University Theatre will present Tony- and Pulitzer-award-winning Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris, a spinoff of Lorraine Hansberry’s classic A Raisin in the Sun. Performances will be held Sept. 25-26 and 30 and Oct. 1-3 at 8 p.m. with matinees Sept. 28 and Oct. 5 at 2:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Building’s Cellar Theatre.
Tickets are $16, $12 for students. They can be purchased at www.drama.uga.edu/box-office, by phone at 706-542-4400 or in person at the Performing Arts Center box office or Tate Student Center ticket window.
A panel discussion featuring local real estate agents, representatives from the Athens Heritage Foundation and UGA’s Office of Institutional Diversity will follow the Sept. 28 matinee.
Directed by Paul Pierce, a UGA alumnus, this satiric comedy about race and real estate follows one house over 50 years-from the era of segregation to gentrification.
Winner of the 2012 Tony Award for best play, an Olivier Award and the Pulitzer Prize, the play begins in 1958 with homeowners learning that a black family has bought a house in their all-white neighborhood in Chicago, depicting events immediately following those in the classic play. Act two takes the audience to the same house in 2008 as a white family is buying and renovating the house, now in a predominantly black neighborhood, and the roles are reversed. This reversal provides humor while raising the racial issues associated with historical redlining, fair housing policies and contemporary gentrification. The same actors play the characters in both act one and act two, emphasizing the connection between events half a century apart. Costumes and the décor of the home change drastically while the people and situations remain reminiscent despite the reversal of roles.
“Bruce Norris has created a comedy that sizzles with danger and meaning,” Pierce said. “It’s very rare that a modern playwright can do something that is both socially profound and funny.”