Honors Students Centerstage: 3 Contemporary European Plays

TheatreUSF Honors Program presents three contemporary European plays.

Honors Students Centerstage!
3 Contemporary European Plays

Presented by the TheatreUSF Honors Program, Summer 2012
Directed by Lauren Allison, Lisa Letterle, Mary Spurlock
Scenic Design: Shannon Dunbar
Costume Design: Shannon Dunbar
Lighting Design: Kristen Geisler Easterling
Sound Design: Anthony J. Vito

Three contemporary plays from Europe collide on the USF TAR 120 stage.

PAINKILLERS

Written by Serbian playwright Neda Radulovic, directed by Theatre Honors student Lisa Letterie.

Three women, all friends, all looking at life from different perspectives. A married woman, pretending to be happy with her philandering husband, while underneath desperately wanting a baby. A singleton, who seems to be the life of the party, looking for love in the wrong places. And their unstable friend, probing for what she loves in herself and not finding what she is looking for. All of them wanting to be okay, but searching for something to numb them.

A woman stares into a dressing room mirror lit with large round bulbs.

A man caresses a woman’s cheek with his thumb and is leaning in to kiss her, the woman has her eyes closed in preparation to kiss him back.

A woman is sitting on a wooden bench with a bag on one side of her and a pocketbook on the other. She is smiling somewhat and is reading the back of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey.

TERMINUS

Written by Irish playwright Mark O’Rowe, directed by Theatre Honors student Mary Spurlock.

Interwoven stories of soul stealing bargains, fantastical rescues and brave determination. Three stories, told in firsthand accounts by the characters in stunning soliloquy, take place over the course of a single night in Dublin. One man, who is strangled by shyness, resorts to terrible violence. A woman is saved by an unlikely creature. And a former schoolteacher stalks a violent bully through the streets.

A man standing in front of a thin strip of looped LED lights in the background is facing stage right. Part of him is illuminated and part of him is silhouetted; he is wearing all black clothes.

A woman sits upright with her hands crossed in her lap and a hurt look on her face as she sits on a carpet-covered platform.

A woman sits on a platform with her knees to her chest. Her right arm and hand are resting on the opposite knee while she holds her left hand to her face. She is looking out over her fingertips toward stage left.

HERJÓLFUR HAS STOPPED LOVING

Written by Icelandic playwright Sigtryggur Magnason, directed by Theatre Honors student Lauren Allison.

Enter the mind of a man who is coming to grips with the fact that he has stopped loving his wife. Is this reality or fantasy? Is the scandal and violence he commits real or a window into his mind? See the steps Herjolfur takes to reconcile his inability to reconnect to his love.

Two men are wearing suits and sitting in chairs, one man is staring at the other as if in a reverie while the other is looking back at the first with concern, mouth slightly ajar.

A woman and a man are sitting next to each other on the edge of a table, she is speaking and looking outward while he is looking down and reaching to grab her hand with his. His fingers are brushing the knuckles of her hand.

Two men sit next to each other on a table-top. One has a contemplative expression on his face while he has his hands crossed in his lap while the other is hunched forward with a look of worry on his face, his right arm bent slightly with that hand on the right knee while his left arm is straight and that hand clutching the edge of the table tightly.

A woman smiles while looking down toward a wooden chair, letting her fingertips brush the back of it gently.

The USF Theatre Honors Program is a small, select group of upper-level theatre students whose skills, academics, and dedication are judged to be excellent enough for admission into this selective, full year class.