WE ARE THRILLED TO HAVE YOU JOIN US!
Welcome to our slate of projects for 2024 and 2025, chosen to entice and inspire. Each piece built—through performance, design, and production, to spark the creative fire within.
Join me at the theatre.
Sincerely,
Kirsten Greenidge, Director, School of Theatre
2024-25 Slate Coming Soon!
2023- 2024 Slate of Projects
Show details subject to change. Please send inquiries to theatre@bu.edu.
TICKETS TO BU PRODUCTIONS
Jump ahead…
to a specific time of the academic year to check out what shows will be playing then!
Quarter 0
i love you and i always will or charlie's play
September 9-10, 2023
By Tommy Vines
Directed by Tommy Vines
Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre
What does it mean to grieve different and fully feel pain at every turn? When does grief become inescapable and undeniable in us all? When is it selfish to hold on to the past and immortalize our mortal memories? What does it mean to die, and what does it mean to live? How do we all grapple with loss differently while all feeling loss at the same time?
After losing a good friend, Charlie, to cancer, Tommy spirals into a grief journey guided by her newfound obsession with immortalizing her friend as a warped way to cheat death. In stepping backwards through time, Tommy wades through memories past and present, attempting to reconstruct Charlie to the best of her ability. Wrought with the looming fear of the mortality of memory and life which has become fully realized before her, Tommy grieves and asks us what it means to be mortal, and what it costs to defy death in such a perverse and horrific way like compulsive, unnatural, imperfect immortality. Exploring life, love, loss, and grief through poetry, movement, multimedia expression, and song, this play makes Charlie immortal and in doing so, binds us all together in our own mortality, in our eternally mortal collective scream of grief.
Quarter 1
Fringe Festival: Next Stage Workshops
The School of Theatre New Play Initiative presents a series of Next Stage workshops, scenes, and plays. These Next Stage pieces will be directed by our Undergraduate Directors and will flower as the next step in the fruition of these new plays by BU students.
The nature of the presentation and the work is determined by the needs of the play. Curated by Kirsten Greenidge, this “on-its-feet” workshop or play experience focuses on different areas of the writing or specific parts of a project in the process of development.
Fringe Festival: Marcus, or the Secret of Sweet
October 20-22, 2023
By Tarell Alvin McCraney
Directed by Rosalind Bevan
Marcus is sixteen and “sweet.” Days before Hurricane Katrina strikes the projects of Louisiana, Marcus keeps having dreams about a mysterious man and a ton of rain. The currents of his life converge, overflowing into his close-knit community and launching the search for his sexual and personal identity on a cultural landscape infused with mysterious family creeds. The poignant and fiercely humorous coming-of-age story of a young gay man in the South, Marcus is the stirring conclusion of The Brother/Sister Plays.
Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre
Fringe Festival: Alice Tierney
Co-produced with BU Opera Institute
October 13-15, 2023
Studio ONE
Music by Melissa Dunphy
Libretto by Jacqueline Goldfinger
Music Director • Allison Voth
Stage Director • Claire Choquette
Alice Tierney explores the mythic stories surrounding the death of the real-life 19th-Century “dissipated woman” Alice Tierney. Tierney was found hanging by her own petticoats on a fence in a seedy Philadelphia neighborhood early one morning in 1880. Despite suspicious circumstances, the death was ruled accidental and never investigated by police. But who was Alice? Can four grad students investigating the site discover the truth? -melissadunphy.com
The Boston University Fringe Festival, is a collaboration between the College of Fine Arts School of Music: Opera Institute and School of Theatre. The festival’s mission is to produce new or rarely performed significant works in the opera and theatre repertoire, bringing performances and audiences together in unique theatrical settings. For over two decades, Fringe Festival at Boston University has celebrated and amplified new work, shown in spare and minimal productions.
Fringe Festival: Hydrogen Jukebox
Co-produced with BU Opera Institute
October 27 – 29, 2023
Studio ONE
Music by Philip Glass
Libretto by Allen Ginsburg
Music Director • Matthew Larson
Stage Director • Sarah Dahnke
Created as a portrait of America from the 1950s through the 1980s, Hydrogen Jukebox was composed after a chance meeting between composer, Philip Glass, and Beat poet, Allen Ginsberg. Through Glass’ minimalist style, and Ginsberg’s poetry on topics ranging from the anti-war movement to the environment, the opera touches on many of America’s enduring social issues.
The Boston University Fringe Festival, is a collaboration between the College of Fine Arts School of Music: Opera Institute and School of Theatre. The festival’s mission is to produce new or rarely performed significant works in the opera and theatre repertoire, bringing performances and audiences together in unique theatrical settings. For over two decades, Fringe Festival at Boston University has celebrated and amplified new work, shown in spare and minimal productions.
