McArdle Theater nearly sold out for the first show of The Glass Menagerie. The American classic theater performance at Michigan Technological University is directed by Nich Radcliffe. He says that most directors will take a direct approach to the story. But he hopes the audience in the McArdle Theater recognizes how students capture an early example of American expressionism.
Williams encourages you to use music in a non-realistic way. If you think about your memories, you kind of hear music with them, whether there was music there or not. There winds up being a soundtrack in our minds. And so we lean hard into that. There’s a really beautiful moment where Tom is looking out the door onto the fire escape and his mother, who’s in her 40s, and he suddenly sees her in the moonlight. As a young woman again, we hear the Ave Maria. – Nich Radcliffe, Visiting Assistant Teaching Professor, Michigan Technological University
Glass Menagerie written in 1944 by Tennessee Williams helped launch the American playwright’s career. Williams would go on to write several other great American stage plays including a streetcar named Desire and death of a Salesman. The theater performance at the McArdle Theater on Michigan Tech’s campus will begin at 7:30 pm tonight, Friday, and Saturday. Find ticket information and show details online here.