“Private Lives" at Augustana College -- April 25 through 28.
Thursday, April 25, through Sunday, April 28
Augustana College's Honkamp Myhre Black Box Theatre, 3750 Seventh Avenue, Rock Island IL
A 1930 Noel Coward play that has emerged as one of the most enduring comedies of the last 100 years, Private Lives will enjoy a student-directed and -performed April 25 through 28 run at Augustana College's Honkamp Myhre Black Box Theatre, with past productions of this supremely witty work attracting such stage and screen talents as Richard Burton, Alan Rickman, Tallulah Bankhead, Elizabeth Taylor, Elaine Stritch, Maggie Smith, and Succession's Matthew Macfadyen.
In Private Lives, passion, laughter, romance, anger, and love set the stage for a battle of the sexes as a divorced couple, Emmanuel and Elyot, find themselves unwittingly thrown together in Coward’s classic comedy of manners. Unknowingly booking adjoining rooms while on honeymoon with their respective spouses, Victor and Sibyl, Emmanuel and Elyot are forced to face their true feelings for each other. Realizing they have made a pair of mistaken marriages, the divorcees attempt to escape their mismatched partners. With haste, and under the cover of darkness, they flee their honeymoon hotel and unsuspecting spouses in search of privacy at Emmanuel’s secluded Paris flat. Despite their passion for each other, however, Emmanuel and Elyot begin to bicker violently, just as they had done during their marriage. It is clear that the couple cannot live with each other. Yet equally clearly, they cannot live without each other, either.
Directing and scenic designing Private Lives is Augustana senior Grey White, who previously appeared in the college's productions of Cabaret and The Memo, and acted as stage manager for presentations of Dracula, a feminist revenge tragedy and Small Mouth Sounds. The warring Emmanuel and Elyot are respectively played by DJ Roberts and Noah Johnson, with the bickering divorcees' new spouses portrayed by Catie Karn and Allie McPeak, with Dash Crow completing the ensemble as Emmanuel's French maid Louise.
Alyssa Ogrodny serves as White's stage manager, and additional members of the Private Lives creative team include: assistant director Pheonix Martin; assistant stage managers Brian Danielson, Jensen Stoneking, and Paige Whitney; costume designer Katie Sanders; lighting designer AJ Friel; sound designer Natalie Hansen; assistant sound designer Joe Burck; props master Paige Whitney; hair and makeup designer Bailey Hacker; master electrician Sean Halloran; scenic charge Jensen Stoneking; light board operator Haley Chellberg; and dramaturg Jean Tegtmeyer.
Private Lives will be staged in the Honkamp Myhre Black Box Theatre of Augustana College's Brunner Theatre Center April 25 through 28, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m. Admission is $7-10, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)794-7306 and visiting Augustana.edu/arts/ticket-office.
