Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Looking for a great antidote for the winter doldrums? Take a quick trip to the Cornell Schwartz Center to see the witty and poignant play Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon.
   
A Best Play Tony Award winner, Biloxi Blues continues the saga of Eugene Morris Jerome's adolescence and manhood begun in Simon's play Brighton Beach Memoirs. Biloxi Blues, a semi-autobiographical play, follows Eugene and his fellow recruits through basic training in Biloxi, Mississippi, in 1943.

"Neil Simon is an American treasure, a latter day version of Moliere, Aristophanes, and GB Shaw rolled into one. Simon takes a bunch of patriotic, hormone-driven young yahoos in 1943 and stuffs them into a Army boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi -- mixes in a local married prostitute and a good Catholic girl from St. Mary's School, along with a barely sane top sergeant with a metal plate in his head, and lights the fuse with a comic blow torch," said J. G. Hertzler, Director and Resident Professional Teaching Associate.


Cast members are: Joe Redondo as Roy Selridge, Chris Romeo as Joseph Wykowski, Rockwell Shah as Don Carney, Ryan Stanisz as Eugene Jerome, Marc Hem Lee as Arnold Epstein, RPTA Jeffrey Guyton as Sargeant Toomey, Myles Rowland as James Hennessey, Alexandra Bradley as Rowena, and Alessandra Hirsch as Daisy.

Creating the world of an Army boot camp during WWII are scenic designer Tim Ostrander, costume designer Richard MacPike, lighting designer Ford Sellers, and sound designer Zach Lipton (Advanced Undergraduate Theatre Program).

Neil Simon has written more Broadway hits than any other American playwright. Many have been turned into movies with screenplays written by Simon himself, including The Odd Couple, The Sunshine Boys, Biloxi Blues, and The Goodbye Girl.

Biloxi Blues performances run February 17-21, 24-27 at 7:30 pm and February 21 and 27 at 2:00 pm.

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