Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Wright State University Theatre’s 2023-2024 season will feature a musical theatre classic as well as two premieres and two guest directors.
“In a season (that) features the stories of rising independence, tragic consequences and joyful discovery, audiences will experience one of our most eclectic and varied seasons in recent memory,” said organizers in a news release.
Dates have not been finalized for the seven-show season, but the titles are intact.
The season opens with “The Liar,” a farce adapted from Pierre Corneille by contemporary comic playwright David Ives. This “scintillating comic romp” deals with mistaken identity, wily servants, foolish masters and complicated romance. The play will be directed on the Festival Playhouse mainstage by Head of Acting Josh Aaron McCabe, who appeared last season in the Human Race Theatre Company’s productions of “Deadline” and “Barbecue.”
Next, John Kander, Fred Ebb and Joe Masteroff’s tuneful yet chilling “Cabaret” will receive a reimagined production under the direction and choreography of Head of Musical Theatre Greg Hellems. Following the rise of fascism in the 1930s and the inevitable costs to the German people, the show contains such numbers as “Maybe This Time,” “Money” and the title song.
In the downstairs Herbst Theatre, the regional university premiere of Katie Kring and Rob Hartmann’s “Kelly The Destroyer vs The Springfield Cobras” will be directed by Senior Lecturer Jamie Cordes. The play concerns Kelly, a new student at Cotesville Magnet High School. Kelly and her friends discover the educational consultant reforming the school is secretly turning the students into high-performing, brainwashed cobras. Kelly seeks to uncover the truth and save the school before it’s too late.