Quarter 2
Orlando
December 2-9, 2023
By Sarah Ruhl
Directed by Vanessa Ogbuehi
Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre
Based on the Virginia Woolf novel, this is the story of a young nobleman who is drawn into a love affair with Queen Elizabeth I. For a time, life at court is interesting enough, but Orlando yearns for something more. As he strives to make his way as a poet and lover, his travels keep him at the heart of a dazzling tale where gender and gender preferences shift regularly, usually with hilarious results. (sarahruhlplaywright.com)
Fucking A
December 7 – 10, 2023
By Suzan Lori-Parks
Directed by Patdro Harris
Studio ONE
Fucking A is an otherworldly tale involving a noble mother, her wayward son and others. Hester Smith, the revered and reviled local abortionist, hatches a plan to buy her jailed son’s freedom—and nothing will deter Hester from her quest. In this violent and wild-eyed blend of story and song, which harkens to Brechtian and Jacobean structure, Hester’s branded letter A becomes a provocative emblem of vengeance, violence and sacrifice. (concordtheatricals.com)
Hedda Gabler
December 2-3, 2023
By Henrik Ibsen
Adapted by Christopher Shinn
Directed by Gregg Wiggans
CFA 356
This Broadway adaptation of Ibsen’s timeless drama presents a sympathetic, yet striking and powerful, Hedda in the classic tale of her struggle to find a means of escape from a loveless, ordinary existence. Beginning with the return from her honeymoon, Hedda finds herself bored of her husband, and longing for the days when she was free to exercise her wild and independent whims. With the return of an old flame and a proposition from an amorous judge, she begins a dangerous game, amusing herself by manipulating and destroying everyone around her in an attempt to regain control of her life. (Playscripts Inc.)
Sense and Sensibility
December 8-9, 2023
By Kate Hamill
Directed by Christine Hamel
CFA 109
A playful new adaptation of Jane Austen’s beloved novel follows the fortunes (and misfortunes) of the Dashwood sisters—sensible Elinor and hypersensitive Marianne—after their father’s sudden death leaves them financially destitute and socially vulnerable. Set in gossipy late 18th-century England, with a fresh female voice, the play is full of humor, emotional depth, and bold theatricality. SENSE AND SENSIBILITY examines our reactions, both reasonable and ridiculous, to societal pressures. When reputation is everything, how do you follow your heart? (Dramatists Play Services)
School for Lies
December 9-10, 2023
By David Ives
Director TBD
CFA 356
Adapted from Le Misanthrope by Molière. It’s 1666 and the brightest, wittiest salon in Paris is that of Celimene, a beautiful young widow so known for her satiric tongue she’s being sued for it. Surrounded by shallow suitors, whom she lives off of without surrendering to, Celimene has managed to evade love since her beloved husband died—until today, when Frank appears. A traveler from England known for his own coruscating wit and acidic misanthropy, Frank turns Celimene’s world upside-down, taking on her suitors, matching her barb for barb, and teaching her how to live again. (Never mind that their love affair has been engineered by a couple of well-placed lies.) This wild farce of furious tempo and stunning verbal display, all in very contemporary couplets, runs variations on Molière’s The Misanthrope, which inspired it. Another incomparable romp from the brilliant author of All in the Timing. (Dramatists.com)
Directors' Project
December 2-6, 2023
Directed by Clay Hopper and Undergraduates
CFA 352
The School of Theatre presents The Directors’ Project, a compilation of studio sharing of coursework and classroom excellence. These sharings will inhabit the end of the semester and will give a public face to some of our best classroom work.
Fall Semester Springboard Projects
The School of Theatre New Play Initiative presents public readings of new offerings to the world of theatre. Directed music stand/table readings of the play with a short rehearsal period. Each reading will include a short talk-back at the end with the playwright and the cast.
Art is Selfish
December 9, 2023
By Abacus Dean-Polichek
Director: Emma Weller
CFA 106
Orpheus in the Overworld
December 9, 2023
By Dante Gonzalez
Director: Madeline Riddick-Seals
CFA 106
The Mountains are Calling…
December 10, 2023
By Lana Sage
Director: Reanna Valencia
CFA 106
Pyrrhic Victory. Sometimes Called: Myth and Punishment
December 12, 2023
By Alexa Connors
Director: TBD
CFA 106
TBD
December 14, 2022
By Steve Yockey
Director: Gregg Wiggans
CFA 106
Sophomore Acting Project
December 2 – 3, 2023
CFA 354
Come celebrate the studio work of our second-year students in this cumulative end-of-semester experience featuring scenes expertly led by Patrese D. McClain in collaboration with MFA Directing candidates!
