2025-2026 UIS Theatre Season
THE LARAMIE PROJECT in Fall 2025
The Laramie Project is a play by Moises Kaufman and the members of Tectonic Theater Project.
November 7-9 and 13-15, 2025 in the UIS Theatre Acting Studio (VPA 170)
鈥淚n October 1998, a twenty-one-year-old student at the University of Wyoming was kidnapped, severely beaten, and left tied to a fence in the middle of the prairie outside Laramie, Wyoming. He died several days later in an area hospital. His name was Matthew Shepard, and he was the victim of this assault because he was gay. Mois茅s Kaufman and fellow members of the Tectonic Theater Project made six trips to Laramie in the aftermath of the beating and during the trial of the two young men accused of killing Shepard. The breadth of the reactions to the crime is fascinating. Kaufman and Tectonic Theater members have constructed a deeply moving theatrical experience from these interviews and their own experiences in Laramie. THE LARAMIE PROJECT is a breathtaking collage that explores the depths to which humanity can sink and the heights of compassion of which we are capable.鈥�
Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
There will be Post-Show Discussions after All 6 Performances.
UIS Theatre and SIU School of Medicine Present A Reading of COVID Stories
is a collaborative project between UIS the SIU School of Medicine. Performances will be held September 26 at UIS School of Medicine, and October 9 at UIS, in our UIS Theatre Acting Studio (VPA 170).
This reading is a collaboration between 69萝莉app Springfield and Southern Illinois University School of Medicine. In 2022, SIU's Dr. Christine Todd and UIS's Dr. Livia Woods were awarded a Carol Moy Collaborative Grant. SIU SoM鈥檚 Hope Cherry, UIS English Associate Professor Dr. Livia Woods, and UIS Theatre鈥檚 Professor Missy Thibodeaux-Thompson have collaborated with both universities鈥� staff, faculty, and students, as well as Springfield-area residents to present a reading of narratives collected from this project.
CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION in Spring 2026
Circle Mirror Transformation is a play by Annie Baker.
April 10-12 and April 16-18, 2026 in the UIS Theatre Acting Studio (VPA 170)
Winner of the 2010 Obie Award For Best New American Play
鈥淎nnie Baker鈥檚 play is an absolute feast. CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION is the kind of unheralded gem that sends people into the streets babbling and bright-eyed with the desire to spread the word. The play traces the lives of a handful of small-town Vermont residents who gather each week for an acting class taught at the local community center. By the play鈥檚 end we seem to see to the very bottom of these souls, and feel how the artificial intimacy of the acting class has shaped their lives in substantial ways.鈥�
The New York Times
鈥淪martly, sneakily, Baker gives us the rare theater centric play that鈥檚 not self-obsessed. [CIRCLE MIRROR TRANSFORMATION] is about real people exploring their lives through tiny leaps of faith and creativity.鈥�
Backstage
There will be a Post-Show Discussion after the April 16th performance.