NIU Today

The Third Onion, a student-initiated and produced performance program of Northern Illinois University’s School of Theatre and Dance, will premiere an original play, “The Porno Factory.” Performances are scheduled at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 26, and Saturday, March 28, in Holmes Student Center Diversions Lounge Theatre. The play stars its author, NIU writing instructor Loren...

It took a British playwright and satirist named Peter Barnes to find humor in one of the darkest events in all of human history. Opening Thursday, March 26, the NIU School of Theatre and Dance presents Barnes’ “Red Noses,” a darkly comedic take on the five-year period when the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, decimated...

Northern Illinois University Dean Rich Holly has accepted a position at North Carolina State University, serving as vice provost and executive director of ARTS NC STATE, effective July 1. “During my many wonderful years at NIU I have been mentored by several faculty and administrators, schooled by numerous students, and continuously humbled by our alumni....

Concert pianist Tereza Lee’s powerful story as an undocumented student inspired Sen. Dick Durbin to author the immigration legislation known as the DREAM Act. Lee is coming Tuesday, March 3, to the Capitol Room of the Holmes Student Center as part of a series of events to support undocumented students. Through music, spoken word, art...

The Great Depression was named so for a reason. As the backdrop to its next theater performance offering, the NIU School of Theatre and Dance’s upcoming production of “Awake and Sing!” presents the idea that before the nation’s current economic woes, there were once greater ones. “Awake and Sing!” by Clifford Odets, follows the Bergers,...

Love and relationships in the tumultuous late 1960s is the focus of the next NIU theater production, opening Thursday, Feb. 12, and running through Sunday, Feb. 15. The School of Theatre and Dance will present “Lovers and Other Strangers” by Renee Taylor and Joseph Bologna and guest directed by NIU alumna Kerry Perrella. “Both playwrights...

“Wickedly funny and intensely dark,” is how director Kay Martinovich describes the upcoming Northern Illinois University School of Theatre and Dance production of Martin McDonagh’s “A Skull in Connemara,” opening Thursday, Jan. 29. Faculty member Martinovich is well-suited to direct a play by an Irish playwright, as she has spent the majority of her professional...

Improvisational comedy debuts at NIU’s School of Theatre and Dance with its Studio Series presentation of Storytellers Theatre Improv, opening Thursday, Dec. 4. The show replaces the originally scheduled “Many Voices, Many Lands: Storytellers Theatre” and blends the format of the former Storytellers Theatre with the comedic style of improv. Instead of the usual well-rehearsed...

“Got Broadway Rhythm, Everybody Dance!” – the upcoming Northern Illinois University School of Theatre & Dance presentation – will feature eight dance numbers from several of the all-time most popular Broadway musicals, such as “Grease,” “RENT,” “The Pajama Game,” “A Chorus Line” and more. The shows open Thursday, Nov. 20, at the Huntley Middle School...

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to recognize that STEMfest is a blast for children of all ages. With a record crowd of more than 7,500 visitors, NIU’s annual mega-sized science fair celebrated the wonders of science, technology, engineering and math in grand fashion at the Convocation Center Saturday, Oct. 18. The five-year anniversary of...

Ready for a bit of musical theater insanity? The Tony Award-winning musical by Peter Weiss, “Marat/Sade,” which opens Thursday, Oct. 23, presents the story of inmates in a lunatic asylum who want to present a play about an assassination. Several years after the end of the French Revolution, the inmates of the lunatic asylum of...

The NIU School of Theatre and Dance will perform playwright Jean Anouilh’s “Antigone” as the first production of its 2014-2015 Studio Series of plays. Directed by Patricia Skarbinski, “Antigone” is an adaption of the classic Sophocles play that shares its name. It opens Thursday, Oct. 16, on the NIU DeKalb campus. Sophocles’ “Antigone” is a...