Marjorie Lyons Playhouse presents "The Altruists"
January 19, 2017
SHREVEPORT, LA — Centenary junior John La Costa is stepping into the director’s role for the Department of Theatre’s first offering in 2017. La Costa tackles Nicky Silver’s The Altruists, opening at the College’s Marjorie Lyons Playhouse on February 2 at 7:30 p.m. Additional evening performances follow on February 3 and 4, and a 2:00 p.m. matinee closes the run on February 5.
“In my opinion, there couldn’t be a more relevant time to put on this show,” says La Costa. “While Silver’s criticisms in the show were clearly directed at issues in the 1990s they are still relevant now, especially given the expansion of activism in media.”
Nicky Silver, who has been described as “the bad-boy playwright of Off-Broadway,” wrote the hyperrealist satire The Altruists in 2001. The play follows a group of young radicals through intrigues of romance, violence, and betrayal while exposing hypocrisies in the world of modern activism and the consequences of taking privilege for granted. A reviewer in NY Newsday wrote that in The Altruists Silver “…has written one of his most consistent explosions of dark yet good-natured satire…we are carried aloft on the demented joy of [his] hyperarticulate imagination.”
The cast for The Altruists includes Centenary students Tessa Anderson, Caroline Dopson, Emmaline Dyer, Alex Koch, Aiden Poling, and Christian Roberson.
All performances will be held at Marjorie Lyons Playhouse on the Centenary campus, 2700 Woodlawn Avenue in Shreveport. Tickets are available by calling the Box Office at 318.869.5242 or online at centenary.edu/playhouse/tickets. More information about the MLP season is available at centenary.edu/playhouse.