Lindsey Wilson College Theatre’s Spring Season to Feature Award-Winning ‘The Weir’ and Musical Adaptation of ‘Little Women’

threatre COLUMBIA, Ky. – The culture of mid-1990s Ireland and a legendary coming-of-age story in America are the themes of this spring’s plays at Lindsey Wilson College.

The Lindsey Wilson Department of Theatre will present Irish playwright Connor McPherson’s award-winning play The Weir on April 2-4 and April 6 and the musical adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s classic and beloved novel Little Women on April 24-27. Both plays will be presented in the college’s V.P. Henry Auditorium.

The Weir is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. It won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play of 1997-98 and earned McPherson the coveted Critics’ Circle Award as the most promising playwright of 1998. McPherson’s work has been compared to titles by theater legends Eugene O’Neill, Samuel Beckett and Arthur Miller.

The Weir, which involves five characters having a conversation in a pub in western rural Ireland, is the first Irish play the college has produced.

“I think audiences will have a lot of fun with this play and find it very entertaining,” said Lindsey Wilson theatre professor Robert Brock, who will direct the play. “Irish plays are a thing unto themselves. Although they hit on universal themes, Irish plays are specifically Irish. I think audiences will love this play because the five characters in the story are really interesting people.”

Alcott’s semi-autobiographical Little Women, a coming-of-age story about the March sisters of Massachusetts during the second half of the Civil War, has been a commercial success since it was first published in the late 1860s. The two-volume novel has been adapted into seven films, more than a half-dozen TV productions, an opera and a couple of musicals.

The Lindsey Wilson production will be the 2005 Broadway musical with the book by Allan Knee, music by Jason Howland and lyrics by Mindi Dickstein. In addition to a Broadway run, the musical has twice toured the United States.

Brock said he was a latecomer to Little Women, after seeing Greta Gerwig’s 2019 film.

“I was really blown away by the story and everything taking place in it, so I decided that we had to produce the musical adaptation of the story when it became available,” said Brock. “Students are going to enjoy presenting it, and audiences are really going to enjoy seeing a wonderful story.”

For more information about the plays or to purchase tickets, go to www.lindsey.edu/theatre or contact Robert Brock at brockr@lindsey.edu.

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