2020-2021 Current Season
All events are subject to change.
For more ticket information contact the Fine Arts box office at (316) 978-3233 or click here
Fall 2020
The Monty Hall Problem
Online Theatre Production
Release date: October 29-November 1
Original Script by Ben Connor, Winner of the 2020 Annual Wichita State University Theatre National Playwriting Competition
Theatre 2nd Stage Production, Directed by Jeannine Russell
Description: Where does the smartest woman in the world go for advice? That very question is examined in this fictional reflection of Marilyn vos Savant. In 1993, wrestling with the backlash from a widely read and controversial magazine column she’s written, Marilyn visits her therapist. A logic puzzle that ought to be purely imaginary takes menacing shape when a saccharine game show host interrupts the session. Marilyn, her therapist and Daytime Emmy-Award winner Monty Hall match wits in a reflection on doors, goats, and what it means to be right.
Musical Theatre Senior Capstone Project
Online Musical Theatre Production
Release date: December 3, 2020 @ 7pm
Description: A virtual Musical Theatre performance presented by the Musical Theatre Seniors.
Kansas Dance Festival
Online Dance Production
Release date: Nov. 20-21
Directed by Nick Johnson & Dance Faculty with original choreography by WSU dance faculty & students
Description: The Kansas Dance Festival 2020 is an annual event where Wichita State University/Dance hosts regional university dance programs in a shared, live performance in Wilner Auditorium on the WSU campus. KDF presents the latest choreography from each of the participating universities. This year, due to the Covid Pandemic, submissions are dance films, visual poetry meant to be viewed through the lens of a camera. With careful us of masks, sanitizer and social distancing, VISITORS was created. Enjoy!
She Moves the Prairie
Online Dance Production
Filmed in person Fall 2020
Presented online Spring 2021
Release date: TBD
Description: A sociocultural dance film project focusing on patterns of work done by women on Kansas farms in the early 1900’s. Dance faculty Cheyla Clawson, in collaboration with SPA students, will create movement phrases and ideas based on the lives of several women who farmed in Kansas in the early 20th century. The movement phrases will capture women’s physical labor practices on several rural farms. Through abstracting the body practices of female farmers, a full dance will be created to present in a final film in collaboration with film faculty Bret Jones and students from Theatre, Music and Shocker Studios.
Spring 2021
[title of show]
Musical Theatre Production
Presented online or in Wilner Auditorium (TBD as health & safety allows)
Date: March 25-27, 2021 @ 7p & March 28, 2021 @ 2p
Directed by Trevor Seyl
Music & Lyrics by Jeff Bowen; Book by Hunter Bell
Description: Jeff and Hunter, two struggling writers, hear about a new musical theatre festival in New York. However, the deadline for submissions is a mere three weeks away. They gather their two actress friends, Susan and Heidi, and their accompanist and music director, Larry. With the full team assembled, Jeff and Hunter decide to write a musical about two guys writing a musical! [title of show]—taken from the space on the festival’s application form which asks for the [title of show]—follows Hunter and Jeff and their friends on their journey through the gauntlet of creative self-expression. In the span of 90 minutes they write and perform their show at the festival and learn lessons about themselves as people, friends and artists. [title of show] is, above all, a love letter to the musical theatre—a uniquely American art form—and to the joy of collaboration. The musical received a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical in 2009.
Voices in the Void
Online Theatre Production
Release date: March 11-14
Directed by Danette Baker
Description: An original work created by students and faculty centering around a group of twenty-somethings and their struggles to find their own, personal voice.
Kansas Lineage
Dance Production
Release date: March 9-13 @ multiple venues TBD in the community & on-campus
Research project with Cheyla Clawson & Twyla Hill (Sociology)
Description: The project, KANSAS LINEAGE, explores identity associated with place based on older Kansas women’s shared stories of matrilineal heritage. Through partnerships with several Wichita assisted living communities, the project will capture and document the important stories of older women Kansans through personal interviews. Cross-disciplinary collaboration will occur between Wichita State undergraduate dance and sociology researchers. Assisted living home participants will be asked to share their most salient memories of their mother’s home and land as well as their grandmother’s home and land. Wichita State sociology and dance students and faculty researchers will work together from September 2020 through March 2021 to conduct interviews and discover themes of identity with place with women across several older adult communities ending in final research presentations/performances.
Spring Dance Concert
Dance Production
Date: April 9-10
Directed by Nick Johnson with dance faculty & students
Description: A celebration of dance by the students and faculty.
Opera TBD
Opera Production
Date: April 22-25 @ Miller Concert Hall, DFAC (TBD as health & safety allows)
Rule of Three
Theatre Film Series Production
Streaming: April 23-24
Written & directed by Bret Jones
Description: Douglas, a talented English major, is haunted by three ghosts when his girlfriend, fellow student, and professor all die on the same day at the same time. Rule of Three is a 4 episode comedy-drama series about Douglas trying to live his life with three spirits now a part of it.
Gumshoes
Theatre Production
Stagestruck Audio Theatre 3-Episode Series
Podcast release throughout the 2020-21 academic year on Apple Podcasts & Podomatic
Description: An inept, but conniving detective opens his agency only to have it hijacked by an unexpected partner in the business.