'The Glass Menagerie' Opens April 30

OBU Theatre will present the famous Tennessee Williams play, "The Glass Menagerie," beginning Thursday, April 30, at 7:30 p.m. in the Craig-Dorland Theatre in Shawnee Hall on OBU's campus.

Buy your tickets for The Glass Menagerie.

The production will run through Sunday, May 3. Evening performances begin at 7:30 p.m. April 30, May 1 and May 2. There will also be two afternoon showings, at 2:30 p.m. May 2 and 3. Tickets are $11 for adults and $5 for students. The May 1 production will feature a special talkback session following the play which will include a panel of three OBU professors.

"The Glass Menagerie" is a semi-autobiographical American classic written by Tennessee Williams which plants the audience into the world of three fragile family members struggling to maintain their own illusions of innocence, independence and fulfillment.

Set in a 1930s St. Louis tenement house, "The Glass Menagerie" provides audiences with a transparent picture of the struggles to break from a bleak present in an effort to secure a bright future. Three OBU students, Jonathan Brown, Lizzy Grimes and Matthew Martin, will be joined by OBU Professor of Communication Arts Vickie Ellis, in the heartbreakingly tender, but often humorous, commentary on the human condition.

OBU's production will be directed by Dr. Jeffrey Wells, associate professor of theater and division chair of communication arts at OBU. Wells, whose resume includes the direction of more than 20 full-length plays, has been teaching theatre and communication at the college level since 1991.

"The excitement of producing Tennessee Williams' 'The Glass Menagerie' is in its deceptively simple and beautifully complex storyline. The Wingfield family, like its home country, is on the brink of monumental change. This provides the perfect backdrop against which to take the audience on a roller-coaster ride of emotion. My hope is that our audience will leave the theatre both entertained and provoked."

Tickets are currently on sale. The OBU box office can be reached Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. by calling (405) 878-2347.