THEATRE IS FOR EVERYBODY!
Become a part of a vibrant, on-campus community dedicated to growth, learning, and connection. Whether you’re looking to expand your creative skills, meet like-minded individuals, or simply find inspiration, there’s a place for you here onstage or behind the scenes. The skills and experiences you gain working in the theatre will last you a lifetime in whatever your chosen field may be. Join us today and super-charge your UWS experience!
- Earn course credit for working on a play
- Add a Theatre Minor or Theatre and Digital Film Making Major
- Courses offered in:
- Acting for the Camera
- Acting Shakespeare
- Intro to Acting
- Intro to Theatre
- Directing for the Stage
- Work study opportunities in our costume and scene shops
- Join our student organization
- Stretch your creative muscles in new ways
- Be part of a caring and inclusive community on campus
For more information email Assistant Professor and Director of Theatre Sean Naughton at snaughto@uwsuper.edu
UWS Theatre 2024-25 Season
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind
By Greg Allen
Directed by Sean Naughton
Performance Dates
- October 17th, 18th, 19th & 20th
Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind is an ensemble experiment in presenting “30 Plays in 60 Minutes.” The original production opened in 1988 and is still playing today as the longest-running show in Chicago history. Each two-minute play is performed in random order with an interactive audience. An onstage 60-minute timer keeps everyone honest. This collection of comic, tragic, political, personal, and abstract plays gives actors the chance to program a unique evening of 30 Neo-Futurist plays to reflect the lives and experiences of our own world.
The Wolves
By Sarah Delappe
Directed by Jess Hughes
Performance Dates
- November 8th, 9th & 10th
- November 14th, 15th & 16th
The Wolves by Sarah Delappe is a timely play about a girls’ high school soccer team that illuminates, with the unmistakable ping of reality, the way young selves are formed when innate character clashes with external challenges. From the safety of their suburban stretch circle, the team navigates big questions and wages tiny battles with all the vim and vigor of a pack of adolescent warriors. A portrait of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for nine American girls who just want to score some goals.
Twelfth Night
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Sean Naughton
Performance Dates
- March 28th, 29th & 30th
- April 3rd, 4th & 5th
In Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Viola and her twin brother Sebastian have been shipwrecked and each believes the other to be drowned. Viola disguises herself as a young man and gets a job as a servant for the Duke, Orsino. Meanwhile, subjects of the beautiful Countess Olivia plot to take revenge on the miserly and uptight butler, Malvolio. Professions of love, song, laughter, drink, and lots of confusion unfolds around mistaken identity, and exactly who has promised what to whom. In the end, all is revealed, the brother and sister are reunited, and the love triangles are resolved in this hilarious comic romp.
The Bronte Sisters: Retrospection / Trial By Jury
The Bronte Sisters: Retrospection by Vicki Fingalson & Wendy Durrwachter
Trial By Jury by W.S. Gilbert & Arthur Sullivan
Directed by Vicki Fingalson
Performance Dates
- April 24th & 25th
The Brontë Sisters: Retrospection by Vicki Fingalson and local composer Wendy Durrwachter. It is a biographical music-play about the 19th Century Literary trailblazers, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. This will be the premiere performance of the 3-person version of the show. It will be paired with Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury, a comic operetta which takes a satirical look at the judicial system. 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of the premiere of this Gilbert & Sullivan classic.
Ticket Information
Facilities
The Theatre Program is located in the Holden and Applied Arts Center, which has multiple performance spaces and the capability to support many different styles of dramatic productions. All of the rooms described below are located in the Holden Fine Arts Center, which is also home to the Music and Art departments.
The Manion TheatreÂ
Our main stage performance venue is a 237-seat proscenium theatre with an asymmetrical layout to both the audience seating and the stage itself. A hydraulic orchestra pit can be raised/lowered for the productions, and the main playing area is trapped. In addition, 32 counter weight line sets allow for flying scenic elements out of view; grid height is 60 feet. The proscenium opening is 40 feet by 20 feet. A lighting designer has access to four electrics on the main battens, several floor pockets, two catwalks and four cove positions. The numerous lighting options available make the Manion Theatre a very flexible venue for lighting designs.
The Experimental Theatre
This venue, also referred to as the Black Box, can seat over 100 patrons and measures 33 feet by 50 feet. This flexible space is used for rehearsals, as a classroom space, and as a venue for special student projects, and occasionally hosts our main stage productions.
The Scene ShopÂ
Our modern scene shop is located directly between the two performance venues, with over-size doors that allow scenery to be built in the shop and then moved to the main stages. A loading dock immediately adjoins the shop. Besides a wide selection of standard power tools and cordless tools for wood working construction, the scene shop is also set up for welding. It has a modern dust collection system and a hooded paint area.
The Green Room
Our Green Room connects directly to the backstage of the Manion Theatre and also serves as a general meeting area for students throughout the year.
Costume Shop & Make-Up
Our Costume Shop area also serves as the general storage area for all fabrics and previous costumes; it is outfitted with multiple sewing machines, sergers and complete laundry facilities. It connects directly to our Make-Up Room, which can easily accommodate a couple of dozen actors at a single sitting.