Theatre MSU kicks off another season in McComas Hall Friday evening with performances of two short plays by Tennessee Williams. Jo Durst directs the pair of one-acts, “Twenty-Seven Wagons Full of Cotton” and “The Unsatisfactory Supper.”
“Cotton” is a disturbing, sometimes darkly comic story about two competing farmers and the woman in the middle of their conflict. When one farmer’s act of arson destroys his rival’s cotton gin, the rival seeks revenge — through the arsonist’s wife. “Supper” mourns the obsolescence of an elderly woman whose family is starting to find little use for her.
In 1956, the plays were famously combined and altered into Williams’ script for Elia Kazan’s controversial film “Baby Doll.”
Performances of the one-acts will be in the McComas Hall Lab Theatre at 7:30 p.m. and 9 p.m., with the cast of Lindsey Cacamo, Houston Longino, Lily Macias and Ian Stoutenburgh.
The Friday performances are a trial run for the plays’ upcoming engagements at the first annual Provincetown Tennessee Williams Festival in Massachusetts Sept. 27-30.
The four-day event will feature screenings of classic Williams films, re-workings and re-interpretations of Williams texts and performances of some of his plays. Other colleges sending shows to the event include the University of the South, Bennington College and Boston College.
Durst said she relishes the chance to rub shoulders with theatre professionals from around the globe and hopes to give them a good show.
“This is an opportunity to demonstrate the excellence of our theatre program, the ambitions of our school and the culture of our state,” she said.
Later in the Theatre MSU season, Durst will bring Jean Giraudoux’s satirical “The Madwoman of Chaillot” to the McComas Hall mainstage. The play focuses on the efforts of eccentric Countess Aurelia (Lily Macias) and her friends to rid Paris of a greedy prospector who wants to deface the city by drilling for oil beneath its streets.
A cast of 26 will bring the comedy to life Oct. 19-21 and again at the MSU-hosted Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in early November.
Durst said the play’s stabs at international corruption and oil crises reflect the time we live in and that audiences will enjoy the show’s characters and script.
In mid-November director Marianne Ulmer will take over the mainstage with “The Emperor’s Nightingale,” an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s fable about a songbird’s relationship with a materialistic ruler.
This fall’s children’s show, aimed at audiences (specifically bused-in school groups) under the age of 12, “Nightingale” stresses the importance of respect in friendship and, as Ulmer put it, “teaches the valuable lesson that outward appearances are no indication of inner beauty.”
Theatre MSU will also host several special events over the fall semester. The state level of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, a competition for college productions with national finals in Washington, D.C., returns to MSU for the third time in five years Nov. 1-4, and the North Mississippi High School Drama Festival returns Dec. 1-2.
There are also performances of the Lab Rats Improv Troupe throughout the semester. The increasingly popular student comedy group, an extension of the group formerly known as Runnin’ With Scissors, sold out its first two performances in the Lab Theatre Friday and shows no signs of slowing down.
On Sept. 29 and 30, Lab Rats will host the first annual Southeastern Comedy Arts Festival on the McComas mainstage. Comedy troupes from surrounding states will attend the event and compete publicly at all forms of improv from sketch to shortform to perhaps even standup comedy.
The event is the brainchild of the Lab Rats’ managing director James Comans.
“To attend the nearest event of this type, you’d have to go to Atlanta or Dallas,” Comans said. “A few years ago I heard they had one in Memphis, but these festivals are pretty sparse. The fact that Mississippi State students put in the work to make sure [this festival] happened right here [in Starkville] is a testament to the strength of Theatre MSU and the market for quality performances.”
The festival includes three shows: Sept. 29’s “Southeastern Idol,” a variety show in which a panel of judges and the audience will vote for their favorite performers in certain categories; Sept. 30’s “Improv Cage Match,” in which teams from as far as Jackson and Memphis will square off tournament-style for title of Southeast’s funniest troupe, and “Egg Bowl of Comedy.”
“Egg Bowl” will feature the best of Lab Rats versus a hand-picked team from Oxford’s improv group Laff Co.
“The exciting thing about this, is that it’s the first time our two improv troupes have ever gone head to head,” Comans said. We’ve been trying to arrange this for years, and the time has finally come for the rivalry to hit the stage.”