Center for Theatre Arts' upcoming season features classic playwrights

Classics and contemporary works are just part of what's in store for theatergoers during Cornell University's Center for Theatre Arts (CTA) 1997/98 season.

William Shakespeare, George Bernard Shaw, Arthur Miller, Eugene Ionesco, Beth Henley and Tom Stoppard are the playwrights whose work will be featured in six stage productions starting in September. Season subscriptions are available by mail or by calling 254-ARTS for a brochure. Prices are $30 for students and seniors, $40 for the general public, and include six shows for the price of five.

"Our productions will be a particular treat for those who relish the spoken word," said Professor David Feldshuh, CTA's artistic director.

The anguished speech of everyman in Miller's Death of a Salesman; the Southern tones of Beth Henley's Crimes of the Heart; the parrying comedic language of class and gender in Shaw's You Never Can Tell; Eugene Ionesco's portrayal of the absurdity of words; the dazzling linguistic intricacies of Stoppard's Arcadia; and the verse and prose of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet "demonstrate master playwrights at the height of their talents, creating a treasury of wit, poetry and verbal dueling," Feldshuh said.

• Miller's Tony-award-winning Death of a Salesman, presented Sept. 18 to 21 and 25 to 27 in the Proscenium Theatre, will be acted by stage veterans Harold Gould (A.M. '48, Ph.D. '53) and Lea Shampanier Gould (A.B. '48, A.M. '50), known on the stage as Lea Vernon. The production will be directed by Feldshuh.

• Henley's Pulitzer-winning Crimes of the Heart will be performed Oct. 22 to 26 and Oct. 29 to Nov. 2, in the Class of '56 Flexible Theatre. Stephen R. Cole, associate professor and director of 1997's Speed-The-Plow, will direct.

• Shaw's comedy You Never Can Tell will be presented in the CTA's Proscenium Theatre Nov. 20 to 23 and Dec. 4 to 6. Associate Professor J. Ellen Gainor will direct.

• The spring '98 semester will begin with two one-act plays presented together, penned by the leading figure of absurdist theater Eugene Ionesco. The Bald Soprano and The Lesson will be performed in the Black Box Theatre Jan. 28 to Feb. 1 and Feb. 4 to 8. Theater arts graduate student Roger Bechtel will add his directing talents (The Lesson) to those of actor/director Stephen R. Cole (The Bald Soprano) to present this double dose of absurdity.

• The season's fifth production is Tom Stoppard's Arcadia, presented in the Flexible Theatre Feb. 11 to 15 and 18 to 21. The play won the 1995 New York Drama Critics' Circle Award. Associate Professor Ron Wilson, who last directed Moliere's Tartuffe at the CTA, will direct Arcadia.

• Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, to be presented April 23 to 26 and April 30 to May 2 in the Proscenium Theatre, concludes the 1997/98 season. Bruce Levitt, professor of theater studies, will direct the season finale.