Harper Ensemble presents comedy 'Over the Tavern'
By today's standards, it's difficult to imagine why Elvis' hip-swiveling television appearances caused such a scandal back in the 1950s. But that was a time that marked the end of an idealized era of innocence in America, and the beginning of greater social freedom, consciousness and protest.
Inspired by that era and his own childhood, playwright Tom Dudzick wrote "Over the Tavern," a comedy about a 1950s working class, Polish-Catholic family struggling to make ends meet while raising four children in a cramped apartment over their tavern in Buffalo, New York.
The Harper Ensemble Theatre Company's upcoming production of "Over the Tavern" will offer a humorous and touching depiction of that period of Americana.
The play will run Friday, Aug. 28 through Sept. 6 in the Drama Lab Theatre, Building L, Room L109, at 1200 W. Algonquin Road, Palatine. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays.
"The play reminds us how many of the beliefs we carry with us were strongly shaped when we were children, and just how much work it can be to break from obedient acceptance to decide for ourselves what to believe," Director Kevin Long said.
The Sept. 6 performance will be sign-interpreted for audience members who are deaf and hard of hearing.
Long and Harper College English Professor Richard Middleton-Kaplan, a special adviser on the play, will lead preshow conversations about the play, its setting and history and Harper's production, at 1 p.m. prior to the matinee performances on Aug. 30 and Sept. 6 upstairs from the Drama Lab Theatre.
Tickets to the play are $12 to $15 through the Harper College Box Office at harpercollege.edu/boxoffice, or (847) 925-6100.