Six plays showcased at UNLV theater

Friday, June 6, 1997 | 5:47 a.m.

The University Theatre will offer six full-length plays in the Judy Bayley Theatre beginning with the Sept. 4 world premiere of "Silver Buckles on His Knee." This tribute to "an era gone by" was written by motion picture actor/director Don Taylor, who will also direct the drama.

Opening Oct. 2 is "The Brother's Silence," written by Jerry Crawford, former chair of the UNLV theater department. Davey Marlin-Jones directs this suspenseful tale of Robert Kennedy's very private, very dangerous investigation into his brother's assassination.

"Falsettos' by William Finn and James Lapine opens Dec. 3 under the direction of Robert Burgan. According to Linsey Hamilton, dramaturg for the production, "this intricately crafted, and very savvy, musical asks some hard questions and promises a lot of laughs.

Following the holidays, Henrick Ibsen's "Hedda Gabler," a forceful drama about principles and power, will open Jan. 29. This classic by "the Father of Modern Drama" tells the story of a proud and elusive woman who wishes nothing more-nor-less than to shape a human destiny.

Next, two of William Shakespeare's most beloved characters, Rosalind and Orlando, takes audiences into the Forest of Arden in "As You Like It." The Bard's tale of deception and disguise, and the search to find true liberation in a corrupt world opens March 12.

The Judy Bayley Theatre season closes with the April 30 opening of the "Drood," a tongue-in-cheek musical by Rupert Holmes based on Charles Dicken's unfinished novel. Audiences will be requested to join the fun in solving the mystery of "who killed Edwin Drood?"

The Black Box's 1997-98 season showcases three women playwrights: Kesselman, Hamilton, and Wasserstein.

The reunion of five Mount Holyoke graduates is the subject of Pulitzer Prize winner Wendy Wasserstein's "Uncommon Women and Others," opening Oct. 16. The play has been produced by the PBS "Theatre in America" series.

In "Strange Growing Season," by Linsey Hamilton, the past, literally and figuratively, comes back to haunt a tequila-drinking widow on her 40th birthday. This often sardonic look at facing mid-life crisis in a 200-year-old house in Maine opens Nov. 13.

Wendy Kesselman's dark drama, "My Sister in this House," opens Feb. 12 and is based on a celebrated 1930's French murder case. Called, "a crucible of psycho-sexual horror," by the New York Times, this cinematically structured work looks into the motivations which lead two sisters to violence and the murder of their employer and daughter.

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