The play, based on conversations with local sports fans and players, dramatizes a journey through the “sports universe” as characters search for someone to help them win a high-stakes game to save a university from a malevolent corporate sponsor.
Performances are set for 8 p.m. April 18, 19, 20 and 22 and 3 p.m. April 21-22. There will be no 8 p.m. show on Saturday, April 21. All performances are at the Thrust Theatre, 2314 S. Floyd St.
Theater professor Amy Steiger directs the play. She taught the student playwrights in their ensemble performance and community-based arts class in spring 2011. The story centers on a team of actors that encounters such characters as Big Sweety, a corporate ogre, Lady Sugah, a pop star, and Bradyman, a superhero version of Tom Brady, in a struggle over the future of the university. To save the university, the cast of “players” must learn how to compete in a game they do not know how to play.
The students decided on the sports theme because they saw it as being topical and affecting many people in the community and in the university, according to Steiger. The play took shape from their interviews with sports fans both at UofL and from around the city.
“Theater is a social force.” Steiger said. “Community-based plays create civic engagement and connect the arts and the public around areas of common interest.
“The situations came out of improvisations based on what the community said, and most of the dialogue is composed of either paraphrases or direct quotations from interviewees.”
Show tickets are $12 for the general public, $10 for faculty and staff and $8 for students and senior citizens. For tickets and information, call 502-852-6814 or visit Theatre Arts