Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama wraps up the first half of its 2009-2010 Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center season with Sony Labou Tansi's darkly funny Parentheses of Blood under the direction of Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, assistant professor of acting and directing.

Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama wraps up the first half of its 2009-2010 Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center season with Sony Labou Tansi's darkly funny Parentheses of Blood under the direction of Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, assistant professor of acting and directing.

When the historic Little Nashville Opry closed its doors after a devastating fire this fall, the Indiana University Department of Theatre and Drama and Brown County Convention and Visitors Bureau joined forces to open the playhouse for the Little Nashville Express Band. The band has a 30-year history of performing at the Opry.

Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama continues its 2009-2010 theater season with a fresh take on William Shakespeare's As You Like It under the direction of Fontaine Syer, associate professor of acting and directing. This production focuses solely on the exploration of "the human organism in love." The power structure has been altered, shifting the focus to a play about mothers and sisters (instead of fathers and daughters).

As part of an Indiana University conference on black experiences in rock music, the producer of the Tony Award-winning musical Passing Strange will speak after a screening of a filmed version of the production.

Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama continues its 2009/2010 theater season with a fresh take on William Shakespeare's As You Like It under the direction of Fontaine Syer, associate professor of acting and directing. This production focuses solely on the exploration of "the human organism in love." The power structure has been altered, shifting the focus to a play about mothers and sisters (instead of fathers and daughters).

Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama will present a public talk by Harriet Newman Leve, a Tony Award-winning Broadway producer and an alumna of IU's School of Education, this Thursday (Oct. 22) at 5 p.m. in the Ruth N. Halls Theatre.

Indiana University officials will conduct a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday, Oct. 17, for a project that will renovate the University Theater and convert it to a state-of-the-art cinema facility. The improvements also include added classroom, rehearsal and performance space for the Department of Theatre and Drama.

Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama kicks off its 2009-2010 theater season with Willy Russell's cult musical Blood Brothers, the powerful story of an unlikely friendship beset by the struggles of adolescence, the inevitable rift of the class divide in 1960's England and the cruelty of fate. The play will be presented in the Ruth N. Halls Theatre under the direction of Murray McGibbon.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning comedy Driving Miss Daisy concludes the 61st season of Indiana University's Brown County Playhouse. The performance features two of the Midwest's best-known actors in the main roles. Racism and separate ethnic communities are still the norm in post World War II Georgia. Daisy, a 72-year-old Jewish widow resides in Atlanta. After she crashes her car, Daisy's son hires an African American chauffer, Hoke, to drive and look after her. Their prickly relationship faces many challenges during their 25 years of driving through America's tumultuous history ultimately evolving into true friendship.

Summer is the season for weddings, and Indiana University's Brown County Playhouse opens its second show of the season with the perfectly themed There Goes the Bride, a matrimonial comedy written by Ray Cooney and John Chapman that brings new meaning to the phrase "trouble in paradise."

A flock of teenage girls in various message T-shirts and sneakers struggle into their petticoats as a group of teen boys looks on ("Where's mine?" jokes one boy) for a "semi-dress" rehearsal in which the girls morph into giggling, dancing Shakesperean fairies. The 19 teens are in drama camp heaven for two weeks at Indiana University Bloomington, where the 2009 Midsummer Theatre Program is entering its 11th year. This year's camp began June 7 and culminates with a free, open to the public performance Saturday (June 20) at 2 p.m. in the Wells-Metz Theatre. The performance will include a variety of scenes from both Shakespeare and popular musical theater productions.

Indiana University's Brown County Playhouse season opens June 11 with The All Night Strut!, an energy-charged musical for all ages showcasing some of the most popular, upbeat songs from the 1930s and 1940s, including "Chattanooga-Choo-Choo," "In the Mood," "Operator," "A Fine Romance" and "Beat Me, Daddy, Eight to the Bar." The All Night Strut! was conceived and originally directed and choreographed by Fran Charnas with music and lyrics by legendary American songwriters including Frank Loesser, Cab Calloway, George and Ira Gershwin, Duke Ellington and Charlie Parker, among many others.

A cast of student actors from South Africa and Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama will perform William Shakespeare's final play, The Tempest, at the Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center from May 6 through May 9. The production will be directed by South Africa-native Murray McGibbon, an award-winning IU faculty member in the Department of Theatre and Drama.

