This article is from the EMU News Archive. Current EMU new is available at www.emu.edu/news

Theater Department Stages 'Inventing Montana'

Montana Winfield's wife, Elaine (Pam Mandigo), left, meets Margaret (Beth Risser) for the first time in a scene from "Inventing Montana."
Photo by Jim Bishop

Theater at Eastern Mennonite University is presenting its spring mainstage production, "Inventing Montana," by noted American poet and playwright Jeanne Murray Walker. Showtimes are 7:30 p.m. Mar. 30 and 31 and Apr. 1, 7:30 p.m. Apr. 6-8 and a matinee 2 p.m. Apr. 1 in the mainstage theater in the University Commons.

The production is directed by Dr. Jimmy Bickerstaff, associate professor of theater at EMU and recent faculty addition. With a seven-member cast who play 21 different characters, Dr. Bickerstaff calls the play "a Dickensian experience that is as theatrical and fun as it is big-hearted."

"Walker's work," he added, "is an insightful blend of humanity, compassion and humor."

Montana Winfield, a renowned Charles Dickens scholar, is so immersed in his academic career that the moment of his greatest success finds the wife he adores packing to leave him.

When a young graduate student from Yale knocks on the door late that night with a discovered Dickens manuscript, she brings with it a secret about herself that could overturn Montana's world.

Tickets are available by calling the EMU box office between 10 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. at 540-432-4582. Tickets will also be on sale at the door.

— article by: Jim Bishop; posted March 16, 2006