The Nevada Conservatory Theatre (NCT) at UNLV announces its 2009-10 season. The NCT is the professional theatre-training program of UNLV and is committed to bringing to Las Vegas the highest quality theatre by featuring professional artists and advanced students recruited from around the country. Their mission is to entertain, provoke and inspire. For ticket information on any performance, or for season ticket information, please call 895-ARTS (2787).
2009-2010 Main Season
Company
Book by George Furth, Music, Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
- Dates: Oct. 2-11, 2009
- Location: Judy Bayley Theatre
- Synopsis: The clashing sounds and pulsing rhythms of New York City underscore this landmark "concept" show that inaugurated the modern era of musical theatre. In search of happiness Robert breezes through encounters with April (the stewardess), Kathy (the girl who's going to marry someone else), Marta (the "peculiar" one). In vignette after hilarious vignette, we also meet "those good and crazy people," his married friends. On the night of his 35th birthday, confirmed bachelor Robert contemplates his unmarried state weighing the pros and cons of married life. In the end, he realizes "alone is not alive."
Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol
By David H. Bell
- Dates: Nov. 27-Dec. 13, 2009
- Location: Judy Bayley Theatre
- Synopsis: Ebenezer Scrooge is a penny-pinching miser. He cares nothing for the people around him and mankind exists only for the money that can be made through exploitation and intimidation. Bah Humbug! He particularly detests Christmas which he views as “a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer”. Three spirits, ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, lead Scrooge through time showing him the error of his ways. In the end, will Scrooge become “as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew”? Join us to find out.
All My Sons
By Arthur Miller
- Dates: Jan. 29-Feb. 7, 2010
- Location: Judy Bayley Theatre
- Synopsis: During the war Joe Keller and Herbert Deever ran a machine shop which made airplane parts. Deever was sent to prison because the firm turned out defective parts, causing the deaths of many men. Keller went free and made a lot of money. The twin shadows of this catastrophe and the fact that the young Keller son was reported missing during the war dominate the action. The love affair of Chris Keller and Ann Deever, the bitterness of George Deever returned from the war to find his father in prison and his father's partner free, are all set in a structure of almost unbearable power.
The Little Dog Laughed
By Douglas Carter Beane
- Dates: Feb. 26-Mar. 7, 2010
- Location: Judy Bayley Theatre
- Synopsis: Yes, we love the cinema for its great auteurs, its glorious faces and its daring images. But in this tabloid age where big stars go on Oprah and jump around like heartsick schoolboys, what we really love is all that dish! Mitchell Green could hit big if his agent, Diane, can keep him in the closet. Trying to help him navigate Hollywood's choppy waters, she does all she can to keep Mitchell away from the cute boy who's caught his eye and the boy's girlfriend (wait, the cute boy has a girlfriend?). Will there be a happy ending as the final credits roll? (Adult content)
A Midsummer Night's Dream
By William Shakespeare
- Dates: Apr. 23-May 2, 2010
- Location: Judy Bayley Theatre
- Synopsis: Four Athenian lovers, mismatched in their desires, seek refuge on a moonlit night in an enchanted forest. They become enmeshed in a domestic dispute between the King and Queen of Fairies, and their lives - and loves - are forever changed. The mischievous Puck and Bottom the Weaver are the midsummer night’s masters of intrigue, weaving tales of love, magic, and mistaken identity. In this topsy-turvy world the natural and the supernatural collide for uproarious knock-about comedy. The Bard at his best!
2009-2010 Second Season
Reasons to be Pretty
By Neil LaBute
- Dates: Sept. 18-27, 2009
- Location: Black Box Theatre
- Synopsis: A love story about the impossibility of love from one of the most important new voices in the American theatre. Greg really, truly, adores his girlfriend, Steph. Unfortunately, he also thinks she has a few physical imperfections, and when he casually mentions them, all hell breaks loose. A hopelessly romantic drama about the hopelessness of romance.
New Play Festival, Pink Champagne
By Neil Haven
- Dates: Nov. 4-8, 2009
- Location: Black Box Theatre
- Synopsis: Gene and Amy, a small-town couple with a strained marriage, chase down their mouthy seventeen-year-old son to Gene’s estranged gay father’s house for an impromptu family reunion.
The Way It Has To Be
By Jeremiah Munsey
- Dates: Nov. 11-15, 2009
- Location: Black Box Theatre
- Synopsis: When her older brother Michael goes missing after a fist fight, Siobhan fears the worst. Will she be able to keep the rest of her family out of the cycle of violence?
Whales, Save Us!
By Elizabeth Leavitt
- Dates: Nov. 18-22, 2009
- Location: Black Box Theatre
- Synopsis: A former rodeo queen, peg-legged paparrazo, an aging business man and a has-been celebrity are thrown together on the shore of British Columbia. Joined by a pod of whales and a troop of Girl Scouts, these four collide in confusion, catastrophe and cookies.
The Musical of Musicals
By Joanne Bogart and Eric Rockwell
- Dates: Mar. 12-21, 2010
- Location: Black Box Theatre
- Synopsis: In this hilarious satire of musical theatre, one story becomes five delightful musicals, each written in the distinctive style of a different master of the form, from Rodgers and Hammerstein to Stephen Sondheim. June is an ingenue who can't pay the rent and is threatened by her evil landlord. Will the handsome leading man come to the rescue? A comic valentine to musical theatre.
