2009-10 Mainstage Season

For ticketing information, reservations, and directions to our theatres, please contact the Cornell College Box Office.

The Diary of Anne Frank

By Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
Newly Adapted by Wendy Kesselman
Directed by Mark Hunter
A co-production with Riverside Theatre

Kimmel Theatre
October 15, 16, 17 at 7:30 p.m.
October 18 at 2:00 p.m.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning account of a sensitive Jewish girl struggling with adolescence while hiding with her family and their associates from the Nazis needs no introduction.  Kesselman’s acclaimed new adaptation of the play makes thoughtful use of recently recovered segments of Anne’s diary to deepen our understanding both of the cultural context of the events and to present a much more complex (and less sentimental) Anne than we have hitherto known.

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown!

Based on the Comic Strip "Peanuts" by Charles M. Schulz
Book, Music and Lyrics by Clark Gesner
Additional Dialogue by Michael Mayer
Additional Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa
Directed by Jim VanValen

Plumb-Fleming Studio Theatre
December 4, 11, 12 at 7:30 p.m.
December 5, 6, 12, 13 at 2 p.m.

You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown! is the Tony Award-winning musical which depicts an average day in the life of Charles M. Schulz’s beloved Peanuts gang. This family-friendly production journeys through the innocence of childhood crushes to the great anticipation of baseball season. The 1999 revision of the show adds several songs to the original score, and like the original, offers performers an opportunity to celebrate some of the dimensions of story-telling while warming the hearts of its audiences.

Arabian Nights

By Mary Zimmerman
Directed by Greg Redlawsk

Kimmel Theatre
February 12, 13, 19, 20 at 7:30 p.m.
February 14 at 2:00 p.m.

Mary Zimmerman’s theatrical adaptation of the Middle Eastern classic One Thousand and One Nights , tells the story of Scheherazade and the tales she spins to keep herself alive while at the mercy of her new husband, the mad Caliph Shahryar. Her shimmering tales of love, lust, morality, and power (with plenty of humor as well) fascinate and entertain, even while reminding us of the tragic contemporary context of this rich and storied culture.

Akarui

A new play by Jennifer Silverman
Directed by Mark Hunter

Kimmel Theatre
April 16, 17, 23, 24 at 7:30 p.m.
April 18 at 2:00 p.m.

A witch with an appetite for scientific investigation and a split personality, experimenting on the body of a young (and very conscious) murder victim; the murder victim’s psychotic killer,  torn between violent impulses and a poetic conscience: a socially reclusive young tranny (changing from a female into a male); the impossibly sexy Brazilian musician who has taken an interest in the transboi; and a manta ray transforming into something human …  all these characters convene at a warehouse at the end of the world, where DJ Akarui is laying down beats and conducting a rave in which all transformations are possible.  Silverman’s extraordinary play is a unique theatrical event of explosive imagination, riveting energy, and penetrating insights.