Hope College Theatre will perform "Gone Missing" on Friday and Saturday, April 15 and 16, and Tuesday-Thursday, April 19-21, at 8 p.m. in the DeWitt Center main theatre.
There will also be a matinee performance on Saturday, April 16, at 3 p.m.
"Gone Missing" was written by Steven Cosson, artistic director of The Civilians, from interviews conducted and compiled by his company members. The Civilians, founded in 2001 and based in New York City, create original work, often using interviews as the initial source material for their plays. Music and lyrics for "Gone Missing" are by Michael Friedman, a prolific young composer whose musical "Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson" recently appeared on Broadway.
"'Gone Missing' is a piece that grapples with loss as an inescapable facet of the human condition but does so with comedy and musical panache," said Dr. Daina Robins, who is the production's director and a professor of theatre as well as chairperson of the department at Hope. "Throughout the production, characters speak and sing about loss, about something 'gone missing'--be it a dog, a shoe, a piece of jewelry. The stories surrounding these missing objects convey the concrete experience of losing something but also point to larger issues of loss and grief. In a surprisingly fun and inventive way, 'Gone Missing' explores the temporal nature of our existence."
The cast of "Gone Missing" includes sophomore Katie Colburn of Holland; freshman Molly Coyle of Hamilton; junior Kelsey Cratty of Rockford, Ill.; freshman Aiden de Jong of Zeeland; sophomore Erik Durham of Holland; sophomore Skye Edwards of Morrison, Colo.; freshman Bradley Hamilton of Southfield; senior Jackie Richards of Worthington, Ohio; sophomore Jesse Swatling-Holcomb of Oakland, Calif.; senior Jenny Tremblay of Oostburg, Wis.; sophomore Kaija von Websky of Holland; and senior Christine Worden of Midland.
Stage manager is junior Elizabeth Dwyer of Ypsilanti, and the assistant stage manager is freshman Kelly Eubank of Louisville, Ky. The student costume designer is junior Amanda Vander Byl of Williamson, N.Y.
In addition to Robins, faculty members working on the production include Michelle Bombe, costume mentor; Perry Landes, lighting and sound designer; and Richard Smith, scenic designer. Staff member Paul Anderson is the technical director, and staff member Darlene Christopher is the costume shop manager. Lighting designer is senior Ken Chamberlain of Metuchen, N.J.
Tickets for "Gone Missing" are $10 for regular admission, $7 for senior citizens and Hope faculty and staff, and $5 for students, and are available at the ticket office in the main lobby of the DeVos Fieldhouse. The ticket office is open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and may be called at (616) 395-7890.
The DeVos Fieldhouse is located at 222 Fairbanks Ave., between Ninth and 11th streets. The DeWitt Center is located at 141 E. 12th St., on Columbia Avenue at 12th Street.