Aurora Borealis: A Festival of Light and Dance
Monday, December 4 • 7pm & 9pm
BU Dance Theatre
The Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre, in collaboration with the Department of Physical Education, Recreation and Dance, presents the 21st annual Aurora Borealis: A Festival of Light and Dance. Aurora Borealis is a vibrant exploration of the relationship between light and form with a focus on collaboration and experimentation, featuring dance and movement pieces by faculty and students with lighting designed by Slick Jorgensen, a graduate student in the School of Theatre Lighting Design Program.
The one-hour performances are Monday, December 4, 7pm and 9pm; free and open to the public. No ticketing required. Yo-EL Cassell and Micki Taylor-Pinney are the artistic co-directors. Mark Stanley is the Lighting Design Faculty Advisor and Lynda Rieman is the BU Dance Theater Production Manager.
Quarter 3
Cendrillon
February 29 – March 3, 2024
Co-produced with BU CFA Opera Institute
Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre
Composed by Jules Massenet
Libretto by Henri Caïn
Conductor: William Lumpkin
Stage Director: Brenna Corner
A co-production between the School of Music’s Opera Institute and the School of Theatre, each spring the BU Community and beyond is invited to the Booth Theatre to experience the exceptional talent of the students in the College of Fine Arts in this unique collaboration.
One Penny Down
February 29 – March 3, 2024
3rd Floor Studios
Written by: Kirsten Greenidge
Directed by: Gregg Wiggans
When Summer is gifted a copy of Anna Karenina for her first Mother’s Day, the little details of her own life begin to add up in ways she hadn’t quite thought of before. Summer is particularly captivated by her husband’s mother, Edith. When the family makes a seemingly ordinary trip to their mall’s old-school department store, Summer’s world is changed forever. Rendered as an immersive experience, this is not your high school English’s version of Tolstoy’s classic novel.
One Penny Down is presented in a theatrical promenade style; leading the audience from room-to-room where they can ob- serve or participate in the theatrical performance. Audience members will be guided and instructed when to move to a new space by live actors, sound recordings, or lighting effects. This production aims to be inclusive of individual needs and acces- sibility. Front of house staff will be on hand to assist patrons as needed.
Ever in the Glades
March 1-3, 2024
By Laura Schellhardt
Directed by Nick Vargas
CFA 109
On an isolated island deep in the heart of the Everglades, five teenagers struggle to survive in a land where the adults are as dangerous as the gators. When one of the kids returns from juvenile detention to help the rest escape to the mainland, it seems their prayers have been answered. There’s only one problem: they need a boat, and they need it before the adults catch wind of their plan and end it—or end them. Ever in the Glades begs the question: what is the current generation’s responsibility to the next, and what happens if we fail them? (dramaticpublishing.com)
All tickets for this production are free, general admission at the door.
The Hot L Baltimore (Grad Collab Project)
February 23-25, 2024
The Hot L Baltimore
By Lanford Wilson
Directed by Grant Sorenson
CFA 105
The scene is the lobby of a rundown hotel so seedy that it has lost the “e” from its marquee. As the action unfolds, the residents, ranging from young to old, from the defiant to the resigned, meet and talk and interact with each other during the course of one day. The drama is of passing events in their lives, of everyday encounters and of the human comedy, with conversations often overlapping into a contrapuntal musical flow. In the resulting mosaic each character emerges clearly and perceptively defined, and the sum total of what they are—or wish they were—becomes a poignant, powerful call to America to recover lost values and to restore itself in its own and the world’s eyes. (Dramatists’ Play Service.)
These projects emerge out of the artistic collaboration of the teams in the SOT Graduate Collaboration course. They are developed in the Fall class and then performed in each quarter of the Spring semester. Titles will be chosen from a curated list of plays created by the students and faculty of the slate committee.
All tickets free general admission at the door.
Senior Acting Thesis Pods
Studio ONE. All performances at 7:30pm.
Senior Acting Thesis Pods 1
January 27 – 28, 2024
Senior Acting Thesis Pods 2
February 3 – 4, 2024
Senior Acting Thesis Pods 3
February 10 – 11, 2024
Senior Acting Thesis Pods 4
February 17 -18, 2024
Senior Acting Thesis Pods 5
February 24 – 25, 2024
Senior Acting Thesis Pods 6
March 2-3, 2024
All tickets free general admission at the door.
