Carbondale Reporter

Carbondale Chamber of Commerce recently issued the following announcement.

We are looking to cast an ensemble of 15-17 actors, with particular emphasis on diversity in age and ethnicity, beyond what is specified in the original play. Auditions will be held Sunday, August 26th at 6:00 p.m. in the East Theater of The Varsity Center with callbacks on Tuesday, August 28th at 6:00 p.m. Auditions will feature readings from the play and callbacks will take a workshop format.

The Crucible will be performed at the Varsity Center, 418 S. Illinois, Carbondale,

Illinois, on October 12-14 and 18-21, 2018

ABOUT THE PLAY:

The Stage Company will kick off its thirty-seventh season with Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. Elyse Pineau will direct, with Jodie Salazar as Assistant Director. Arthur Miller's classic play stands as a timeless cautionary tale about the dangers of irrational fear mongering, theocratic government, and the breakdown of community relations. This production of The Crucible dramatizes the tragic consequences when an imbalance of power across gender, race and social class is fueled by fears that tear apart a community.

This intense drama is set, of course, in the context of the Salem witch trials of the seventeenth century, one of a number of dark periods in American history. The Crucible is a work of fiction but it illustrates all too well what can transpire when fear and superstition prevail over reason.

Miller wrote The Crucible as a searing indictment of the anti-Communist hysteria that gripped the United States during the 1950s, which led to the infamous House Un-American Activities Committee hearings led by Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. In a case of life imitating art, the HUAC Committee began investigating Miller himself in 1956.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT:

Arthur Asher Miller, born on 17 October, 1915, in Harlem, New York, is considered one of the greatest American playwrights. Miller grew up in Flatbush, Brooklyn, and graduated from the University of Michigan. While in college, Miller won the Avery Hopkins Award, a foreshadowing of his future phenomenal success, for his first play, No Villain.

Some of Miller’s other acclaimed plays are All My Sons (1941), for which he won his first Tony Award; The Crucible (1953) which won the Tony for Best Play; A View From the Bridge (1955); and, of course, Death of a Salesman(1949). Many critics described Death of a Salesman as the first great American tragedy, and Miller gained eminence as a man who understood the deep essence of the United States. Miller continued to write well into his later life. His play Broken Glass (1993) won the Olivier Award for Best Play of the London Season.

Miller also the screenplay for 1961’s The Misfits, which starred his then-wife, screen legend Marilyn Monroe. Miller was investigated by Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s House Un-American Activities Committee during the 1950s, which had as its purpose the identification of individuals thought to be Communists. This investigation began only 3 years after The Crucible was published. When Miller refused to ‘name names’ or answer any questions about other people’s activities or affiliations, he was found in contempt of Congress and blacklisted; his conviction was overturned in 1958.

Mr. Miller died on the evening of February 10, 2005 (the 56th anniversary of the Broadway debut of Death of a Salesman). He was 89.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR:

Elyse Pineau is an Associate Professor Emerita of Communication Studies at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, where she has taught, performed and directed since 1990. Dr. Pineau holds a Masters in Communication Studies from Arizona State University and a Ph.D. in Performance Studies from Northwestern University. During her tenure at SIU, she taught courses in performing literature, stage writing, adapting, directing, solo performance, and arts-based methods of teaching and learning. Currently, Dr. Pineau teaches courses on J.R.R. Tolkien for the University Honors program; she just returned from a month in Oxford, England, where she taught Tolkien’s life and work for a cohort of SIUC Study Abroad students.

Dr. Pineau specializes in adapting and directing novels for the stage. She scripted and directed original adaptations for 6 novel-based productions in SIUC’s Marion Kleinau Theatre, including: A Cure for Dreams (1995) by Kay Gibbons, Alias Grace (1997) and The Penelopiad (2010) both written by Margaret Atwood; Geek Love (2000) by Katharine Dunn; Skinny Legs and All (2004) by Tom Robbins; and her final Kleinau production, The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse (2015) based on the novel by Louise Erdrich. In addition, Dr. Pineau often worked with the Dept. of Theatre’s New Playwrights program, directing several new works by graduate student playwrights. These plays appeared in the Christian Moe Theatre and include: The Haunting of Three West by Vincent Rhomberg (2004), Falling Up by Eric Pals (2003), Kissing Betelgeuse, by Margie Pignataro (2001), and Fun With Living Corpses by Michael Gonzales (2000). She has also directed writer-performers in their own one person shows: Sideshow, written and performed by Nico Wood (2013), and Drowning A Diary: Revisioning Virginia Woolf, written and performed by Alison Fisher (2007). Both productions were presented in the Kleinau Theatre.

Dr. Pineau’s interest in solo performance led to her writing and performing 2 full length, original one person shows, based on autobiographical and familial experiences. Nursing Mother explored the dynamics of caregiving for infants and aging parents. It was first performed in the Kleinau Theatre in 1998 and later toured several Midwest universities. The script and framing artist’s essay were published in the millennial issue of Text and Performance Quarterly (January 2000). A two-act original script, Shadowboxing: Myths and Miniatures of Home is based on her childhood in northern Canada and her parents’ environmental activism on behalf of indigenous people. It was first produced in the Kleinau Theatre in 2005 and revived in 2013 as a dinner theatre for a local venue, The Old Feed Store in Cobden. A digital copy of Shadowboxing with accompanying script and essay were published in the online performance journal Liminalities in 2005

Retirement has allowed Elyse more opportunities for acting, and most recently she appeared as Mother Miriam Ruth in the Stage Company’s production ofAgnes of God, directed by Kevin Purcell. She continues to work on the Kleinau stage, performing in two new plays by Jason Hedrick, The Adventures of Nick Carter (2015) and Vanya on the Plains (2017). She has often worked with David Rush in staged readings of his new plays, such as Estelle Singerman in 2004, and Women of Choice, which was presented at the Stage Company in 2009 as a benefit performance to raise funds for the local Women’s Center. She directed Rush’s play Miller and the Jabberwock for the 2016 Stage Company season and she is preparing to reprise a role in his upcoming play based on letters from the Civil War. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, will be the second play she has directed for the Stage Company, and she is excited to explore such a timely and thought-provoking work.

Original source can be found here.