After early ending to spring shows, curtains are set to open once again for exciting LU Theatre season

As Liberty University students return to campus in August after a longer time away than usual due to COVID-19, they will have a full season of classic shows performed by the Department of Theatre Arts to look forward to throughout the new academic year.

The department is reviving two events originally scheduled for the spring but canceled due to COVID-19: the musical comedy “The Drowsy Chaperone” (opening Sept. 18) and a national audio theatre convention, Sonic-Con (Oct. 23-27). Department Chair Linda Nell Cooper said the unexpected early ending to the spring theater season was disappointing for the faculty and students, but they are now looking ahead to this second opportunity to display their hard work.

“By the time we get to perform ‘Drowsy Chaperone’ it will be six months since we’ve had a performance, so of course it makes us excited and gives us something to look forward to,” Cooper said. “Our students are so excited that we’ve announced it because taking the shows away in the spring kind of knocked the breath out of them, and now they feel like they can breathe again.”

The seniors who were involved in “Drowsy Chaperone” in the spring have been given an opportunity to return to their roles.

The fall semester will also feature “Our Town,” a classic play that Cooper said is one of her own all-time favorites. She said that the plot and themes of mortality, love, and family can relate to today’s audiences in a new way following the pandemic when it opens on Oct. 9.

“We chose it before this whole health crisis happened, but now that we’ve gone through this crisis, the show seems even more relevant,” Cooper said. “I’m excited for audiences to look at it with fresh eyes.”

Alluvion Stage Company, Liberty’s professional theatre company, will usher in the holiday season with its Dec. 3 opening of “A Christmas Carol,” a musical based on the Charles Dickens’ book.

“We decided that we should make it our Christmas show because Alluvion has never done a Christmas show,” Cooper said. “We want to fill the stage with the colors of Christmas like velvets and greens and have wreathes, candles, snow, and everything that makes you want to sit there and enjoy it.”

After Christmas break, Shakespeare’s fantastical story of “A Midsummer’s Night Dream,” a play that Liberty has not performed in roughly 15 years, will open the spring semester beginning on Feb. 19. Cooper said that new lighting and design elements will provide a new view of the well-known tale.

“Probably the reason we haven’t done ‘A Midsummer’s Night Dream’ in 15 years is because we keep doing all the other Shakespeare plays; we love Shakespeare at LU Theatre,” she said. “We want to try something a little different with this one, and it’s going to have some new lighting design techniques and new equipment for that, and that’s going to be very exciting to bring that fantasy show to life.”

Liberty theatre students will have a chance to perform an original play when “Pen or Pistol” opens on stage on March 26. The play is being written by the Writing Project and funded by a grant from the Center for Research & Scholarship. The project will once again perform a true story from Virginia’s history, bringing to life the journals of Belle Boyd and Elizabeth Van Lew, two female spies on opposing sides of the Civil War.

“It’s another show where the audience will learn something about the history of Virginia, but we’re also hoping that it will be suspenseful and intellectually stimulating because that’s what these women’s writings were,” Cooper said.

Roughly 12 years after its on-campus performance in the old compact Lloyd Theater, “Crazy for You” will begin performances on April 16 in the Tower Theater. Cooper said the new venue gives the show the grand space it deserves, complete with George Gershwin music, tap dancing, classic physical comedy, and wild stage combat.

“It doesn’t get done much because it’s such a complicated dance show and a lot of schools can’t handle that, and that’s one that not a lot of people will be able to see unless they see our production,” Cooper said. “It’s based on an old Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney movie musical called “Girl Crazy” and it’s just delightful.”

Closing out the season will be the play “Doubt” with a four-member cast, which will open on April 30.

“This will give four of our students, probably upperclassmen, a really powerful piece of literature to chomp into,” Cooper said.

The 2020-21 theatre season will bring classic plays to Liberty after audiences have experienced an extended time away, and Cooper said she can’t wait for performances to resume in the fall.

“Being able to announce the season tells our students as well as our audience that we still see a future in theatre and that we’re ready to bring it back as soon as possible,” she said.

Season tickets will go on sale in July. Stay tuned to the Theatre Arts website and social media accounts for more details and showtimes and tickets.

Liberty’s three summer theatre camps — elementary, middle school, and high school — remain on the schedule and will begin on June 10.