Drama and Speech Communication

2013-14 Season

Richard III

by William Shakespeare

Directed by Dr. Jennifer Roberts-Smith

November 13-16, 2013 at 8 pm

Theatre of the Arts

Modern Languages Building

UpStart

Festival of student-directed one-act plays

February 6-8 & 13-15, 2014

Studio 180, Hagey Hall

Collaborative show yet to be named

Directed by Dr. Andy Houston

March 19-22, 2014 at 8 pm

Theatre of the Arts

Modern Languages Building

Tickets: $17 general, $13 students/seniors

Box Office: 519.888.4908

Visit http://dramaandspeechcommunication.uwaterloo.ca/drama/productions.htm

for upcoming productions

Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/UWDramaDept

Past events

Thesis Projects

Transience

Created by Robert Motum

Transience is a site-specific production written and directed by Robert Motum as a senior Drama thesis project.

Become immersed in this inter-media art that is performed on a local GRT bus. The performance examines the fleeting relationships that exist in a transitory space and explores the voyeuristic role of the audience.

April 4, 2013 at 7:15 and 9:15 pm

April 5, 2013 at 7:15 and 9:15 pm

April 6, 2013 at 2:00 and 7:15 pm

Bus fare $3

Email transienceuw@gmail.com for reservations and details about location.

Lysistrata [After Dark] by Aristophanes

Adapted and Directed by Shaw Forgeron

April 11-13, 7:30 p.m.

Theatre of the Arts, Modern Languages Building

University of Waterloo

Tickets: $7 general, $5 students/seniors

Online Ticketing: lysafterdark.eventbrite.ca

Email: shawforgeron@live.ca

This play has been adapted from Aristophanes' original script Lysistrata which was written in 411 BC. This undergraduate thesis project has been produced and is performed by a group of talented theatre students from the UW Drama Department as part of their ongoing studies.

**Warning - Mature subject matter... not suitable for children.**

Given the choice, would you rather have world peace forever OR no more sex ever again? The answer is obvious, but, for the citizens of ancient Athens, things are a little more complicated. When the women of Greece deliver a stiff ultimatum, bitter rivalries must be set aside, and a nation's democracy is taken to task. In a contemporary musical adaptation of Aristophanes' classical text, gender roles, politics, and religion all come under scrutiny. Lysistrata [AD] is sexy-fun, funny, and fantastical - where sexuality is a mechanism to exploit status, stigma, and stereotyping. You'll laugh, you'll think on important issues, and you may become intriguingly aroused (because that's important too)!

2012-13 Productions

Top Girls

by Caryl Churchill

Directed by: Saúl García López

March 13-16, 2013 at 8 pm

Theatre of the Arts, Modern Languages Building

Tickets: $17 general, $13 students/seniors

Box Office: 519 888-4908

Media contact: Janelle Rainville jrainville@uwaterloo.ca (519.888.4567 x31154)

"A blistering yet sympathetic look at women, who achieve success by adopting the worse traits of self made men...Truly original" - The New York Times.

Top Girls is a contemporary play that takes place during Margaret Thatcher's first term as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. It tells the story of Marlene, an up-and-coming executive at the Top Girls Employment Agency and the difficulties she has to overcome in order to achieve career “success”. Top Girls deals not only with feminism, but also questions the class structures that all people concerned with equality must confront. Featuring sharp humour, a dynamic text, and a lively mise-en-scene, the five historical characters which appear in Marlene’s dinner celebration of female empowerment, as well as the life of Marlene's blue-collared sister Joyce, make us reflect on what it takes for a woman to achieve success and recognition.

uWaterloo Drama's production of Top Girls explores the political issues and moral struggles entangled in an environment where class, job and economical structures offer women fewer roads to success. Assisted by a cutting-edge multimedia design by faculty member Scott Spidell, guest director Saúl García López transports the audience in a kind of high-tech time machine, to witness controversial views on gender at work and at home embedded in the political, economic and social context of the Thatcher years. Surprisingly, the same issues still seem to be with us today.