Curtain Rises on EMU Musical-Comedy

Four performances of “Triumph of Love,” a musical comedy appropriate for a wide audience, will be staged early October in Lehman Auditorium at Eastern Mennonite University.

Thomas P. Joyner, assistant professor of theater at EMU, is directing the two-act play 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 8-9, 3 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 10, and 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 13.

Love can make a woman do strange things. Like lie about her past. Or give up her career for the man she loves. Or throw off her princessly raiment and disguise herself as a young man in order to infiltrate the guarded “men-only” compound of an exiled prince she’s admired from afar, who is secretly plotting to murder her and usurp her throne. Such is the state of things in James Magruder’s, Jeffrey Stock’s and Susan Birkenhead’s musical, anachronistic adaption of the classic French comedy by Marivaux.

The cast includes Charlotte Wenger (Hesione), Lancaster, Pa.; Sarah Grace Fitzsimmons (Leonide), Harrisonburg; Lauren Zehr (Corine), Wauseon, Ohio; Steve Kniss (Harlequin), Chicago, Ill./Harrisonburg; Justin Rittenhouse, (Dimas), Green Lane, Pa.; Braydon Hoover (Hermocrates), Elizabethtown, Pa.; and Joel Rittenhouse (Agis), Green Lane, Pa.

The production team includes two guest artists, choreographer Sara Prince and musical director Lisa Mast.

The show runs two hours with a 10-minute intermission.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $12 at the door and $8 for seniors and non-EMU students ($10 at the door) and are available through EMU’s Box Office. Call 540-432-4582 or order online.