Repertory Theatre Term, Feb. 22-March 3

The Knox College Department of Theatre and Dance presents "The Madwoman of Chaillot," a comedy by Jean Giraudoux, and "Working," a musical based on the book by Studs Terkel, from February 22 through March 3. The two plays will be performed in nightly rotation, in Harbach Theatre, Ford Center for the Fine Arts, on the Knox campus in Galesburg, Illinois. Tickets are $10 for adults, $5 for senior citizens, and free to students. Tickets are available at the door, or in advance from the Office of Student Activities, 309 341 7489.

"The Madwoman of Chaillot" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on February 22, 24, 27 and March 1, with a matinee performance at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, March 3. "Working" will be performed at 7:30 p.m. on February 23, 25, 28 and March 2, with an 8 p.m. performance on Saturday, March 3.

"The Madwoman of Chaillot" is a 1943 comedy by French playwright Jean Giraudoux, about a group of vagabonds, led by a "madwoman," trying to block an oil drilling scheme in their city. "Working" is a 1978 Broadway musical co-written by Stephen Schwartz, whose credits also include "Wicked," "Pippin," and "Godspell." The musical is based on the 1974 book "Working: People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do," by Studs Terkel. A renowned Chicago author and oral historian, Terkel was awarded an honorary degree by Knox in 1976.

The plays are a presentation of Knox's Repertory Theatre Term -- Rep Term, as the program is known on campus. The program is a "total immersion" course, in which students fulfill all the tasks that would be handled by a professional repertory theatre company.

During the ten-week course, students enroll in the program for all of their credits. The entire term is spent producing two plays -- the company's "repertoire," hence the term "Repertory" -- which are each presented five times in rotation over the course of ten days.

"Rep Term mimics a professional theatre company experience, giving students major responsibilities in every aspect of the production," said Robert Whitlatch, Seeley Professor of Theatre. "In addition to acting and design, students fill leadership positions in assistant directing, dramaturgy and publicity, as well as the many other hands-on jobs necessary to mount two full-length productions in just under ten weeks."

"It really is a unique program that can only happen at Knox, because it gives all the support that students need to excel," said one of the participants, Eden Newmark, a junior from St. Louis, Missouri, in an interview with the campus newspaper, The Knox Student.

More about the plays
Originally published in 1943 and premiered in the United States in 1949, "The Madwoman of Chaillot" opens with greedy entrepreneurs hatching a destructive plan to drill for oil beneath the city of Paris. "The 'Madwoman,' as the heroine is called, leads the local vagabonds and other eccentrics in an effort to save all of humanity in one afternoon," explains the director, Robert Whitlatch, Seeley Professor of Theatre. The play was last performed at Knox in 1973, in a Repertory Theatre Term production directed by Whitlatch.

A critically acclaimed musical based on the book of the same name by Studs Terkel, "Working" commemorates the daily life of laborers in America. The director of the play, Elizabeth Carlin Metz, associate professor of theatre, describes "Working" as "a musical collage that reveals the struggles and heartaches, and celebrates the accomplishments and pride, of the working people who are the heart and backbone of the nation." The musical features songs by Craig Carnelia, Micki Grant, Mary Rodgers and Susan Birkenhead, Stephen Schwartz, and James Taylor.

Terkel, a Pulitzer Prize winning author, received an honorary doctorate from Knox in 1976. In his remarks to Knox graduates that year, Terkel credited the College's founder, the Reverend George Washington Gale, for a belief  "in the dignity of manual labor and the dignity of learning as one, as fused." Terkel, who interviewed dozens of laborers for his book "Working,"  said in his address at Knox that "there need be no gap between the working man and the scholar, a gap so exploited, especially today, by cheap demagogues playing on the workingman's sense of bitterness and shame."

Writers: Repertory Theatre Term Publicity Committee

Production Credits