H+T IN P, PLATONOV and THREE DANCES Set for CPE This April

A full schedule of exciting and varied performances, including original dance and theatre works and a rarely performed Chekhov play, are planned for the Center for Performance Experiment at the University of South Carolina this April.

All events are free and open to the public. Show times are listed separately for each performance in the descriptions below. The Center for Performance Experiment is located at 718 Devine St., between Huger and Gadsden Streets, near the Colonial Life Arena.

Established in 2009, the CPE space is the central training location for the theatre program's Masters in Fine Arts in Acting students, which is also used for staging new and traditional theatre works in exciting, innovative ways.

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April 8-9

H+T in P

(Hamlet and Tusenbach in Purgatory)

Written by James Costello

In collaboration with The Glassbox Theatre and P3 East

Show Times:

April 8 - 6:30pm & 8:30pm

April 9 - 7:30pm & 9:30pm

H+T in P is a short play that takes you on an exploration of the liminal space between Heaven and Earth, Life and Death, Dreaming and Remembering, Doing and Being, Movement and Stillness, the Rest and Silence. Shakespeare's Hamlet and Chekhov's Tusenbach help each other reach the other side by letting go of their past and reconnecting with their former loves. The play gives the audience a chance to see these classical characters in a different light through philosophical discussions, humor, and dance.

Writer James Costello is a 2015 alumnus of UofSC's Master of Fine Arts in Acting program. Costello will perform in the work alongside fellow 2015 MFA alums Josiah Laubenstein and Melissa Reed, and guest actor Lindsay Rae Taylor. All of the actors are credited as directors of the play.

Costello says he was inspired to write the play after playing Hamlet himself at the University in April of 2014. "Months after the show closed I found myself still thinking about the play," he says. "About what it means 'to be,' what it means to take action. Hamlet's final line, 'The rest is silence' made me question, what was 'the rest?' Is it indeed silence, or is there something more?' So I started writing about what life after death may have been like for Hamlet."

Since graduating, Costello has been active with The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, taking roles on stage and as part of the theatre's educational touring company.

April 27, 2016

Platonov by Anton Chekhov

Show Time: 4pm

Our second-year MFA Actors will present a studio performance of one of Chekhov's earliest plays, Platonov, which was discovered over twenty years after his death in 1904. Finding himself on a downward spiral fueled by lust and alcohol, Platonov proudly adopts as his motto to speak ill of everything. A shining example of the chaos that reigned in his era, Platonov is a Hamlet whose father was never murdered, a Don Juan who cheats on his wife and his mistress, and the hero of the as-yet unwritten great Russian novel of his day.

April 28, 2016

Three Dances

Show Times: 4pm and 5:30pm

The same MFA Actors will perform three original dance pieces: Constellation, Tuesday Under the Sky and The Present Matter.

Pictured: MFA Acting Alum James Costello

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