The fall 2024 semester at Southeastern Louisiana University is soon to make its debut, and with its return comes the anticipation of the university theatre’s mainstage season lineup. A total of four shows will take the stage throughout the fall 2024 and spring 2025 semesters. 

Kicking off the mainstage season is playwright and character actor Bruce Norris’ “Clybourne Park.” Running from Wednesday, Oct. 2 to Saturday, Oct. 5, “Clybourne Park” is a 2010 play inspired by “A Raisin in the Sun” by playwright Lorraine Hansberry. The plot of “Clybourne Park” is loosely based on historical events that took place in Chicago during and after the events in Hansberry’s play.

Since graduating with a degree in theater and performing at multiple theatres throughout his career (including Broadway), Norris has become associated with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company of Chicago. 

In 2010, “Clybourne Park” won the London Evening Standard Award for Best Play. The year after, Norris’s treasured play received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. 

Next on the mainstage season lineup is “Near Nellie Bly” written by Mark Loewenstern and is set to run from Wednesday, Nov. 20 to Saturday, Nov. 23.

Loewenstern, the 2024 Inkslinger Playwriting Contest winner, has won a total of five awards for his original play,  which follows Nellie Bly, a reporter who goes undercover at a mental institution in 1887 New York. In doing so, Nellie befriends a patient, Anne Neville, whose perspective is told throughout the play. 

Annually, Southeastern hosts the Inkslinger Playwriting Contest to promote emerging playwrights and their original work by producing and performing it on stage. As the winner of the 2024 contest, Loewenstern was granted the opportunity for his original play to be brought to life. 

“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” by playwrights William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin is the third production to hit the stage in the mainstage season. The show will run from Friday, March 21 – Saturday, March 22 and Friday, March 28 – Saturday 29.

The production is a musical comedy centered around a group of six middle schoolers set to compete in their school’s spelling bee. 

Daphne Hudson, the Vice President of Southeastern Theatre’s Greek Life organization, Alpha Psi Omega (APO), said she’s most looking forward to “The 25th Putnam Annual Spelling Bee” because “William Finn is one of my favorite playwrights with previous works like ‘A New Brain’ and ‘Falsettos.’ It’s a musical that seems like it will be a fun time for both the audience and the cast.”

Last but not least for Southeastern Theatre’s mainstage season is the university’s own Dr. Anne Liese-Fox’s adaptation of “Antigone,” which will run from Wednesday, April 9 – Saturday, April 12.

A legendary Greek tragedy, “Antigone” was first written in 441 B.C. by ancient Greek playwright Sophocles.  His play tells the story of a young girl named Antigone who defies her uncle Creon by refusing to bury her brother, Polyneices, after losing him in battle.

Fox is an instructor of acting and directing at Southeastern who wears her passion for theatrical arts on her sleeve and leaves a similar impression on those that she teaches. 

“‘Antigone’ has captured the theatrical imagination for millennia. The play challenges us to investigate our own ethical lines as the characters confront personal risk and the courage and even audacity to defy those in power to hold those lines,” Fox said.

The show is set to be performed in the amphitheatre outside Pottle Hall. Fox describes the setting as a, “beautiful, oak tree-rich, outdoor setting.” 

There are multiple factors that make Fox’s adaptation unique, first being the introduction of large 2-D puppets designed and constructed by Sara Torres, a senior isual arts major at Southeastern. Along with the creative set design and setting, Fox’s script adaptation includes “original student devised work” for the choral interludes.

Integrating student work is a substantial portion of Fox’s main creative drive into her adaptation of such an iconic and historic play.

“A prompt question for participating student and faculty artists in this production is: What does ‘Antigone’ invite us to examine today in Louisiana 2025?” said Fox.

Auditions for “Clybourne Park” and “Near Nellie Bly” are on Tuesday, Aug. 27 from 6:30 – 7:30 p.m. in the St. Tammany Room within the University Center. Those auditioning should come prepared with a one-minute monologue. Callbacks will be on Wednesday, Aug. 28. 

“Anyone who comes to see any of the mainstage shows this school year should expect phenomenal performances,” Hudson said.

There will be plenty of playwriting and acting talent on display this mainstage season at Southeastern. For more information on the upcoming theatre performances, visit the Southeastern Theatre page.