Dark of the Moon

by Howard Richardson & William Berney
directed by Glen Gourley

October 19-21, 2006
8:00 pm, Fine Arts Theatre
Hyman Fine Arts Center
Francis Marion University

THE STORY

Just in time for Halloween, this supernatural romantic tragedy (set in the haunting atmosphere of the Smokey Mountains) deals with witches, humans, and the intersection of their worlds. Based on the legend of Barbara Allen, it recounts the story of an elfin witch boy who once beheld the beautiful Barbara Allen and immediately fell in love with her. He is given human form to woo and marry her on the condition that she remain true to him. The marriage is consummated and Barbara gives birth to a witch child whom the midwives burn. In a frenzy of religious revival Barbara is led to betray her witch boy husband, breaking the spell. She dies and he returns forever to the world of the mountain witches.

CAST LIST

John: Damien Ruffner, from Bowie, MD
Conjur Man: DeJuan Conner, from Marion, SC
Dark Witch: Katie Kelley, from Dillon, SC
Fair Witch: Chelsea Brown, from Georgetown, SC
Conjur Woman: Faith Hamilton, from Charleston, SC
Miss Metcalf: Amanda Morales, from Great Falls, SC
Aunt Smelicue: Shavonne Clayton, from Mount Pleasant, SC
Floyd Allen: Blake Gardner, from Dillon, SC
Marvin Hudgens: Matt Baker, from Florence, SC
Barbara Allen: Ashley Leamon, from Florence, SC
Mrs. Allen: Vetta Brunson, from Florence, SC
Mr. Allen: Kendall Kiker, from Florence, SC
Preacher Haggler: John Sweeney, from Poland, OH
Mr. Summey: Will McNamara, from Columbia, SC
Mrs. Summey: Jennifer Cutter, from Florence, SC
Miss Atkins: Heather Trehern, from Florence, SC
Hank: Dow Hardee, from Loris, SC
Edna Summey: Christin Chapman, from Columbia, SC
Burt: Andrew Grisson, from Easley, SC
Mrs. Bergen: Heather Stockton, from Florence, SC
Ima Jean: Kassie Hughes, from Hemingway, SC
Lucy Ada Jenkins: Kristen Davis, from Florence, SC
Peggy Adcox: Melissa Burns, from Tirzah, SC

This Is Our Youth

by Kenneth Lonergan
directed by D. Keith Best

(PLEASE NOTE: ADULT CONTENT)

February 22-24, 2007
8:00 pm, Fine Arts Theatre
Hyman Fine Arts Center
Francis Marion University

THE STORY:

In 1982, on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the wealthy, articulate pot-smoking teenagers who were small children in the ’60s have emerged as young adults in a country that has just resoundingly rejected everything they were brought up to believe in. The very last wave of New York City’s ’60s-style Liberalism has come of age—and there’s nowhere left to go. In meticulous, hilarious, and agonizing detail, THIS IS OUR YOUTH follows forty-eight hours of three very lost young souls in the big city at the dawn of the Reagan Era: Warren Straub, a dejected nineteen-year-old who steals fifteen thousand dollars from his abusive lingerie-tycoon father; Dennis Ziegler, the charismatic domineering drug-dealing friend who helps him put the money to good use; and Jessica Goldman, the anxiously insightful young woman Warren yearns for. Funny, painful, and compassionate, THIS IS OUR YOUTH is a living snapshot of the moment between adolescence and adulthood when many young people first go out into the world on their own, armed only with the ideas and techniques they developed as teenagers—ideas and techniques far more sophisticated than their parents ever realize, and far less effectual than they themselves can possibly imagine.

“In a season in which some of the wise men of the theater have been trying to force-feed insipid fare…to young audiences, it’s sheer relief to celebrate the return of a rambunctious and witty play about wayward teenagers and post-adolescents that doesn’t turn youthful travails into plastic rap…THIS IS OUR YOUTH—by turns caustic, cruel and compassionate—is the real real world.” —NY Times.

“This is quite simply, a sterling example of why we keep going…THIS IS OUR YOUTH is as good as theater gets.” —NY Daily News.

“Lonergan, whose ear for the way his characters speak is pitch-perfect, is no less attuned to the simmering potential in their silent hearts.” —Variety.

The cast of the Francis Marion University Theatre presentation will include Will McNamara as Dennis, Lance Butler as Warren, and Jessica N. Maggard as — you guessed it — Jessica. Associate Professor of Theatre D. Keith Best will direct the play with assistance from Nikki Hemingway and Ashley Leamon.

Fools

A Comic Fable by Neil Simon

April 12-14, 2007
8:00 pm, Fine Arts Theatre
Hyman Fine Arts Center
Francis Marion University

Leon Tolchinsky is ecstatic. He’s landed a terrific teaching job in an idyllic Russian hamlet. When he arrives he finds people sweeping dust from the stoops back into their houses and people milking upside down to get more cream. The town has been cursed with chronic stupidity for 200 years and Leon’s job is to break the curse.

No one tells him that if he stays over 24 hours and fails to break the curse, he becomes stupid too. Why doesn’t Leon leave? He has fallen in love with a girl so stupid that she has only recently learned how to sit down. Of course, Leon breaks the curse and gets the girl.

“The brightest, freshest, funniest, wittiest, warmest and happiest to do on Broadway in many a day.” – CBS TV.