman presents his adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's classic "Six Characters in Search of an Author." During rehearsals for the play, six living characters-not actors and not people but characters-rip onto the stage in search of an author to finish the story they must live out and give closure and resolution to their tortured "lives." There are several interesting twists to Professor Goldman's take on the tale. For one thing, the play in rehearsal is not just any play: it's "Hamlet." For another, one of the main characters, known as The Stepdaughter, is rumored to dance tauntingly on a table-top while singing the trademark ballad of a certain scandalous, lace-wearing songstress of the 1980's. This is definitely not your mother's Pirandello. Playing at the Gonda Theater, Oct. 15-17 8 p.m., Oct.18 2 p.m., Oct. 21-24 8 p.m.

"Getting Out" Nomadic Theater offers something special to Georgetown students who try to think and look beyond the M Street bubble by looking to world news, community outreach, political activism, scandal, controversy and the wider consequences of our actions to produce socially aware theater. True to form, Nomadic's fall offering examines a young woman's struggle to readjust to life outside the prison system she has been a part of for the past eight years. The woman, Arlene, is played by two separate actresses who simultaneously represent her spirited, brazen youthful self, contrasted with her present self: a changed, drawn, more mature woman who has found strength in religion. As we meet the range of characters who have impacted Arlene before and during her prison sentence, we come to appreciate the incredible odds stacked against her from the beginning, and understand how long and how hard the fight for survival and transcendence has been for her. Directed by this year's McTighe Prize winner and convocation speaker Miranda Hall and produced by Nomadic's energetic Erica Manta, "Getting Out" raises more questions than it answers in many ways, but if you are looking for freshness, relevance and total honesty in your theater, this will be an unforgettable show for you. Playing at the Walsh Blackbox Theater, Oct. 8-10 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 11 at 7 p.m., Oct. 14-17 at 8 pm. "

"No Exit" Georgetown's 157-year-old Mask and Bauble Dramatic Society, famous for championing time-honored classics like "Hamlet" and "Twelve Angry Men," performs a workshop piece every year. This year, the society takes on Jean Paul Sartre's existentialist masterpiece, "No Exit," one of the few examples of required reading in French classes loved by both students and their teachers. M&B's annual workshop focuses primarily on high-caliber performances and directing rather than on elaborate sets or lush special effects, but don't be fooled by the apparent simplicity of "No Exit's" posters or set design. "No Exit" is a highly sophisticated, darkly witty fantasy based on the famous premise that "Hell is other people." The action takes place in an ordinary-looking living room where three dead sinners slowly discover, torture, seduce and manipulate each other, each struggling to understand the situation they have been thrust into and the life they have left behind. Backed by a passionate, animated director-producer team, Jon Tosetti and Michael Franch, "No Exit" promises to be a deliciously macabre treat for audience members when it opens on Parent's Weekend this coming October. Keep in mind that it only plays for one weekend! Playing at Poulton Hall Stage III, Oct. 14-17 at 8 p.m., and Oct. 18 at 4 p.m.

"Caroline, Or Change" Georgetown student theater-goers are accustomed to getting our musical theater fix much later in the year. Come spring semester we are usually ushered into Mask and Bauble's compact home-space, Poulton Hall, watching a cramped, but intimate and intensely emotional show selected partly because it suits a smaller venue.

This year is a total departure, not only because Poulton Hall is newly cleaned and freshened-up, with a repaired heating and cooling system, but also because the fall semester musical is playing to Georgetown's most spacious and technically spectacular theater, the Gonda. This production also marks brand new, never-before-seen collaboration between the Black Theater Ensemble, Mask and Bauble, the Georgetown Music Program, and the Theater and Performing Studies program. All four co-produce this Tony-nominated tour-de-force, which takes place Louisiana during the Civil Rights Movement in the final turbulent months of 1963.

The title character, Caroline Thibodeaux, is an African-American woman trying to come to terms with all the changes and upheavals exploding around her. Her feisty young daughter is coming of age with dreams of a better life, her best friend is getting a college degree, JFK has just been assassinated, and Caroline's interactions with her employers, a wealthy Jewish family, are suddenly fraught with tension over some loose change in a little boy's laundry. Chronicling the clash between the lives of two American families, "Caroline, or Change" also boasts singing appliances, a touching semi-autobiographical story penned by the great Tony Kushner ("Angels in America") and a phenomenal score by Jeanine Tesori ("Thoroughly Modern Millie"). Caroline, or Change is directed by dynamic musical theater veteran Kari Fox, and produced by Katie Pak Playing in the Gonda Theater on November 12th-14th, 18th-21st at 8 p.m., November 15th at 2 p.m.

Massoud is a Theater and Government junior.