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Costume Design by Dianna L. Bourke
The Time: 1978.
The Place: Dante's Disco Inferno, and Celimene's apartment.
There will be no intermission.
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Acknowledgments
The director, cast and crew would like to thank the following for their assistance:
Audience members are requested to refrain from taking photographs or using any type of recording devices during the performance.
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Dianna L. Bourke (Costume Designer) is a recent addition to the Hazleton campus faculty, having begun last August as an assistant professor in the Department of Biology. Although science is her first love, she has always managed to indulge in her second love, the theatre. Previous costuming experience includes working on several productions at University Park as an undergraduate, and designing the costumes for a production of The King And I at the White Barn Theatre in Irwin, PA.
Will Knapp (Stage Manager), after continually getting cast in bit parts in high school plays, finally found his niche behind the scenes during PSU's Dinner Showcase, which he co-directed and co-produced. A journalism major, Will is making his stage managing debut with The Misanthrope.
Michelle L. Eldridge (Assistant Director/Bartender), a sophomore majoring in pre-law/LIR, has had previous theatre experience playing in the orchestra in My Fair Lady. Her most recent performance was convincing a judge that she was innocent of the charge of writing bad checks. She is a member of both the campus radio station and the tennis team.
Lisa Batchelor (Celimene) is a sophomore from Allentown, PA. Last year Lisa appeared in The Rainmaker here on campus, and her other stage credits include Anything Goes in 1988 at Salisbury High School and the Pennsylvania Youth Theatre's production of Peter Pan in 1989 at the Bethlehem Music Fest.
Alicia Floden (Eliante), president of the Society of the Arts, is a sophomore majoring in elementary education. Her many onstage performances include the title character in Alice in Wonderland at the Susquehanna Community Theatre. Alicia recently produced, directed and hosted the PSU Dinner Showcase, and also served as assistant director in last year's production of The Rainmaker.
Gina Hammond (Punk Dancer), a freshman majoring in Broadcast Cable/English, has appeared in many shows, including Anything Goes, The Music Man, Hello, Dolly, and Damn Yankees. Gina is currently the vice-president of the Hazleton Collegian.
Shawn Hartman (DuBois) is making his second appearance on stage, following his performance in last fall's PSU Dinner Showcase. A health ed major, Shawn is an emergency medical technician and a volunteer fireman. He is also the president of BACCHUS here at the Hazleton campus.
Christopher Knapp (DJ) is a first year engineering student at Penn State. He has three years of high school drama experience including props, lighting and sound design with such shows as Grease, My Fair Lady, and the female version of The Odd Couple. Most recently he worked on the PSU Dinner Showcase.
Carolyn Krall (Dancer In Blue), a psychology major from Yardley, PA., has had much experience, both onstage and behind the scenes in such plays as Godspell, Leader of the Pack, Roomers, and Juvie. Carolyn was most recently seen last fall in PSU's Dinner Showcase.
Evan Jay Levy (Acaste), a freshman majoring in liberal arts, has had numerous acting experiences, among them Rocky in Damn Yankees, the Chairman in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Doc in West Side Story, and Mr. Mushnik in Little Shop of Horrors. Evan has also worked at French Woods Theatre Camp and was a member of a traveling comedy improv group called A Streetcar Named Larry.
Erica Martin (Pucelle) has appeared in many shows, among them A Christmas Story, Brighton Beach Memoirs, The Benny Velour Show, Anything Goes, and Oklahoma! She is a sophomore education major.
Sam D. Nicola (Clitandre), a freshman from Shamokin, PA., has played lead roles in Ten Little Indians, I Saved A Winter Just For You, and Jenny Kissed Me. Sam was president of the performing arts club at his high school, and his most recent performance was in the PSU Dinner Showcase.
Natalie E. Paris (Arsinoe) is a freshman majoring in business. This is Natalie's stage debut.
Mark A. Roseberry (The Detective) has many performances under his belt, including Host of The Benny Velour Show and last spring's production of The Rainmaker. This is Mark's third, and he hopes, his last year at Penn State Hazleton.
Whitman Oliver Stansbery (Oronte) was last seen as H.C. Curry in the Penn State Hazleton production of The Rainmaker. Vice-president of the Society of the Arts and an active skier, Whitman is majoring in biology and plans a future in medicine.
Michael J. Urbanas (Philinte), is a sophomore earth science major who recently traveled to Ecuador and also worked in a field hospital in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm. He is making his acting debut with The Misanthrope.
Jason Harriss Vichinsky (Alceste) is a freshman from Brooklyn, New York, double majoring in political science and engineering. He has previously appeared at East Stroudsburg High School as Tom in Tom Sawyer, Macduff in Macbeth, and Iago in Othello. He also starred as Hamlet at the Sherman Theatre.
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Why 1978? By placing this play in a time different from the original period, I hoped to compare each time period with the other, and draw parallels between the two worlds. On one hand we have the courtly world of Louis XIV and his Hall of Mirrors at the Palace in Versailles; on the other, the celebrity-filled, brightly-lit glitz and dazzle of New York's Studio 54, the most famous disco of them all.
"From Versailles emanated the dress, manners, speech, and fashions of civilized Europe. The court, comprising a significant portion of the nobility of France, became the leaders of these manifestations of culture, and furnished the living decorations for its brilliance. The life of this court was resplendent with gaiety, extravagance, and irresponsibility. Devoted to pleasure, flattery, and intrigue, the courtiers were subjected, in their morals and character, naturally enough, to a steady deterioration.... These nobles became social parasites. Instead of serving as the natural leaders of the people of Paris, the wasted their resources, abilities and time in the extravagance of trying to keep up at court...." --Lawrence Bradford Packard, The Age of Louis XIV, p. 30.
"The American gaze turned inward. It distracted itself with diversions trivial or squalid: primal screaming, disaster movies, jogging, disco, Perrier water.... In a sense, lifestyles (a very 70's preoccupation) were the distinguishing characteristics of the decade. Social Critic Tom Wolfe, in a 1976 essay, called it the Me Decade, a term that caught the epoch's dreamily obsessive self-regard. The 70's were given over to building private, not public, morale." --Lance Morrow, "Epitaph For A Decade," Time Magazine, 7 January 1980, pp. 38-39.
In conclusion, I offer one further quote, one of my own, from 1982: "Punk is not a fashion; it's a state of mind."
Enjoy the show.
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While touring the provinces and gaining experience as a comic actor, Moliere became the manager of his acting company. He also began to write plays for his company, casting himself in the leading roles. He enjoyed great popular success in the provinces as well as at court--although he was not without his share of enemies. While a favorite of King Louis XIV, Moliere often found himself in trouble with the courtiers who saw themselves satirized in his plays.
Moliere died in 1678, after falling ill while playing the title role in The Imaginary Invalid. He died several hour later.
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