Quarter 4
Sunday in the Park with George
April 25-28, 2024
Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
Book by James Lapine
Directed by Clay Hopper
Music director: Katya Stanislavskaya
Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre
Inspired by the painting “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte” by Georges Seurat, Sunday in the Park with George, Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s stunning masterpiece, merges past and present into beautiful, poignant truths about life, love and the creation of art. One of the most acclaimed musicals of our time, this moving study of the enigmatic painter, Georges Seurat, won a Pulitzer Prize and was nominated for an astounding ten Tony Awards, including Best Musical. (MTIShows.com)
Yerma
April 25-28, 2024
Written by Fredrico Garcia Lorca
Translated by Richard O’Connell & James Graham-Lujan
Directed by Yo-EL Cassell
Studio ONE
A woman full of passion and life in rural Spain remains childless. Yerma’s desperate desire for motherhood becomes an obsession. Clashing with the strict moral codes of those around her, she is driven to the limits of her sanity, willing to anything to have a child. (concordtheatricals.co.uk)
TICKETS
La clemenza di Tito
Co-produced with BU CFA Opera Institute
April 18 – April 21, 2024
Boston University Tsai Performance Center
Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Libretto by Caterino Mazzolà
Conductor: William Lumpkin
Stage Director: Eve Summer
A coproduction between the School of Music’s Opera Institute and the School of Theatre, each spring the BU Community and beyond is invited to the Tsai Center to experience the exceptional talent of the students in the College of Fine Arts in this unique collaboration.
TICKETS
Grad Collab Project: Museum
April 27-28, 2024
Museum
By Tina Howe
Directed by Taylor Stark
CFA 352
These projects emerge out of the artistic collaboration of the teams in the Master Class course. They are developed in the Fall class and then performed in each quarter of the Spring semester. They will be chosen from a curated list of plays created by the students and faculty of the Slate Committee.
All tickets for this production are free, general admission at the door.
STAMP Projects
The School of Theatre presents the Senior Theatre Arts Majors’ Projects (STAMP). These capstone events will be sprinkled throughout this semester and will bloom in many different guises. By Senior Theatre Arts Majors.
All tickets for these productions will be free, general admission at the door.
Spring Semester Springboard Projects
The School of Theatre New Play Initiative presents public readings of new offerings to the world of theatre. Directed music stand/table readings of the play with a short rehearsal period. Each reading will include a short talk-back at the end with the playwright and the cast.
All tickets for these productions will be free, general admission at the door.
Trophically Cascaded
April 27, 2024
By Rachel Harris
CFA 106
My Dear Friend Wagner
April 28, 2024
By Lana Sage
CFA 106
ManSpread
May 1, 2024
By Ava LaRoche
CFA 106
Behind the Scenes
There are a number of special partnerships and initiatives in the School of Theatre. Learn more about them, along with our incredible venues and facilities, here!
Initiatives
- FRINGE FESTIVAL • New work, shown in a spare and minimal production — the Fringe offerings can be plays, operas, or other work. They also can be shown in a variety of venues.
- GRADUATE COLLABORATIVE PROJECTS • These projects emerge out of the artistic collaboration of the teams in the Graduate Collaborative Forum course. They are developed in the Fall class and then performed in each quarter of the Spring semester
- NEXT STAGE WORKSHOP • An “on-its-feet” workshop that may focus on different areas of the writing or specific parts of a project in process of development. Not necessarily a full production.
- SPRINGBOARD • Directed music stand/table readings of the play with a short rehearsal period.
Partnerships
- BOSTON PLAYWRIGHTS’ THEATRE (BPT) • SOT partners with BPT at 949 Commonwealth Ave to produce and perform the plays written by the graduate MFA playwrights at BU CAS. The plays are performed at the BPT theatre space, have different rehearsal and production schedules, and they are eligible for AEA Equity Membership Candidate (EMC) points. BPT rehearsal hours: Tuesday-Friday 7:00pm-11:00pm, Saturday and Sunday (5 hours each day, specific time TBD)
- OPERA INSTITUTE • We often partner with the School of Music’s Opera Institute to design, stage-manage, build, and/or production-manage the opera productions. Learn more at bu.edu/opera.
- WHEELOCK FAMILY THEATRE (WFT) • SOT students may have the opportunity to work on WFT productions as designers and actors.
Performance Venues
- BOOTH THEATRE • A flexible-seating studio theatre at 820 Comm Ave. Opera, SOT productions, and community and University-wide events. Seating capacity is approximately 100-200.
- Studio ONE • Black Box located at 855 Commonwealth Ave with flexible house seating with a variety of productions. Seating capacity is approximately 80.
- STUDIOS ON 3 • Jewels 1 (352), Jewels 2 (356), Copeland Studio (354). All are Black Box spaces with a seating capacity of approximately 30. These shows are focused primarily on text, crafting performances, and bodies in relation to space.
- ALTERNATIVE PERFORMANCE SPACES • Studio 102, Studio 109, Studio 808, plus any other alternate performance space other than above are all large dance/rehearsal/classroom spaces, which are also used for performances. Seating capacity is approximately 30+.
