Theatre

Boston University School of Theatre Announces Fall 2023 Production Season

Boston University College of Fine Arts School of Theatre’s Fall 2023 season brings new works, operas, main-stage productions, play readings, a dance festival, and student-produced work to the Boston community and beyond.

“This year, our season is dedicated to adventures in being human and telling the human story. In the fall we explore stories of gender, choice, and emotional tragedy. At the center of it all is incredible acting, design, direction, and artistry from the students who are the future of our art form,” says Susan Mickey, BU School of Theatre Director and Professor of Costume Design.

Shows are open to the public, and select shows have free admission. For ticketed shows, please visit OvationTix to purchase show tickets. Find more information at bu.edu/cfa/theatre/season.

BU SCHOOL OF THEATRE FALL 2023 SEASON

QUARTER 0 (September)

I LOVE YOU AND I ALWAYS WILL, OR CHARLIE’S PLAY

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. 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 (September & October)

FRINGE FESTIVAL: NEXT STAGE WORKSHOPS

The School of Theatre New Play Initiative presents a series of Next Stage workshops, scenes, and plays. These pieces are directed by our Undergraduate Directors and will flower as the next step in the fruition of these new plays by BU students. 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. Free admission

FRINGE FESTIVAL: ALICE TIERNEY

Co-production of CFA School of Music: Opera Institute and School of Theatre

Music by Melissa Dunphy • Libretto by Jacqueline Goldfinger

Music Director, Allison Voth • Stage Director, Claire Choquette

Studio ONE • CFA 104

• Friday, October 13 • 7:30pm
• Saturday, October 14 • 2pm & 7:30pm
• Sunday, October 15 • 2pm

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)

General Admission: $20, free with BU ID at the box office 5 minutes before curtain, subject to availability

Tickets

FRINGE FESTIVAL: MARCUS, OR THE SECRET OF SWEET

By Tarell Alvin McCraney • Directed by Rosalind Bevan

Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre

• Friday, October 20 • 7:30pm
• Saturday, October 21 • 2pm & 7:30pm
• Sunday, October 22 • 2pm

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.

General Admission: $20, free with BU ID at the box office 5 minutes before curtain, subject to availability

Tickets

FRINGE FESTIVAL: HYDROGEN JUKEBOX

Co-production of CFA School of Music: Opera Institute and School of Theatre

Music by Philip Glass • Libretto by Allen Ginsburg

Music Director, Matthew Larson • Stage Director, Sarah Dahnke

Studio ONE • CFA 104

• Friday, October 27 • 7:30pm
• Saturday, October 28 • 2pm & 7:30pm
• Sunday, October 29 • 2pm

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.

General Admission: $20, free with BU ID at the box office 5 minutes before curtain, subject to availability

Tickets

QUARTER 2 (December)

ORLANDO

By Sarah Ruhl • Directed by Vanessa Ogbuehi

Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre

• Saturday, December 2 • 7:30pm
• Sunday, December 3 • 2pm
• Thursday, December 7 • 7:30pm
• Friday, December 8 • 7:30pm
• Saturday, December 9 • 2pm & 7:30pm

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)

General Admission: $20, free with BU ID at the box office 5 minutes before curtain, subject to availability

Tickets

HEDDA GABLER

By Henrik Ibsen • Adapted by Christopher Shinn • Directed by Gregg Wiggans

Juliane Ethel Leilani Miller Studio Theatre “Jewels 2” • CFA 356 • Free admission

• Saturday, December 2 • 2pm & 7:30pm   
• Sunday, December 3 • 10am  

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.)

DIRECTOR’S PROJECT

Juliane Ethel Leilani Miller Studio Theatre “Jewels 1” • CFA 352 • Free admission

• Saturday, December 2 • 10am 
• Sunday, December 3 • 2pm & 7:30pm
• Tuesday, December 5 • 7:30pm
• Wednesday, December 6 • 7:30pm

Directed by Clay Hopper and BU undergraduates. The School of Theatre presents The Director’s 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.

SOPHOMORE ACTING PROJECT

David Copeland Black Box Theatre • CFA 354 • Free admission

• Saturday, December 2 • 5pm
• Sunday, December 3 • 5pm  

AURORA BOREALIS: A FESTIVAL OF LIGHT AND DANCE

BU Dance Theater

• Monday, December 4 • 7pm & 9pm

BU 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. 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. Free admission

FUCKING A

By Suzan Lori-Parks • Directed by Terri McMahon

Studio ONE • CFA 104

• Thursday, December 7 • 7:30pm
• Friday, December 8 • 7:30pm
• Saturday, December 9 • 2pm
• Sunday, December 10 • 2pm & 7:30pm

General Admission: $20, free with BU ID at the box office 5 minutes before curtain, subject to availability

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)

Tickets

SCHOOL FOR LIES

By David Ives

Juliane Ethel Leilani Miller Studio Theatre “Jewels 2” • CFA 356 • Free admission

• Saturday, December 9 • 2pm   
• Sunday, December 10 • 10am  

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)

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. Free admission

CFA 106

For a sneak peek into the shows BU School of Theatre is planning for the Spring 2024 semester, visit School of Theatre’s Production Season page.

VENUE INFORMATION

Joan & Edgar Booth Theatre

820 Commonwealth Avenue, Brookline, MA 02445

Parking is available on and around Commonwealth Avenue and in BU parking lots and garages. Lot F is the parking lot at Booth Theatre. For more information on directions, public transit options, and parking, visit bu.edu/cfa/booth.

Studio ONE (CFA 104), Movement Studio (CFA 106) • Juliane Ethel Leilani Miller Studio Theatre “Jewels 1” (CFA 352) • David Copeland Black Box Theatre (CFA 354) • Juliane Ethel Leilani Miller Studio Theatre “Jewels 2” (CFA 356)

855 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02115

Public transit and parking available. Visit bu.edu/parking for more information.

BU Dance Theater

915 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215 Public transit and parking available. Visit bu.edu/parking for more information.