Digital Commons @ Otterbein

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  Cat Among the Pigeons

  Otterbein University Theatre and Dance Department

  Un fil à la patte (known in English as Cat Among the Pigeons or Love on the Rack) is a French bedroom farce in three acts written by Georges Feydeau. The play premiered on January 9, 1894 at the Théâtre du Palais-Royal, and is considered one of Feydeau's masterpieces.

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_fil_%C3%A0_la_patte

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  True West

  Otterbein University Theatre and Dance Department

  True West follows the story of two estranged brothers, Austin and Lee. Austin is has a successful budding career in the film industry. He offers to housesit for his mother, and decides to work on a new screenplay while he has some peace and quiet. Lee, an alcoholic and a thief, unexpectedly shows up and proceeds to disrupt Austin’s life, eventually managing to take over the writing of the screenplay himself. The two brothers end up in a role-reversal, with each admitting that he has always envied the other's way of life.

  https://stageagent.com/shows/play/1646/true-west

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  Androcles and the Lion

  Otterbein University Theatre and Dance Department

  Androcles is a slave who is abused by his master, Pantalone. Androcles is trying to help two young lovers , Isabella and Lelio. In order to make sure that his niece will not run off with her boyfriend, Pantalone hires the Captain to guard her. Androcles outwits the Captain and helps the lovers to elope. In the forest, Androcles encounters the Lion who is limping from a thorn in its paw. Androcles does the good deed of removing the thorn and is rewarded by the Lion's help in escaping his master.

  https://stageagent.com/shows/play/2340/androcles-and-the-lion

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  The Cherry Orchard

  Otterbein University Theatre and Dance Department

  On a frosty May morning while the cherry trees are in bloom, impoverished Russian aristocrat, Mrs. Ranevsky, returns to her decaying ancestral home with her daughter, Anya. Mrs. Ranevsky is heavily in debt and still grief-stricken by the premature death of her son five years earlier. Her financial crisis forces the family to auction off their estate, including their beloved cherry orchard. Varya, Mrs. Ranevsky’s older, adopted daughter, has been looking after the estate and is frustrated by her mother’s refusal to accept her predicament. Ignoring the practical advice of local businessman, Yermolay Lopakhin, the family cannot come to a consensus and take action, and the estate is eventually sold. Whilst the family sadly drink to the end of their home, Lopakhin reveals that it is he who has bought the estate. As the family prepare to leave, they hear their precious cherry orchard begin to be cut down. The play reflects the socioeconomic forces at work in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, including the rise of the middle class after the abolition of serfdom in the mid-19th century, and the declining status of the aristocracy.

  https://stageagent.com/shows/play/2339/the-cherry-orchard

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  Six Degrees of Separation

  Otterbein University Theatre and Dance Department

  When a young and effortlessly charismatic black con man claiming to be the son of Sidney Poitier himself smiles his way into the sympathetic living rooms of a few of New York City’s white wealthy elite, and tears a swath of disillusionment through their preconceptions and comfortable lives, the thirst for understanding leaves them questioning their sense of selves. Ouisa and Flan, the play’s central duo and two married art dealers, find themselves victims of a strange invasion after offering a young man, who appears to have been mugged in Central Park, shelter in their apartment. He tells them he knows their children from Harvard, and so begins an evening that captivates the older wealthy couple, eager to embrace the promise of an intelligent, provocative young person who also happens to stroke their egos and reinforce their sense of good personhood. Six Degrees of Separation stunningly demonstrates the way each person’s individual vision of the world, limited by our desire to control how we ourselves are seen, leaves us prey to the manipulations and nuance of human design at play all around us. With split-second transitions narrated anecdotally by the characters that piece together a whirlwind of vignettes, John Guare’s work takes the audience on a stark and breathtaking ride through the connection and disconnection between humans from all walks of life confronting the question of honest identity.

  https://stageagent.com/shows/play/7457/six-degrees-of-separation

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  Sweet Charity

  Otterbein University Theatre and Dance Department

  Sweet Charity follows the romantic trials and tribulations of Charity Hope Valentine, “a girl who wanted to be loved.” Charity is a taxi dancer, a dance partner-for-hire at a seedy dance hall in New York City. Though the job may be decidedly undesirable, Charity’s hopeful romanticism and unfailing optimism lift her out of her circumstances and help her reach for a life beyond. In the past, she’s been strung along and hung out to dry by a series of bad relationships and lousier men. When she meets Oscar, a neurotic, shy actuary seemingly from another world, will she finally find true love at last? One of the most famous shows by legendary director/choreographer Bob Fosse and with a laugh-a-minute script by the incomparable Neil Simon, every audience is destined to fall in love with Charity’s limitless spirit, as she lives life “hopefully ever after.”

  https://stageagent.com/shows/musical/1662/sweet-charity

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  Catnap Allegiance

  Otterbein University Theatre and Dance Department

  Otterbein College Theatre will end its season with the world premiere of an original play. On May 24, Otterbein will open Catnap Allegiance by noted playwright Kia Corthron. With language that is sparse and poetic, Corthron’s plays are hard-hitting and unrelenting. Her plays address political issues, yet they also transcend the political and capture the essence of the human struggle. Catnap Allegiance protests the Gulf War with the story of several African American soldiers deposited in the middle of the desert, pumped full of inadequately explained medicines and ordered to “take no prisoners...eliminate and go.”