Browsing: Baylor Theatre

Baylor Theatre has been perfecting its bend and snap for “Legally Blonde,” the delightfully-ditzy first production of the 2013-2014 season.

Baylor’s production of the smash Broadway musical has not been adapted from the original script, said Dr. Stan Denman, chairman of the theater department and director of “Legally Blonde.”

The story revolves around Elle Woods, a vain and seemingly airheaded sorority girl determined to win back her hunky ex-boyfriend, Warner, by getting into Harvard Law School. According to Denman, Woods evolves into a person of integrity whose story empowers women.

To end the 2012-2013 school year, the Baylor theater department travels back to 1989 Romania during a time of constant fear and struggle as two families fight to survive the remnants of communism in Caryl Churchill’s “Mad Forest.”

The audience will follow the lives of these two families as they face the upheaval caused by the Romanian revolution.

There seems to be a general dislike of independent voters who vote party lines, based on ideas that those who vote party lines are uninformed, follow the crowd or are lazy.

Perhaps that reasoning is based on more than just their party labels, however.

Independent voters are generally not associated with a party of their own, though “independent voters” is slowly growing into its own party.

I recently had the pleasure of seeing “Born Yesterday,” an intellectual comedy directed by Jessi Hampton at the Baylor Department of Theatre Arts.

The play was written by Garson Kanin and first performed in 1946. Set in Washington, D.C., it follows the story of Billie Dawn, mistress of the rough junkyard tycoon Harry Brock. She is taken advantage of by Brock’s bribery and corruption, completely unaware of the consequences of his actions.

The play documents Billie’s education in the realms of politics and history as she learns to understand Brock’s unethical actions while discovering the beauty of a democratic system. Becoming politically informed allows her to stand up against the injustice in politics.

The Baylor theatre will be presenting a new line up of five plays for the Fall 2012 semester, giving students and faculty something to look forward to later in the year.
The students of the Baylor theatre department put on seven to eight productions each school year. The department will show two productions during the fall semester and three productions in the spring.

Baylor Theatre’s latest production gives audiences a glimpse into the world of contemporary plays, as well as a chance to see two premieres from the Baylor Theatre community.

“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” has been told and retold countless times with varying results.

In protest of the pending pieces of anti-piracy legislation going through Congress, Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that often serves as a database for entertainment information, was blacked out from public usage Wednesday. Other entertainment sites participating in the protest included Google, Reddit and Boing Boing.

The Baylor theater department has begun rehearsing for the spring production of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” Master’s candidate Josiah Wallace, who is directing the production, gave the Lariat some insight into what the prospective audience can expect about this theatrical interpretation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel.

After two successful plays this semester, Baylor’s theater department has three more productions for students and faculty to look forward to in the spring.

The Baylor Theatre will continue the 2011-2012 season with “The Ruby Sunrise,” which will be playing 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 15-19 and 2:00 p.m. Nov. 19-20 in the Hooper Schaefer Fine Arts Center’s Mabee Theatre.

Newly signed Uproar Records artist Layne Lynch began playing music in front of an audience when she sat down at one of the public pianos at Baylor. The junior theater performance major from Dallas, had a talent that drew crowds around her, and eventually landed her a spot with the student-run record label this semester.

Baylor University Theatre combines a classic tale with modern creativity in its production of The Odyssey. In a nutshell, Odysseus, played by Jeff Wittekiend from Burnet, must go through a series of life-threatening adventures in order to reach his hometown and become reunited with his beloved wife and son.

Baylor Theatre brings adventure, imagination and drama to the stage in a retelling of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” debuting at 7:30 p.m. today in the Mabee Theater.

Students can witness the power of literature in Baylor Theatre’s production of “Anna in the Tropics” at 7:30 p.m. today and 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday in Jones Theatre.

Audiences can expect laughs, engaging scenes and active participation from the Baylor Theatre’s newest production, “The Skin of Our Teeth,” opening at the Mabee Theatre at 7:30 p.m on Feb. 1.