09/17/12

Story by Anne Hunt, 913-496-8500 Ext. 3373

BecauseHeCan - Academic Theatre

Academic Theatre at JCCC opens its season with ‘BecauseHeCan’ 

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — The Music and Theatre Department at Johnson County Community College will present its first show of the season, BecauseHeCan, from Oct. 5-7 and Oct. 12-14. 

The performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturdays, Oct. 5-6 and Oct. 12-13 and at 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays, Oct. 6-7 and Oct. 13-14. All performances are held in the Bodker Black Box Theatre of the Carlsen Center. This production is intended for mature audiences. 

Beate Pettigrew, assistant professor of theatre, directs the play, which was written by Arthur Kopit. 

This chilling and suspenseful story finds the lives of a newly married couple turned upside down by a menacing computer hacker whose wicked mind is set on destroying them. The hacker calls himself ISeeU but you can’t see him. If it is you that he wants, nothing can stop him. In a plot worthy of Kafka or Orwell, this alarming, sinister and erotic tale propels the unsuspecting couple into their worst nightmare: a world with no secrets in which private lives are no longer private. 

BecauseHeCan was originally produced at Actors Theatre of Louisville and Off Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club under the title Y2K. 

All academic theatre performances are free and open to the public. Seating is first-come, first-served. 

The 2012-2013 academic theatre season includes several other productions. 

• The Mystery of Edwin Drood, a musical, by Rupert Holmes.

This play within a play is a wildly warm-hearted theatrical experience with an unusual and hilarious finale. This production runs from Nov. 9-11 and Nov. 16-18. 

• reasons to be pretty by Neil LaBute. A hopelessly romantic drama about the hopelessness of love. Performances take place Feb. 22-24 and March 1-3. 

• The Fisherman and the Goldfish, based on a Russian story by Alexander Pushkin. This is the tale of an old fisherman who catches a glistening talking goldfish. It examines what happens when greed gets the best of you. It will run March 15-17. 

• Anna in the Tropics , by Nilo Cruz. This 2003 Pulitzer Prize winning play is set in 1929 Florida where a lector arrives at a cigar factory and reads aloud from Anna Karenina. The results are a volatile combination of Tolstoy, the tropics and the American dream. Performances are April 26-28 and May 3-5.

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