Performance

1. Smart People: Thursday, April 25 at 8 p.m.; Sunday, April 28 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.;  Friday, May 3 at 8 p.m.
2. We Are Proud to Present: Friday, April 26 at 8 p.m.; Wednesday, May 1 at 8 p.m.; Saturday, May 4 at 2 and 8 p.m.
3. How I Learned to Drive: Saturday, April 27 at 2 and 8 p.m.; Thursday, May 2 at 8 p.m.; Sunday, May 5 at 2 p.m.

The Rep includes three plays presented in rotating performance over a two-week period. The plays include Smart People by Lydia R. Diamond, How I Learned to Drive by Paula Vogel, and We Are Proud to Present a Presentation About the Herero of Namibia, Formerly Known as Southwest Africa, from the German Sudwestafrika, Between the Years 1885-1915 by Jackie Sibblies Drury.

Directed by Michael Connolly

This popular comedy by Shakespeare follows the fortunes of Rosalind and her cousin Celia. When Rosalind is banished by her uncle, the Duke, she masquerades as the boy Ganymede. Celia, also in masquerade, follows “Ganymede” to the forest in the company of Touchstone, a jester. A hilarious play about mistaken identity, redemption, repentance, shepherdesses and courtiers, As You Like It follows multiple couples through mistaken love knots and confused gender play to a happy-ever-after ending ... right? “All the world’s a stage,” as Shakespeare reminds us

The concert opens with contemporary composer Michael Torke’s December, evoking his memories of “cozy cheer in the early days of winter” in Milwaukee. It is followed by Pulitzer-winning composer Kevin Puts’ bright and beautiful Flute Concerto, with Dallas Symphony flutist and Meadows faculty member Kara Kirkendoll as soloist. The concert concludes with Tchaikovsky’s richly expressive Fourth Symphony. Written during a turbulent period of his life in 1877-78, it focuses on the power and inevitability of fate, yet ends on a positive note recognizing the possibility of happiness. The composer called it “an echo of my most intimate spiritual life.”

The program features two pieces from Benjamin Britten’s tragic 1945 opera Peter Grimes, the composer’s first to become a critical and popular success. Four Sea Interludes, which includes “Dawn,” “Sunday Morning,” “Moonlight” and “Storm,” and the Passacaglia both provide psychological cues in the opera’s dramatic story of a fisherman accused of murdering his apprentices. The second half of the concert features Gustav Mahler’s ebullient, colorful Symphony No. 4, which explores themes of childhood, innocence and spirituality. Its final movement is based on a German song that translates as “The heavenly life,” offering a child’s view of heaven, and will feature soprano soloist and Meadows alumna Alissa Roca.

This award-winning play by the late Sam Shepard follows the jagged, complex relationship between two families. Considered a landmark work by a playwright at the height of his powers, it moves between Montana and California, husbands and wives, parents and children, and brothers and sisters. Both raw and moving, funny and frightening, A Lie of the Mind explores the hungry heart of the American landscape.