Previewing the School of Performing Arts Division of Theatre’s 2024/25 season

The University of Maine School of Performing Arts Division of Theatre and Dance has announced the productions for the upcoming 2024-25 mainstage season. The season will feature stories of loss and love, tragedy and comedy. Realism, absurdism and everything in-between will be represented on UMaine stages in the year to come.

First up will be The Women of Lockerbie, written by Deborah Brevoort and directed by assistant professor of theatre D. Granke.

“The Women of Lockerbie is based on a fictionalized version of events surrounding the tragedy of Pan Am Flight 103, a plane brought down by a bomb over Lockerbie Scotland,” Granke said. “The story follows a fictional mother grieving the loss of her son on the flight and searching for his remains in the hills around Lockerbie seven years after the disaster. In the process she is helped by some of the local women, who are taking the belongings from the plane, washing them, and returning them to the families. These ‘Washer Women of Lockerbie’ actually did exist and did this service.

“I find the play to be a profound meditation on grief and death, as well as on the hope and healing provided by small acts of humanity and kindness,” continued Granke. “In addition, the playwright chose to tell this story in the form of a Greek tragedy, allowing us to explore these huge themes in a poetic fashion. It is deeply moving and ultimately joyful, despite its heavy subject matter. It’s a rich text and one I look forward to seeing our students tackle in the coming weeks.”

The Women of Lockerbie runs October 17-19 at 7:00 PM and October 19 & 20 at 1:00 PM in Hauck Auditorium.

Next on the schedule is Birth and Afterbirth, written by Tina Howe and directed by Libra assistant professor of theatre and English Rosalie Purvis.

“Tina Howe’s work shifted the course of feminist theatre in America and, in many ways, reinvented the genre of absurdism by intersecting it with women’s experiences, which she often pointed out are innately full of far more absurdity than those of men, due in part to the inequities that render some of men’s normal behaviors “crazy” when we engage in them,” Purvis said. “An example she gave is how frequently one encounters men in, say, Paris, relieving themselves in public after an evening of drinking. Yet if a woman hitched up her skirts and peed beside the men along the very same alley wall, she might be deemed ‘mentally unstable.’

“In my opinion, Birth and Afterbirth is among Tina Howe’s most revolutionary plays, as it tackles the themes of parenting and motherhood – subjects that critics in the male-dominated media of her time tended to deem ‘trivial,’” said Purvis. “When I shared the script with students, we agreed that the play feels all the more pressing at this moment. Currently, much of American political discourse has been reducing women’s perceived ‘functionality’ to only their gestational and child-rearing roles. Yet in reality, in America, more than in any other country I’ve ever lived, parenthood, but most of all motherhood, remains a remarkably under-supported, undervalued, harangued, and often starkly solitary endeavor.

“In light of this, it seems fitting to honor Tina Howe’s significant contribution to contemporary American theatre and her pioneering effort to bring motherhood literally center stage, incorporating the ‘female gaze’ into the genre of absurdism.”

Birth and Afterbirth will run November 15-16 and 22-23 at 7:30 PM and November 17 & 24 at 1:00 PM at the Cyrus Memorial Pavilion.

The first show of the spring semester will be Wyoming, written by Brian Watkins and directed by guest director Jonathan Berry, artistic director of Penobscot Theatre Company in Bangor.

“I’m very excited to be working with the UMaine theatre department on Wyoming,” Berry said. “It’s been a play that’s been on my radar for nearly five years and has been at the top of my list to direct, but I didn’t have the perfect venue until UMaine reached out.

“Wyoming is, essentially, a mystery that lives in the complicated terrain of familial relationships.  A family is gathering for Thanksgiving and a surprise guest has been invited – the older brother who has been in jail for years having been charged with the killing of their father.  This prodigal son has not uttered a single word since the death, leaving motive unclear and truth unseen.  As we move through time, we see glimpses of the history that has remained hidden, and slowly a picture starts to emerge – for the audience and the family alike.

“It’s a taut familial drama that wonders how much we can ever know the interior life of a person,” he continued. “The playwright asks that all actors be in their 20s – so that we can see these individuals in their youth, as these critical decisions were made, providing a window into the twisting road between who we were and who we might become.”

Wyoming will run February 27-March 1 at 7:30 PM and March 1 & 2 at 1:00 PM in Hauck Auditorium.

Closing out the season will be A Marriage of Inconvenience, written by Jacob Appel and directed by Nick Corcione.  This freewheeling comedy of ideas is the division’s annual production from UMaine’s student-led theatre group The Maine Masque. This means that the play will be directed, designed and performed by students.

A Marriage of Inconvenience is scheduled to run April 4-5 and 11-12 at 7:30 PM and April 6 & 13 at 1:00 PM at Cyrus Memorial Pavilion.

(Tickets to all School of Performing Arts Division of Theatre productions are $12, with students getting in free with their MaineCard. For more information about these and other SPA shows, visit the School of Performing Arts website.)