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Miami University's theater and music departments have not yet closed the curtain for the semester.
The first of the two remaining performances to take place is Paul Bunyan, an operetta by Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden, which will be showing Nov. 13- 15 at Hall Auditorium.
"It's an interesting work," Director Erik Friedman said. "It's not quite like any other opera or operetta out there."
According to Jeanne Harmeyer, marketing manager of music and theater, the scene of the show takes place in a primeval forest, as the trees are restless waiting for the birth of Paul Bunyan. Paul Bunyan is born and grows enormous in size. He becomes a lumberjack, and begins a new civilization, Bunyan summons lumberjacks, cooks and an intellectual accountant to help him.
Friedman said the story is about people coming together and trying to find a way to get along with each other. He called it somewhat of "an American creation myth."
The performance has a cast of 34 Miami students, and will include Miami's opera orchestra, which is composed of 32 music majors. Guest voice Mark Perzel will also be joining the cast, according to Friedman.
Perzel, who will be playing the voice of Paul Bunyan, is executive producer and on-air personality for 90.9 WGUC, Cincinnati's Classical Public Radio.
Perzel will never appear on stage, though, because his character, Paul Bunyan, is too enormous to fit on such a "small" stage. Harmeyer described his role as the "guiding force within the show."
In addition to Paul Bunyan, the theater department will be performing an opera version of William Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew, which will show Nov. 20-22 and Dec. 4-7.
Director and playwright Hsing-lin Tracy Chung-also a professor at the National Taiwan University and the Taiwan College of Performing Arts-has taken the original work and transformed it into a traditional Chinese opera theatrical form, a style called Jingju theater.
Jingju is unique in its combination of song, combat, costume, acrobatics and stylized movements, among other theatrical elements.
"(The actors and audience) work together," Chung said. "We create a story together. That is the real Chinese theater."
According to Chung, the audience is allowed and encouraged to clap, yell and communicate with the actors.
The show is about two unmarried sisters. The older of the two is hot-tempered and stubborn, while the younger is beautiful and sweet. Their father attempts to marry the younger sister, who has many suitors, behind the older sister's back-but his plans will go terribly wrong.
Harmeyer said The Taming of the Shrew, which has a cast of 17 Miami students from varying majors, will be very fun, colorful and interactive.
The performance will also be about creating a cultural exchange, something that excites Chung.
"This is a global education system-just open a window and go," Harmeyer said. "I hope this production would be a breach from the Western to Asia and from Asia to the Western."
Chung, however, said the reason she is involved in any theatrical performance is simple: "I come for the fun."
