*Curse of the Starving Class* at Gonzaga

It used to be Russell Theater in the Admin Building. Now it's the Magnuson Theater in College Hall.
Gonzaga's done a million-dollar renovation to its '40s-era-gymnasium of a theater, now with raked seats, new lighting and more.
They'll open it with Sam Shepard's 1978 play, *Curse of the Starving Class,* directed by the principal of Gonzaga Prep, Fr. Kevin Connell.
Shepard's seriocomic, poetic, off-kilter treatment of a dysfunctional American family — screaming at each other, about to be invaded from outside, fearful of losing their home, with nothing to eat in the refrigerator — should seem relevant a time in America when there are more than a million foreclosures annually. That's a million families reflected in the bitter/hilarious tribulations of Emma and Ella, Weston and Wesley.

5/13/08 *New York Times* review by Charles Isherwood of a production at ACT in S.F. is
here. Read all the way to the end of the review for a couple amazingly prescient quotes from Shepard's play -- for example, about how our American dream (recently shattered by a worldwide financial implosion) was all built on "invisible money."

Friday-Saturday, Oct. 24-25, at 7:30 pm
Saturday, Oct. 25, at 2 pm
Thursday, Oct. 30, and Saturday, Nov. 1, at 7:30 pm
Sunday, Nov. 2, at 2 pm
Tickets: $12; $10, faculty and staff; $8, students
Call 313-6553
Be prepared for some (implied?) onstage urinating, male nudity (here, underpantsed -- this is a Catholic school, you know) and some (mercifully offstage) animal cruelty. Baa, baa ...