Theatre alumni are invited to reserve two complimentary tickets to ANY mainstage, ANY performance! Please contact the Theatre Box Office to reserve your tickets! theatretix@vcu.edu / 804-828-6026
School Girls; Or, The African Mean Girls Play
By Jocelyn Bioh
Directed by Katrinah Carol Lewis (BFA ’03)
February 23rd – 26th, 2023
School Girls is a funny, biting commentary on beauty pageants, as seen through the eyes of young Ghanaian hopefuls attending a boarding school in 1986. Paulina, the reigning queen bee at the Aburi Girls’ school has a squad of minions and is the top choice for the Miss Ghana Beauty Pageant…until a new beautiful and poised transfer student enters the scene. Plans are foiled, secrets are spilled and feelings are hurt as the girls try to navigate this tricky thing known as adolescence and deal with colorism, classism, and bullying.
The department is delighted to have Guest Director Katrinah Carol Lewis directing this project. Lewis is an award-winning actress, singer, director, playwright, and historical interpreter based in Richmond, Virginia. She currently serves as the Artistic Director of Museum Theatre for Colonial Williamsburg where she has written, directed, performed and/or facilitated the development of numerous theatre pieces. Lewis is a proud of alum of VCUarts Theatre, earning her Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003.
Rent
Book, Music, and Lyrics by Jonathan Larson
Direction – Desirée Dabney
Choreography – Wes Seals
Musical Direction – Elle Meerovich
April 21st – 30th, 2023
Set in the East Village of New York City, Rent is about falling in love, finding your voice and living for today. Winner of the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Rent has become a pop cultural phenomenon with songs that rock and a story that resonates with audiences of all ages.
Based loosely on Puccini’s La Boheme, Jonathan Larson’s Rent follows a year in the life of a group of impoverished young artists and musicians struggling to survive and create in New York’s Lower East Side, under the shadow of HIV/AIDS. How these young bohemians negotiate their dreams, loves and conflicts provides the narrative thread to this groundbreaking musical.
Compiled by Sarah Moore ( Department Marketing & PR Coordinator) for the February 2023 Theatre Alumni newsletter