DR. STEFFENS:
Welcome to Great Arts at Eastern, this is David Steffens, Dean of the College of Fine Arts at ENMU. Today I'm joined by John Barr and Leonard Madrid, faculty members and ENMU's Department of Theater and Film. Today we preview the theater season for the upcoming academic year. John, can you tell us a little bit about how we get season tickets for this series of four shows that we're about to present?
JOHN BARR:
Yes, absolutely. If you go to our website, enmu.edu/theatrelive and theatre is THEATRE live, that will take you directly to the site where you can purchase tickets, that site will be available until September 26th, when the tickets are no longer on sale and you have to go buy them show by show.
DR. STEFFENS:
Great. And season tickets are only $28.00. Is that right?
JOHN BARR:
$28.00 for four shows, and that's a great deal. So, it's basically $7.00 a show and. It's in my book, one of the best opportunities for live entertainment in our region. So, I highly encourage people to take--- take advantage of it.
DR. STEFFENS:
And each show runs Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night and then a Sunday matinee as well. So, 4 opportunities with each of the four shows.
JOHN BARR:
Correct.
DR. STEFFENS:
Very good. And can you tell us what are the four shows this season?
JOHN BARR:
Absolutely. So, our first show is called the Thanksgiving Play, which is written by Larissa Fasthorse. A contemporary indigenous playwright and it's a comedy and it's funny. It's a comedy about Thanksgiving and- and then there's Romeo and Juliet, which everyone knows about is the classic Shakespeare play. With a little bit of an update, it's going to be the same language, but it's going to be set in contemporary times. In the spring we have She Kills Monsters, and that's again a dramatic comedy adventure, and it's set in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. So, people who are interested in Dungeons and Dragons or comedy or drama, this is your show.
DR. STEFFENS:
Any kind of nerds.
JOHN BARR:
Any kind of nerds should show
LEONARD MADRID:
Theater nerds, D&D nerds.
JOHN BARR:
And then the last show of the year is going to be the New Mexico New Works Festival. This will be the second time that we've done that, and Leonard is the coordinator for that. So, he will put out a call for or he has put out a call for new plays by New Mexican playwrights and it will be a program of 10-minute plays written by New Mexican playwrights, previously unproduced. We're excited about that.
DR. STEFFENS:
That great and so, Leonard, you are the director for the first show in October. That's the Thanksgiving play. Is that right?
LEONARD MADRID:
Yes, we just started rehearsals this week.
DR. STEFFENS:
So, in addition to it being a Thanksgiving oriented comedy, what can you tell us about what we should expect.
LEONARD MADRID:
So, the- the playwriter, Fasthorse is one of the top playwrights in the living playwrights in the US right now. One of the only indigenous playwrights that's getting produced, and she wrote a comedy about people trying to be sensitive towards the needs of everyone when they're doing a High school Thanksgiving play. And so, the- the need to be sensitive and aware sort of overtakes everything and becomes sort of a comedic character of its own. That sort of hovers over everything. Everybody's trying do things the correct way, and it's just ends up taking over.
DR. STEFFENS:
Sounds great.
LEONARD MADRID:
It's fun.
DR. STEFFENS:
In November, we will have Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliette. How do we keep that new, fresh and interesting for an audience?
JOHN BARR:
Well, Clara Kundin, who's the director, had this vision of using Shakespeare but setting it in a contemporary time. So, a town not unlike Portales, where as opposed to Elizabethan costume, they'll be wearing modern dress and it's a similar thing of two families that are in opposition to each other, but two members of the family fall in love with each other and cause tragic outcome spoilers. In case you haven't read Romeo and Juliette.
DR. STEFFENS:
Well, very good. So, one more time. That's four shows: one in October. That's October three through 6/1 in November. That's November 14 through 17. And in the spring, February through 27 February 27th through March 2 is the third and the last one is April 24th through 27 available now as season tickets for only $28.00. One more time the address is enmu.edu/theater live and those tickets are available until September 26th or by calling the box office. Phone number is 575-562-2711. We hope to see you there.
JOHN BARR:
Thank you.
LEONARD MADRID:
Thank you.