IU Theatre wraps up the first half of their 2018 – 2019 season with Edward Albee’s The Goat or, Who Is Sylvia? (Notes Toward a Definition of Tragedy). The play premiered on Broadway at the John Golden Theatre on March 10, 2002 and earned Albee his second Tony Award for best play, while generating controversy among critics and audiences with its frank and disturbingly humorous depiction of a man tormented by love of “an unimaginable kind.”
Martin, a successful architect, who has just turned fifty, leads an ideal life with his loving wife Stevie, and teenage son Billy. When he confides to his best friend, Ross, that he is also in love with Sylvia, he sets in motion a chain events that will destroy his idyllic world. Theatre critic Chris Jones, of the Chicago Tribune, wrote of the recent Interrobang Theatre production: “Be they Greek, Shakespearean or the works of Edward Albee, great tragedies probe those moments when life turns on a dime, smacks you in the gut, reminds you that nothing is promised, not even for a second […] If you’ve never seen this play before, and you’re courageous, you won’t regret your experience.” Edward Albee is best known for his play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, which won Albee his first Tony Award for best play. Three of his other plays, A Delicate Balance, Seascape, and Three Tall Women, won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
This production is part of IU's Themester 2018 program Animal/Human and is for mature audiences only. Professor Murray McGibbon, Associate Professor of Acting and Directing, directs the production. Joining Professor McGibbon on the creative team are faculty members Andrew Hopson (Sound Design), Jason Orlenko (Costume Design) and Dan Tracy (Scenic Charge Artist), and M.F.A. students Megan Branham (Lighting Design) and Chris Mueller (Scenic Design). The cast of The Goat or, Who is Sylvia? includes M.F.A. actors Michael Bayler, Jay C. Hemphill, Glynnis Kunkel-Ruiz, and undergraduate Josh Hogan.
The College of Arts