Student-run theater group the Robinson Players presents staged readings of a Bates professor’s adaptation of the Nutcracker story at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 15, and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 16, in the Black Box Theater, Pettigrew Hall, 305 College St.

The readings are open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-8294.

Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater, adapted his play Marie and the Nutcracker from The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, the short novel by 19th-century author E.T.A. Hoffmann. Michelle Schloss, a sophomore from Farmington, Conn., directs the production.

The basis for the popular ballet The Nutcracker, Hoffmann’s story follows the young girl Marie and her Christmas adventures when her favorite toy nutcracker comes to life. “My adaptation moves away from the emphasis on dream and spectacle in the story and, especially, in the ballet,” says Andrucki, “and it clarifies Marie’s intentions.

“There’s still a lot of playful fantasy, but I’m focused on characterization and dramatic development. It’s a play about a young girl moving toward maturity through what she sees as a family crisis: the marriage of her older sister,” he explains.

“She wants to prevent this and, with the reluctant help of her little brother, cooks up a scheme to sabotage the wedding. Her encounter with Nutcracker and the Mouse King helps her to realize the shabbiness of her plot, and points her in a new direction.”

Andrucki calls the original Hoffman text “a wonderful piece of writing, with vivid characters, very weird psychological twists and turns, and a great sense of the power of the imagination.” He hopes that his play will come to serve as a companion piece to holiday productions of A Christmas Carol.

Schloss was looking for a theatrical project for Short Term, Bates’ five-week spring semester, when this directorial opportunity came along. “I couldn’t pass up a chance to work with a new script by professor Andrucki,” she says. And with the play scheduled for a full production in the fall by the Lincoln County Community Theater, “this is a chance for him to hear the script out loud and make final changes.”

“The challenge in directing the staged reading has been stripping down the production,” she notes. “In a text where characters can morph from toys to human-size heroes, enter the stage through a magical clock, and play the parts of both humans and royal mice, it’s difficult to picture staging the story with just stools and music stands on a bare stage.”

But with none of the technical demands of a full-scale production to deal with, the staged-reading format affords Schloss “the rare opportunity to focus on the best part of a play,” she says — “the characters and relationships behind the spectacle, and the way they communicate with each other.”

Michelle Schloss, a sophomore from Farmington, Conn., directs the 10th annual Bates College production of Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues” in performances at 8:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 5-7, in Gannett Theater, Pettigrew Hall, 305 College St.

The production is sponsored by the Robinson Players, a student theater group at Bates. Admission is $5, with proceeds supporting the Auburn-based Abused Women’s Advocacy Project. Seating is general admission. For more information, please call 207-786-6135.
Ensler based “The Vagina Monologues” on interviews that she conducted with more than 200 women about their sexuality, their bodies and their stories of violence and sexual abuse. The result is a collection of women’s stories that are personal yet universal, comic and poignant, brazen and mysterious.

“The Vagina Monologues is so popular because it acknowledges a body part we rarely speak about,” says Schloss. “The monologues are arranged such that they’re raw and honest in a way that women rarely are about such personal matters, except maybe to our closest friends.

“And that’s the great thing about The Vagina Monologues: Instantly, the audience and the cast become the best of friends, as we’re able to share some extremely personal stories and secrets. This everyday wall of common decency and the social custom to refrain from over-sharing is broken down right when the show begins. That’s incredibly freeing for both the cast and the audience.”

The play premiered 14 years ago and has since enlightened, shocked and entertained audiences all over the world. In 1998, Ensler founded the organization V-Day as a means to parlay the play’s success into an effective force for social and political change. (For more information, see the V-Day Web site.)

The first Bates production took place in 2001, directed by Ariana Margolis ’02, who directed the piece again the following year.

Ensler’s play has received worldwide acclaim since its Obie-winning premiere. Productions have featured such top actors as Glenn Close, Cate Blanchett, Susan Sarandon, Marisa Tomei, Rosie Perez, Lily Tomlin, Kate Winslett, Melanie Griffith and Calista Flockhart.

Margaret Koerber ’10 tries on one of 80 scarfs for sale draped over chairs in Gannett Theater during the “Scarves and Shawls” Extravaganza, a fundraising hour for the Robinson Players to support the student theater group’s 2009-10 season.

With the ultimate aim of teaching contemporary drama in her native Sri Lanka, a Bates College senior has received a 2009 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to study performance arts in South Africa and Indonesia. Sulochana Dissanayake of Pita Kotte, Sri Lanka, is one of 40 recipients of the 2009 fellowship, a $28,000 award supporting a year of independent research abroad.

What Dissanayake learns during her Watson year will support her ambition of creating a theatrical practice that brings social and political issues to Sri Lanka’s rich performance traditions. She hopes to “establish an institution that provides the equivalent of an undergraduate degree in theater and the performing arts,” Dissanayake explains.

The Obie Award-winning play, which premiered 13 years ago, has enlightened, shocked and entertained audiences all over the world. Ensler based The Vagina Monologues on interviews conducted with more than 200 women about their sexuality, their bodies and their stories of violence and sexual abuse. The result is a collection of stories that are personal yet universal, comic and poignant, brazen and mysterious.

• Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Feb. 5, 6 and 7 at 7:30 p.m.
• Schaeffer Theater, 305 College St.

Chapter Two, one of Simon’s more autobiographical plays, traces the limbo period in George Schneider’s life, between bereavement for lost love and the excitement of new romance. George is devastated when his wife of 12 years dies, and it isn’t until he meets the spunky, dynamic actress Jennie Malone that he faces the prospect of enjoying life again. Encouraged by their love-starved, dysfunctional confidantes, the story of George and Jennie ranges from high-spirited hilarity to painful sentimentality.

Next in the Theater at Bates series will be Constance Condon’s comedy Tales of the Lost Formicans, Nov. 6-8 and 12-15 in Shaeffer Theatre.