A WILD IMAGINATION INFUSES PUBLIC FASCINATION IN COLLEGE OF CHARLESTON THEATRE PRODUCTION ‘HUSH: AN INTERVIEW WITH AMERICA’
The Department of Theatre in the College of Charleston School of the Arts will present James Still’s “Hush: An Interview With America.” This warm and imaginative comedy is for family audiences, especially for children ages seven to twelve. The production will run Thursday, Feb. 16 through Sunday, Feb. 19. Curtain times will be at 7:30 p.m., with additional matinees at 10 a.m. on Friday, Feb. 17 and at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 18. The Sunday, Feb. 19 show is at 3 p.m. only. The performances will take place at the Emmett Robinson Theatre in the Simons Center for the Arts, 54 Saint Philip St.
Tickets may be purchased at the box office or by telephone (843) 953-5604. Admission is $15 for general admission and $10 for College of Charleston students, faculty and staff and senior citizens 60 and older, and children 12 and under. The “talkback” discussions with the cast and crew will take place opening night following the performance.
Maggie Parks, a 12-year-old girl from Hush, Kansas, has a vivid imagination. She dances with a “feeling” that seems to live in her tree, and she dances with lions. But, when a television reporter decides to tell viewers that the girl sees an angel in her apple tree, Maggie and her father are thrust into a media spotlight that threatens to destroy them both. The nation becomes enthralled, and Maggie becomes a symbol of hope to an increasingly desperate and short-sighted society. Can fantasy live in the era of the 24-hour news cycle? “Hush” is a thought-provoking, often comic, look at the modern media from a child’s eyes.
Director Mark Landis says “Our children need the Theatre with its live actors, and its call to the imagination now more than at any other time. Hush is not only a wonderfully imaginative play, it is a rarity as it seems to be most acutely directed at the population that is too often neglected by the theatre: the boys and girls who are about to leave the most innocent years of their childhood behind and leap into the often confusing, sometimes alarming, teenage years. The central character in ‘Hush’ is described by the playwright as ‘almost twelve’ and, indeed, Maggie identifies herself already as a woman more than a girl. She has a keen mind, a quick wit, and the most uninhibited imagination one could ever hope for. Too many things endanger imagination in our world. One threat always has come from the social pressures of adolescence, but another might just be the simplistic sound bytes of our own media which are too eagerly received and, perhaps, overvalued by all of us.”
The production features a cast of 9 of the theatre department’s student actors: Meg Fannin-Buckner plays 11 year old Maggie Parks; Kurt Sauer her father; Alice Van Arsdale the ambitious TV journalist; McKenna DuBose the Lion; and an extremely talented ensemble of Baylor Shull, Alexandra Seabrook, Kurt Sundberg, Taylor Johnson, and Brooks Brunson play the many other characters – both human and not – who join this imaginative story.
Scenery is designed by Becca Bresler. Costumes are designed by Alex Kosbab, and lighting is by Hannah Strickland.