Event

Rivals of The West 2011 Spring Season

For 11 performances this spring, MICA's theater company, Rivals of the West, brings to the stage all the drama and intrigue of two 20th-century American classics. Sex, rape and murder are central in these blockbusters.

Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is considered among the greatest plays produced by the American theater and has been revived countless times worldwide since its Broadway debut in 1947. Its indelible lead characters, Blanche Dubois and Stanley Kowalski, thrown together in a tragic struggle in the steamy French Quarter of New Orleans, are impossible to forget. Williams' drama brilliantly maps out the dark landscape of feelings, fears and hopes, and humanity's desperate search for the safe harbor of love. Streetcar is his moving and spellbinding guide to the human heart's desire.

Since 1964, the year Amiri Baraka's Dutchman debuted off-Broadway, winning the Obie award for best play, America's come a long way in race relations. Or has it? The cities' ghettos are still filled with what could appear to be a permanent underclass of poverty-stricken African Americans. Dutchman shockingly assaulted the complacent middle class in 1964 with its "white-hot" rage at the racism that stubbornly persists in American society. Will it do so again in 2011?

The spring production is the culmination of the annual six-credit The Play's the Thing course, taught by MICA faculty member Christopher Shipley, who also serves as producer of the shows. The course is set to establish a potent and serious dramatic performance tradition at MICA. Peter Shipley, a MICA photography assistant, returns this year as director and choreographer.

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