The play follows the characters of Kayleen and Doug over a thirty-year span as they manage a lifelong friendship fraught with accidents and survival. Their lives intersect at the most bizarre intervals, leading the two childhood friends to compare scars and the physical calamities that keep drawing them together. As described by The New York Times, Gruesome Playground Injuries is “a drama dealing with the power of rituals. Each scene revolves around a new wound — whether accidental, self-inflicted or from fights with others—sustained by two emotionally damaged friends who minister to each other’s physical hurts but struggle to tend to their psychological pain.”
Play director Stimmel is an undergraduate student at Miami University who is a senior theatre major.
“Not only is this play about a relationship that can withstand the test of time, it’s about hurt, loss, joy, scars, laughter, fear, and a kind of love that is somewhat unconventional. It’s an intimate piece that will keep your attention from beginning to end and will have you crying and laughing all along the way,” Stimmel said.
Playwright Joseph is a Miami alumnus who graduated in 1996 with a bachelor’s degree in creative writing. Joseph was a 2010 Pulitzer Prize finalist for his play Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. He is the book writer and co-lyricist for the new Peter Pan musical, Fly, and the co-screenwriter of the upcoming Lionsgate release Draft Day. He also wrote during the third and fourth seasons of the Showtime series “Nurse Jackie.” Joseph served for three years in the Peace Corps in Senegal and is a recent recipient of the prestigious Steinberg Playwriting Award from the Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust.
Tickets are $7 for students/youth, $8 for seniors and $10 for adults, available at the Miami H.O.M.E Box Office, located in the lower level of the Shriver Center, (513) 529-3200 or online at miamioh.edu/BoxOffice. Please be advised that “Gruesome Playground Injuries” contains adult language and themes.
‘Opera and Art’ at MU Art Museum
The Miami University Art Museum and the Department of Music will present “Opera and Art” Nov. 15 and 16 at the Miami University Art Museum. The event will feature a tour of the art gallery at 6:30 p.m., followed by a concert of some of opera’s most beloved scenes and arias at 7:30 p.m. The program will include works by Mozart, Mascagni, Delibes, Bernstein, and others. Admission to the museum gallery tour and the concert is free and donations will be accepted.
MU Symphony Orchestra holds final concert
The Miami University Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Ricardo Averbach, will play its final concert of the semester at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 22 in Hall Auditorium on the Oxford campus.
The free concert, titled “The Heights of Emotion,” features works written in the romantic style. Violinist Kun Dong and cellist Ilya Finkelshteyn, members of the Cincinnati Symphony orchestra, will perform Brahms’ Double Concerto in A minor for violin and cello.
The orchestra will premiere “Rhapsody on Gabriel’s Theme” by Glen Roger Davis, featuring soloist Andrea Ridilla, professor of oboe at Miami University. This work has been recorded by Andrea Ridilla and Averbach with the Sofia Philharmonic in Bulgaria, but this will be the first live performance of the piece.
Guest Linus Lerner will conduct Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy-Overture and the Overture to Russlan and Ludmilla by Mikhail Glinka.
Free concert features guest performer
Guest composer and performer Mark Applebaum will perform at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 15 in Souers Recital Hall, Center for Performing Arts.
The free concert is devoted to Applebaum’s own works, including acoustic and electronic compositions. An open installation will take place from 7 to 7:30 p.m. The 7:30 p.m. concert will include participatory-guided improvisations. For more information, call 513-529-3014.
Gallery talk at MU Art Museum Tuesday
The Miami University Art Museum and the Department of Music will present “Opera and Art” directed by Benjamin Smolder on Nov. 15 and 16 at the Miami University Art Museum.
The event will feature a tour of the art gallery at 6:30 p.m. followed by a concert of some of opera’s most beloved opera scenes and arias at 7:30 p.m. The program will include works by Mozart, Mascagni, Delibes, Bernstein, and others.
Admission to the museum gallery tour and the concert is free and donations will be accepted.
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