UCA Theatre will present the critically acclaimed “Arms and the Man” by celebrated playwright George Bernard Shaw in the Bridges/Larson theatre in the Snow Fine Arts Center on the University of Central Arkansas campus in April.
Performances are scheduled for April 12, 13, 19 and 20 at 7:30 p.m., as well as two matinee shows April 14 and 21 at 2 p.m.
Stacy Pendergraft, associate professor of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University, will be guest director.
“I have never directed or acted in Shaw before, so I have enjoyed the challenge of ‘unpacking’ his world view, humor and language both for myself and for the students with whom I’m working,” Pendergraft said.
The cast includes Brynn Woods as Raina Petkoff, Kaelin Taylor as Catherine Petkoff, Sidney Kelly as Louka, Augustine Nguyen as Captain Bluntschli, Saxon Whitehead as Major Petkoff, Zach Ashley as Sergius Saranoff, Taylor Fulgham as Nicola and Nick Bosworth as Russian Soldier.
“Arms and the Man” is a comedy that follows a young woman as she discovers that war is not as glamorous and romantic as she at first assumed. The play begins during the Serbo-Bulgarian War in 1885 and follows through the aftermath of the signing of the peace treaty.
“Ironically, Shaw satirizes the grandiose, romantic notions of going to war by placing the story in the Balkans, a geographic location that has become a hotbed of unrest and decidedly unromantic outcomes in our own time,” Pendergraft said. “So our team has capitalized on the duality of a developing country with a history steeped in Easter ‘otherness’ and a newly-elite social class enthralled by the trappings of Viennese culture.”
Tickets are $10 for the general public and free to UCA students. Tickets are available through UCA Ticket Central located in the box office at Reynolds Performance Hall. Box office hours are 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. The general public may purchase tickets online at www.uca.edu/tickets.
For more information, contact Melissa Pearson, UCA Theatre business manager, at 501-450-5092 or melissap@uca.edu.
The UCA College of Fine Arts and Communication includes the Departments of Art, Music, and Film, Theatre and Creative Writing as well as the School of Communication. The college’s primary mission is the preparation of the next generation of artists, educators and communicators. For more information about CFAC, visit www.uca.edu/cfac or call 501-450-3293.
