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Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson, director of the University
of Illinois-Springfield theater department’s fall production, Picnic, held rehearsals five
nights a week for more than a month before opening the William Inge
romantic drama this Friday. She’s ready for a little shut-eye. “I think I’m putting a bed in my
office,” Thibodeaux-Thompson says. “The last couple of weeks
are crunch time.”
Thibodeaux-Thompson’s production of the 1953
play, winner of a Pulitzer Prize, features an ensemble cast of 11 actors
— including community members Mary Myers, Aasne Vigesaa, and Shirene
Thomas — and runs for two consecutive weekends, starting Friday. Picnic is set on a Labor
Day sometime in the early 1950s, in the back yards of two widowed
neighbors’ homes. Flo Owens, played by Vigesaa, occupies one house
with her two daughters, Madge and Millie, and an unattached teacher. In the
other house is Helen Potts, played by Myers, who cares for her invalid
mother. When a young bachelor, Hal Carter, blows into town, each of the
women has a different reaction to his strong presence. Thibodeaux-Thompson says that she was initially drawn
to the play by the character breakdown — more specifically, because
of the number of female roles she would get to cast. “[Picnic] makes some really interesting statements about women and
about our world,” Thibodeaux-Thompson says. “Fifty years later,
a lot of things have changed, and a lot of things haven’t.”
Apparently she’s not the only person interested
in the works of Inge, who was dubbed “playwright of the
Midwest.” After Picnic had been chosen, Thibodeaux-Thompson realized that
Inge’s plays were in the midst of a renaissance. Chicago’s
Shattered Globe Theatre, Glencoe’s Writer’s Theatre, and the
American Theatre Company, based on Chicago’s North Side, all
performed Inge plays in 2006. “[Picnic is] something our audience needs to see. It’s a
genre-type piece that we don’t see around these parts,”
Thibodeaux-Thompson says. “This play is very quote-unquote realistic.
The real challenge is the language — it’s American English, but
it’s the 1950s.”
Common terms were defined differently then, says the
director. For example, “make love,” meant to woo someone. To
help everyone understand the vernacular of the time,
Thibodeaux-Thompson’s student dramaturge created a glossary, which is
included in the program. “I’ve spent a lot of time and energy
concerned with the world of the play for the audience, as well as the
actors,” Thibodeaux-Thompson says. “It’s not Victorian
and it’s not Elizabethan, but it is a period piece.”
Picnic opens at 8 p.m.
Friday, Oct. 26, in the Studio Theatre, located in UIS’s Public
Affairs Center. Other performances are scheduled for 8 p.m. Oct. 27 and 28
and Nov. 1-3 and for 2 p.m. Oct. 28. For tickets, call 217-206-6160 or go
to www.uis.edu/theatre.
Contact Marissa Monson at mmonson@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2007.
