Dramatic reading at WFU to explore rape and sexual harassment Feb. 21
Playwright Arlene Hutton’s provocative one-act show, “I Dream Before I Take the Stand,” will be performed at Wake Forest University Feb. 21 at 4 p.m. in the Ring Theatre in Scales Fine Arts Center. Cynthia Gendrich, assistant professor of theater, and actor D.A. Oldis will perform the play which explores issues of rape and sexual harassment.
The reading is free and open to the public.
In the 20-minute play, a woman is raped as she cuts through a park on her way to work. Her walk becomes the focus of an intense and eroticized cross-examination by a male defense attorney. While the physical rape generates physical and psychological trauma for the victim, the emotional assault by the attorney is more chilling. His attack is legally performed before an audience – the judge, jury and courtroom spectators.
Sharon Andrews, assistant professor of theater, will direct the show.
“I Dream Before I Take the Stand” is the title play in a collection of five one-act works. It won the Association of Theatre in Higher Education’s Lunchtime Theatre Award in 1995 and has been performed around the world, with translations in three languages.
Hutton is a member of the prestigious New Dramatists and the Dramatists Guild. She recently won a Cameron Mackintosh Foundation grant to develop her most recent work, “Scenes from Shaker Life.” She earned a bachelor of arts degree in theater from Rollins College and a master of arts degree in acting from the Asolo Conservatory at Florida State University.
The Wake Forest humanities program, theater department, women’s studies program and the Year of Ethics and Honor Committee are sponsors for this event.
For more information, call 336-758-5294.
