|
 
MU doctoral student Andréa Onstad has had her original
plays produced at numerous theaters around the U.S. and
in Germany. Dan Glover photo
|
Jukebox
Takes Country Music to New York City
Playwright uses country music
to tell tales of love and pain on the stage.
By Nancy Moen
Mizzou playwright Andréa J. Onstad
turned her obsession with vintage country music into a play that
will make its New York debut Sept. 16. Jukebox is the
featured production for the sixth annual Mizzou
on Broadway at the York Theatre.
A play with music that is not a musical, Jukebox
explores how early country songs depict their characters through
heartstring-tugging tales of love and pain. It is the first in
a trilogy that explores how music affects lives.
Jukebox takes place inside Joe’s
friendly country bar and follows the separate and overlapping
journeys of six characters released to real life from country
music songs. Its big-lovin’, big-hurtin’ songs include
“I’m Gonna Love You Like There’s No Tomorrow,”
recorded by Peter Rowan and the Nashville Bluegrass Band; “I’m
the Only Hell My Momma Ever Raised,” recorded by Johnny
Paycheck; and “Slide Off of Your Satin Sheets,” recorded
by Johnny Paycheck.
Onstad, who is a doctoral student in playwriting,
says the first draft of her play emerged in less than two weeks
during a writing frenzy. She is an avid listener and collector
of vintage country music, who admits to being bewitched by music
and its power to shape lives.
“I listened to country music and bluegrass
songs over and over, song intertwining with song, until one day
characters emerged, living and breathing, talking and laughing,
so alive that I began writing,” she says.
Onstad has been a resident at such prestigious
artist colonies as Yaddo, MacDowell, Fundacion Valpariso in Spain,
Djerassi, Ucross, and Vermont Studio Center. Her works have been
produced at the New English American Theatre in Stuttgart, Germany,
and the Iowa Playwrights Workshop at the University of Iowa, and
they have received numerous readings at venues across the United
States.
Mizzou on Broadway creates a unique off-Broadway
niche in the theater capital of the world for MU students who
aspire to careers in writing, production and performance. MU student
actors and technicians produce the plays at the York Theatre.
Theatre
department faculty members select the Mizzou on Broadway scripts
and an advisory committee helps shape them for production. Among
those committee members are actor Chris Cooper, BGS ’76,
actor-playwright Mark Fauser, BGS ’84, actor-director Campbell
Scott, son of George C. Scott, arts, journ ’53, and playwright
Sean Clark, BS Ed ’82.
Tickets for the Sept. 16, 7:30 p.m.
performance of Jukebox are $15 and are available through
the College of Arts and Science by phone at 800-430-2966 or 573-882-0943.
The York Theatre is located in the Citicorp Building at 54th St.
and Lexington Ave.
Archives
| Comments | Home SUBSCRIPTIONS
Subscribe
| Change Your
Address | Unsubscribe
Copyright © 2007 — Curators of the University of Missouri
DMCA and other copyright information.
All rights reserved.
An equal opportunity/ADA institution.
Published by the Mizzou Alumni Association
Questions? Comments? E-mail comments@mizzoualumni.org
Last Update:
November 15, 2007
|
