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ASU’s Department of Theatre and Dance Presents ‘Middletown’ Oct. 31-Nov. 4 and Nov. 7-11 in I.G. Greer Studio

Oct. 25, 2012. Appalachian State University’s Department of Theatre and Dance will present “Middletown,” Will Eno’s acclaimed play about everyday life, in I.G. Greer Studio Theatre at Appalachian. It has an extended two-week run with performances on Oct. 31 – Nov. 4 and Nov. 7 – 11. Ticket prices start at $8 for students.

The Oct. 31 – Nov. 3 and Nov. 7-10 performances begin at 7:30 p.m. Matinee performances on Nov. 4 and Nov. 11. begin at 2 p.m.

Tickets are available in person at the Valborg Theatre box office Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m., by phone at 828-262-3063, and online at www.theatre.appstate.edu. Tickets are general admission and priced at $8 for students and youth (ages 6 – 18), $13 for faculty/staff and seniors, and $15 for adults.

For more information, visit http://theatre.appstate.edu/events/middletown, or you may call either the box office at 828-262-3063 or the toll-free number at 800-841-ARTS (2787).

Will Eno’s “Middletown” might be summed up in the Latin phrase “In media res,” meaning “in the middle of things.” The play is about life – all of it, especially the middle parts between birth and death, those parts we experience consciously.

As Eno says, “They don’t know what happens to you when you die, so how can they know, really, what happens to you when you’re born?” This production has drawn much of its inspiration from the work of Edward Hopper, the 20th century artist known for his depictions of small-town, American life. Eno and Hopper share an ability to capture the play of light and shadow, hope and despair that can tease through the most mundane of human experiences.

Moments of rapture, sweetness, gentle humor, loneliness and pain all receive their “slant of light” in “Middletown,” Eno’s quiet meditation on people caught doing whatever it is they do when in the middle of things.

Eno is an American playwright based in Brooklyn, N.Y. His career took off when his play “Tom Payne: Based on Nothing” was a finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Drama. Appalachian faculty member Derek Davidson, director of the production, described Eno as “a complicated writer who likes to combine the almost embarrassingly simplistic – the quotidian – with things that are philosophically resonant.”

I.G. Greer Studio Theatre is located on the side of the I.G. Greer Hall below the auditorium. The door is down some stairs on the side of the building. Parking is available after 5 p.m. on campus in faculty lots and the College Street parking deck near the Belk Library and Information Commons.

The Department of Theatre and Dance is housed in the College of Fine and Applied Arts. Its mission is to provide liberal arts educations for the B.S. degree in teaching theatre arts and the B.A. degrees in dance studies or theatre arts. The department also values the opportunity to offer coursework for integrated learning through the arts to the general university student population.

Vital to the support of this mission is a dynamic co-curricular production program that provides exemplary theatre and dance experiences to departmental students, the university community and the region. The departmental philosophy is to support the university’s liberal arts environment through a balanced and integrated emphasis on teaching, creative activity, scholarship and service.