The cast and crew of MTSU Theatreâs final spring 2017 production donât mind that some audiences may be unfamiliar with the strangeness of kin that permeates the classic âA Streetcar Named Desireâ April 6-9 in Tucker Theatre.
âThe crazy thing is that college students, they donât know this play. They didnât grow up with the movie; itâs famous to their parents but wasnât to them,â says Murfreesboro sophomore Conner McCabe, whoâs taking on the role of Stanley Kowalski, one of American theaterâs most iconic and most challenging male characters.
âBy limiting ourselves to the standard way of doing âStreetcar,â itâs actually much more freeing to us to tell the story to a generation that hasnât heard it and maybe needs to hear it. âĤ Stanley was a ânormal husbandâ back then. Heâs in a lot of places now. You probably know a Stanley.â
Advance tickets, available at http://www.mtsuarts.com, are $10 general admission and $5 for K-12 students and senior citizens 55 and older. Curtain times are 7 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, April 6-8, and 2 p.m. Sunday, April 9.
Tickets also will be available at the Tucker Theatre box office 90 minutes before curtain times. You can watch a video preview at http://youtu.be/wMJxVzpyCqg, and a full listing of the âStreetcarâ cast and crew is available at http://ow.ly/hZla30arsRX.
MTSUâs also offering a special lecture, âCatching a 70-Year-Old Streetcar: Why Williamsâ Play Still Matters,â at 5 p.m. opening night, April 6, in Tucker Theatre featuring MTSU English professor and Tennessee Williams scholar Robert Bray. The lecture is free and open to the public, and attendees will receive a free ticket voucher good for one performance through the showâs run.
Megan Castleberry, a Cleveland, Tennessee, junior, whoâs portraying Stella Kowalski, realized that playwright Williams was making a clear point in creating her character as a shrinking violet alongside her hothouse magnolia sister Blanche DuBois, played by Knoxville senior Hannah Ewing.
âSheâs the person who sees bad things happen and doesnât do anything about them,â Castleberry said of Stella. âI think Williams was trying to say to not be like her.
âWhen you see someone who is hurt or see someone who is struggling in a situation, you should not sit aside and wait and make sure itâll be okay but speak up and take action âĤ especially when you feel like you want to stay quiet.â
Ewing, whoâs tackling the white-gloved, powdered Blanche before she graduates in May, said sheâs enjoying the high-speed test created by presenting the classic drama during a first for Tucker Theatre: three major plays in a single semester.
âI think you can kind of get stuck âĤ [and] not allow yourself to push past a way youâve been doing a certain way of acting,â Ewing said.
âI can push myself in this role to a professional level in an undergraduate setting. This [four-week turnaround] has presented the challenge of putting a show up fast and really diving in deep, not only into the character but into the background of the character.â
Stage manager Justin Dixon, a Lafayette, Tennessee, sophomore who joked that he âonly watches the show,â said being a part of a classic is âan extreme privilege.â
âItâs presented so many opportunities for everyone, whether youâre an actor or on the design team or whatever other role,â he said. âThereâs so much you can do with it. Thereâs so much to learn. Itâs such a well-known piece of theater that I feel everyone should experience âA Streetcar Named Desireâ at least once in their lives.â
For more information about the MTSU Theatre production, visit http://www.mtsuarts.com.