Theatre
Theatre at ODU
The Theatre Program at Old Dominion is designed to develop unrecognized talent in our students. We believe that the true potential of any artist, technician, or scholar only emerges where they enjoy three foundations to creative growth.
- Students must be stretched to their creative limits within a setting of complete trust and support.
- Faculty members must deserve the respect of their students, both as artists and as individuals.
- Both students and faculty members must together push themselves and enjoy themselves.
Our focus on these foundations sets Theatre at ODU apart from many programs nationally. We are not the right fit for all students, and do not try to be. Our Program is made up of a friendly, wildly diverse group of approximately one hundred individuals. We don't copy the institutionalized formats of larger programs but, instead, adapt to the shifting needs of our current students.
Happily, through the unique expertise of our faculty and guest artists, we provide the rigorous training and career connections necessary to compete professionally. We are proud of that accomplishment and our alumni have strong track records on Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional stages. More importantly, we provide our students the means to discover their authentic talents within a time-honored art form. Regardless of background or career choice, that discovery lasts a lifetime.
ODURep
ODURep is the production arm of the Old Dominion University Theatre Program. The goal of ODURep is to give a voice to student and professional artists as we create theatre together for the Hampton Roads community.
2023-2024 Season
What the Constitution Means to Me
By Heidi Schreck, directed by Katherine Hammond, produced by ODURep, and co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology & Criminal Justice and the Women & Gender Equity Center
Sept 19-23 | 7:30 pm
Sept. 24 | 2:00 pm
Goode Theatre, 4601 Monarch Way
Free Parking: 3rd floor & up, Constant Center North Garage, 1060 W. 45th St
Beginning in middle school, Heidi Schreck earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful, and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives.
As Schreck explains:
Our document was designed primarily to be a negative rights document, to give us the most possible individual liberty and to protect us from the government interfering in our lives. Positive rights are active rights...I believe we need a brand-new positive rights document that actively rectifies the inequality at the heart of this country. I believe we need a document that protects all of us...We all belong in the preamble.
From a NYTimes review:
Some of the unexpected joy of What the Constitution Means to Me comes from the hope that [young] people so smart and passionate and ready for change will soon be part of the electorate...[It] is theatrical activism at its purest, modeling the world the play hopes to achieve...What the Constitution Means to Me is one of the things we always say we want theater to be: an act of civic engagement. It restarts an argument many of us forgot we even needed to have.
The Women of Troy
Written & directed by Deborah Wallace, produced by ODURep
Oct. 12-14 and 18-21 | 7:30 pm
Oct. 22 | 2:00 pm
Goode Theatre, 4601 Monarch Way
Free Parking: 3rd floor & up, Constant Center North Garage, 1060 W. 45th St
Another senseless war is won, a great city is reduced to ashes, and the women of defeated Troy must pay the reparations with their lives - through enslavement or death. In Argos, the bereaved and embittered Queen Clytemnestra awaits the return of the victors with a furious vengeance that has been brewing for a decade, since Agamemnon's sacrifice of her beloved daughter to appease Artemis and speed Grecian ships to their attack on Troy.
Be careful who your hubris offends! The gods interfere in human affairs for their own amusement and purposes - all too often there is a shockingly high cost for both the guilty and the innocent.
The Women of Troy, produced with the generous support of the Hellenic Studies Endowment, is the final chapter in Deborah Wallace's visually stunning and powerfully evocative Apollo & Artemis Trilogy, the sequel to Niobe and Artemis, I.
Blood at the Root
By Dominique Morisseau, directed by Brittney S. Harris, produced by ODURep
Nov. 9-11 and 15-18 | 7:30 pm
Nov. 19 | 2:00pm
Goode Theatre, 4601 Monarch Way
Free Parking: 3rd floor & up, Constant Center North Garage, 1060 W. 45th St
In 1939, Billie Holiday sang, "Southern trees bear a strange fruit / Blood on the leaves and blood at the root." In 2006, white high school students in Jena, Louisiana hung nooses on their campus tree, igniting the ever-present racial powder keg. The school fight that resulted ended with the Jena Six, all Black students, being arrested for attempted murder.
Blood at the Root is a striking drama based on these true events. This bold, lyrical play or "choreopoem" by Dominique Morisseau reveals our criminal justice system's ingrained white supremacy, the exhausting persistence of racial double standards, and the resulting effects on the lives of Black people and their families.
As Maya Phillips, for American Theatre (TCG) writes:
[Blood at the Root] aims to take the language of incrimination, of privilege, of prejudice, and transform it into poetry, music, and choreography that does not obscure the underlying sociopolitical messages, but rather highlights and recontextualizes them, steering them away from the straightforward black and white of the issue to instead probe the grey areas of politics and social culpability.
Amid music, choral performances, and dance, each student explores his or her proximity to the events and determines their place within a tradition of hatred and segregation.
