Next year’s Schuster season set to be full of show stoppers

May 1, 2019

“Big Fish,” the final musical of Schuster Theatre’s 2018-2019 season, debuted Thursday and will continue delighting audiences through Saturday night.
While “Big Fish” is only halfway through its production run, planning is already in the works for the 2019-2020 season.
Five shows, including both classic and contemporary works, are scheduled to be performed during the next academic year.
The season will kick off in October with “Almost, Maine,” by John Cariani.
The play is set in Almost, a small outcropping “not organized enough to be a town, yet too populated to be a wilderness.”
It follows the interweaving stories of several couples as their relationships begin, end and change over the course of a bitterly cold, yet surprisingly magical, winter night.
Next, the cast and crew who will be participating in the 2020 International Collegiate Theatre Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, will take the stage to showcase the piece they plan to perform overseas.
At present, the group is working on an adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
Titled “Witches: A Variant of the Tragical Histoire of Macbeth,” their adaptation will challenge the underpinnings of misogyny and victimization in the play by shifting characters and dialogue to offer fresh perspectives. They will also be adding songs and poetry to the script.
December will be ushered in with a reprisal of “A Medieval Christmas Banquet,” last year’s wildly popular dinner theater production.
Written and directed by the Rev. Shawn Clerkin, this immersive theater experience promises to put attendees in a very merry mood.
“The Wolves,” written by Sarah DeLappe, will take the stage in February as the first production of the spring semester.
This 2017 Pulitzer Prize finalist follows nine teenage soccer players as they navigate challenges on and off the field.
The play unfolds purely from conversations held during the girls’ weekly warm-ups. Realistic dialogue, with plenty of overlapping and side conversations, is a staple of this piece.
This slice-of-life work contains explicit language and heavy topics but ultimately celebrates and empowers its all-female cast.
Finally, the beloved musical “Fiddler on the Roof” will round out the season in April.
Though the original Broadway production opened more than 50 years ago, the stories and songs are still relevant and inspiring.
Set in early 20th-century Russia, the story follows a Jewish family as they attempt to balance tradition with a society that continues encroaching upon it.
“[This] show can help us contextualize and reframe some of our contemporary conversations on cultural identity,” said Lauren Sovisky, a senior communications major.
Auditions will be held a month or two before each production. Dates, times and instructions for potential cast members will be released on Schuster Theatre’s web page.
While the next season looks spectacular, don’t forget to catch the last show of the 2018-2019 season.
“Big Fish” will take stage at 8 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Tickets are $5 for Gannon faculty, staff and students.
Tickets can be purchased at the door or reserved online at www.gannon.edu/schustertheatre.