Third-year directing students in the School of Drama will have the opportunity to practice their craft in a professional setting during the coming year when they present four fully mounted productions at University Theatre.
The students and the plays they have chosen to direct for the School of Drama's 1996-97 season are: "The Pope and the Witch" by Dario Fo, directed by Stephan Genn; "Troy Women," an adaptation of Euripides' "Trojan Women," directed by Laura Stribling; Peter Handke's "The Ride Across Lake Constance," directed by Andrew Utter; and "Happy End," a Brecht/Weill musical, directed by Eleanor Holdridge. These productions will serve as the theses of the graduating directing students. An integral part of the Drama School's renowned training program, the productions not only will be directed, but also acted, designed, dramaturged and managed entirely by students.
The selected works for the upcoming season represent "an exquisite theatrical range" that includes tragedy, social satire, music theater and a "modern masterwork," says Stan Wojewodski Jr., dean of the School of Drama.
The season opens with Fo's "The Pope and the Witch," which runs Oct. 29-Nov. 2. In the play, the internationally celebrated satirical playwright focuses on the Pope in the Vatican as he comes to terms with significant sociopolitical issues often side-stepped by the government.
"Troy Women" (adapted by School of Drama playwright Karen Hartman) will be presented Jan. 14-18, 1997. The theme of the work - which opens in the aftermath of the Trojan War, where the surviving women of Troy are being divided into groups and sent into slavery by their Greek captors - is that a war often leaves no victors.
"A Ride Across Lake Constance" will run March 11-15. In this play, five self-conscious people begin to build alliances and feel secure with one another - until the arrival of a pair of twins, who threaten the delicate balance of their relationships.
The School of Drama season closes with "Happy End," performed May 2-7. The work is at once a straight-forward pre-Depression musical set in Chicago's seedy underworld and a complex political commentary on the forces of early capitalism.
All plays will be performed at University Theatre, 222 York St. Ticket prices are $10-15. Group discounts are available. For more information, call the Yale Repertory Theatre box office at 432-1234.