IU's Department of Theatre and Drama will commemorate its 75th year with a gala event Saturday, May 2. The event is preceded by an appearance by Stephen Sondheim and NPR's Scott Simon Thursday, April 30, at 8 p.m. The Department of Theatre and Drama 75th Anniversary Gala features a gourmet dinner at 6 p.m. followed at 7:15 p.m. by a short film about the program's history and evolution (titled Memory Lane) and a performance by Broadway Cabaret -- a group directed by Emmy Award-winner George Pinney -- that features some of the department's top musical stars.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's timeless musical Oklahoma! opens April 17 at Indiana University's Lee Norvelle Theatre and Drama Center, with additional performances April 18 and April 21-25. Considered the quintessential American musical, Oklahoma! focuses on the romance between cowboy Curly McLain and Laurey Williams. Set in the Oklahoma territory in 1906, the play tackles class issues between the farmers and the cowmen in the still-developing, rugged landscape of a state in its infancy as characters struggle to find hope, love and the fulfillment of "the American Dream."

Composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, widely considered the most influential artist working in American musical theater over the past half-century, will visit Indiana University in April at the invitation of IU's Department of Theatre and Drama. Sondheim will appear with author Scott Simon, host of NPR's "Weekend Edition Saturday," in a live, unscripted conversation titled "An Evening with Stephen Sondheim and Scott Simon" on April 30 at 8 p.m. at IU Auditorium. This event is free and open to the public.

Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama will host a conversation with Britsh actor Tim Hardy Thursday (March 26) at 3 p.m. in the Wells/Metz Theatre. The event is free and open to the public. The visit is part of Hardy's weeklong residency at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (March 22-29), where tonight (March 24) and Friday he will perform the one-man play Galileo in conjunction with IUPUI's 40th anniversary celebration.

As Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama celebrates its 75th anniversary year (2008-09), the department continues a tradition of professional-level student performances featured in both classic favorites and cutting-edge, contemporary plays. In the upcoming 2009-10 season, modern works such as The Clean House and Take Me Out will be featured alongside Shakespeare and George Bernard Shaw, Peter Weiss's riveting Marat/Sade, Congolese playwright Sony Labou Tansi's Parentheses of Blood, and two musicals, including Stephen Sondheim's beautiful A Little Night Music.

This year, Indiana University's Brown County Playhouse will celebrate its 61st consecutive summer season, and this summer's lineup offers something for everyone, from the hilarious There Goes the Bride to the poignant Driving Miss Daisy. A treasured Nashville tradition since 1949, the Brown County Playhouse continues to offer memorable theatrical events performed by both professional actors and talented student actors from IU's Department of Theatre and Drama.

Insider trading. Blackmail. A marriage on the rocks. It was originally published in 1895, but the themes of Oscar Wilde's An Ideal Husband are as relevant today as when Wilde originally wrote about them. An Ideal Husband is staged by Indiana University's Department of Theatre and Drama as part of IU's 25th annual ArtsWeek celebration.

Simultaneously a valentine and a warning, Diana Son's sweetly arresting Stop Kiss explores the highs and lows of contemporary urban life. Swinging back and forth in time, the play revolves around a brutal beating that occurs when two young women are seen kissing on a park bench in Greenwich Village. While deftly addressing issues of sexuality and the devastating impact of a simple, hesitating moment of intimacy, the play retains a pervasive sense of humor, melding light and dark into a single work that eloquently captures the complexity and humanity of daily existence.

Written well before the tragic events of Sept. 11, the chaos and destruction in award-winning José Rivera's compelling play Marisol keenly focus our memories on that terrible day. Rivera's Oscar-nominated The Motorcycle Diaries -- a film adaptation of Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna's memoirs from a motorcycle journey across South America in the 1950s -- inspired a cult following. With Marisol, Rivera's most frequently staged play, he inspires theatergoers with a message that hope is possible for humanity, even in a broken, disjointed world.

Written well before the tragic events of Sept. 11, the chaos and destruction in award-winning José Rivera's compelling play Marisol keenly focus our memories on that terrible day. Rivera's Oscar-nominated The Motorcycle Diaries -- a film adaptation of Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna's memoirs from a motorcycle journey across South America in the 1950s -- inspired a cult following. With Marisol, Rivera's most frequently staged play, he inspires theatergoers with a message that hope is possible for humanity, even in a broken, disjointed world.

To create a space for black voices to be heard artistically and start a meaningful dialogue about black identity in the theatre, Indiana University Bloomington's Department of Theatre and Drama will host the university's first-ever conference (Aug. 1-3) devoted solely to black theatre projects. The 2008 IU Mini-Conference on Black Theatre seeks to stimulate scholarship and discussion about theatre by and for people of African descent, said conference organizer Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe.