NAU Theater selected to perform at regional festival

Theater

A scene from NAU Theater’s production of The Miser will be a featured event during the Kennedy Center/American College Theater’s regional festival hosted by California State University in Fullerton.

NAU’s Theater Department was one of nine groups chosen from more than 60 theater groups nominated to perform during the festival’s Evening of Invitational Scenes on Feb. 10.

“It is a great honor for us to be invited,” said Kathleen McGeever, chair of the theater department and director of the production. “It speaks well of the students’ commitment and dedication to the work that they’re doing here.”

Participants from 50 colleges and universities in Arizona, California, Guam, Hawaii, Nevada and Utah will attend.

McGeever will be taking two students to perform the comedic excerpt: Tony Latham, a sophomore theater performance major, will play the lover Cléante, and Levy Baltazar, a junior theater performance and design tech major, will perform as servant La Fléche.

The performance of Moliere’s classic scene will adhere to principles of commedia dell’arte, or Italian comedy—an art form that uses fixed social types, such as foolish old men or devious servants. Physical comedy, including the use of a unicycle in this case, heightens the humor.

McGeever and the performers are paying for their own travel expenses.