Renaissance Repertory Company plans exciting theatre season

Release Date: 9/26/2002. Expired: 11/9/2002

The Renaissance Repertory Theatre Company has an ambitious and exciting 2002-03 season planned while also welcoming two new members to The Renaissance Center’s in-house professional acting troupe.

The six-member Rep Co. presents professional theatrical productions for thousands of students on field trips from schools all across Tennessee. Since opening in 1999, The Renaissance Center has hosted more than 85,000 children on educational and entertaining outings.

Each semester of the school year, the Rep Co. offers professional productions for all age levels that can be integrated into school curriculum and each production includes study guides that enable teachers to continue the lessons in the classrooms. Selected Rep Co. shows also are presented in public performances.

For the fall 2002 semester, the Rep Co. is offering Blanca Flor for students in grades K-4 and And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank for students in grades 5-12.

Written by Kim Leavitt, the center’s director of Theatre Education and Community Outreach, Blanca Flor is based on the Mexican-American version of the classic tale of Snow White and its subsequent assimilation into Mexican culture.

“Blanca Flor will entertain young audiences while introducing them to the culture and language of our southern neighbors,” said Hal Partlow, managing director of the Rep Co. “Using audience interaction, the actors will bring this exciting tale of the popular heroine to life.”

And Then They Came for Me is a unique theatrical experience that consists of a multimedia play that weaves interviews with Holocaust survivors Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss with the live re-creations of scenes from their lives during World War II.

“Ed was Anne Frank’s first boyfriend and she wrote about him in the beginning of her now-famous diary,” Partlow said. “Eva was the same age as Anne and lived in the same apartment building in Amsterdam and her family went into hiding the same day as the Frank family.”

Part oral history, part dramatic action, part direct address, part remembrance, this play breaks new ground and has been acclaimed by audiences and critics across the United States.

And Then They Came for Me will be presented in a public performance at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $5 for children under 13.

Both Blanca Flor and And Then They Came for Me will be offered again for the spring 2003 semester, as well as two new productions. Available in the spring will be Hansel and Gretel for grades K-4 and Amelia Lives for grades 5-12.

Grimm’s classic fairy tale about Hansel and Gretel, a brother and sister who run away from home only to escape the clutches of an evil witch, is being adapted for the stage by Leavitt.

“Every child grows up with the story of Hansel and Gretel and their confrontation with the evil witch,” Partlow said. “Young school children will be drawn in to the action as the siblings battle for their lives in learning the classic lesson that there really is no place like home.”

Amelia Lives is a one-woman show chronicling the life and adventures of aviatrix Amelia Earhart, who blazed new trails for women and aviation before her mysterious disappearance on an attempt to fly around the globe.

“Earhart’s forthright determination and her desire to do things just for the fun of it make this show an inspirational as well as an educational experience,” Partlow said. “The audiences will get the chance to see a side of Amelia they’ve probably never known.”

Amelia Lives will be presented in a public performance at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 19, as part of The Renaissance Center’s celebration of International Astronomy Day.

“This is perhaps our most exciting Rep Co. season so far,” said Partlow. “I am looking forward to the chance to bring these professional, live theatre productions to children across Middle Tennessee.”

The theatrical productions are just a part of the 2002-03 field trip offerings at The Renaissance Center, which also include art, music and computer activities, science theatre, planetarium and laser music shows in the CyberSphere Digital Theatre, art gallery exhibits and many other activities at an affordable cost. For more information on field trips, contact Janine Langley at (615)740-5566 or .

The two Rep Co. public performances also are part of the 2002-03 season passes available for community theatre and dinner theatre. For more information on tickets for the shows or season passes, call The Renaissance Center’s ticket office at (615)740-5570.

For more information on the Renaissance Repertory Theatre Company, contact Partlow at (615)740-5527.

The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

Visit the Theatre page for more about community and professional theatre.

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