By Au Hai Ho
By Au Hai Ho
The lights dim, the curtains swing wide and silence swallows the spectators as Landis Performance Arts Center groans with anticipation of the perfomance.
The players are costumed and the crowd is pulsing with anticipation as Landis smiles to release its passion onto the stage.
The Landis Performing Arts Center was built in the early 1950’s and was originally called the Landis Auditorium, getting its current name in 2004.
The Center is a proscenium theatre, which means its primary feature is a large archway near the front of the stage. Seating 1,350, it is underneath this archway that the audience views the play or musical being performed.
Some of the functions of the Landis Performing Arts Center are to organize and run different plays and musicals such as the upcoming “Assassins.”
“Assassins” is an Off Broadway Play Series which runs on Oct. 27 and 28 at 8 p.m., Oct. 28 and 29 at 2 p.m. and on Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. An off Broadway Play Series is a student run production which offers open audition for its plays and musicals.
The cost to attend is $15 for general admission, $5 for current RCC students and $10 for any student from another college.
“Assassins” is a musical that depicts the lives of nine individuals who attempted to or actually assassinated a past President of the United States.
The musical takes its viewers on a rollercoaster of harrowing emotions as the assassins manage to bend the rules of time to meet up and interact with each other in order to plan and execute their ghoulish acts in the name of the American Dream.
Performance Riverside is a professionally run production whose upcoming play “Damn Yankees” is set to begin Sept. 15, and will continue on Sept. 22 and 23 at 8 p.m. and also on Sept. 16, 17, 23 and 24 at 2 p.m. It also offers open auditions for its plays and musicals.
Dates and times of upcoming auditions can be found on their Web site at http://www.performanceriverside.org. You will need to sign up for their audition alert and newsletter.
“Damn Yankees” is about a man named Joe who thinks that his favorite team will never win another pennant. He meets a man named Applegate who makes him an offer to transform him into a superstar who could help his team capture the glory this season, but at the cost of his soul.
Unable to decide whether to help his team or stay with his beautiful wife, he asks Applegate for an escape clause and Applegate agrees.
Applegate begins to worry that Joe is cooking up a plan to both win the pennant for his team and to keep his soul so he devises his own evil plan to retain ownership of Joe’s soul, no matter what.
The cost to attend a Performance Riverside production is $42 for a first class section ticket which seats you front and center, $36 for an A section ticket which seats you to the left and right or directly behind first class, $29 for a B section ticket which is right behind the A section and $24 for a C section ticket which will seat you near the exits.