Performances

Theatre & Dance

2025-2026 Season

Book by: Joe Masteroff
Based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood
Music by John Kander
Lyrics by Fred Ebb

Director: Keri Burman Castro

Location: University Theatre

Performances: November 6-7 at 8:00 p.m.; November 8-9 at 2:00 pm

About the Performance:
In a Berlin nightclub, as the 1920s draw to a close, a garish Master of Ceremonies welcomes the audience and assures them they will forget all their troubles at the Cabaret. With the Emcee’s bawdy songs as wry commentary, Cabaret explores the dark, heady and tumultuous life of Berlin’s natives and expatriates as Germany slowly yields to the emerging Third Reich. Cliff, a young American writer newly arrived in Berlin, is immediately taken with English singer Sally Bowles. Meanwhile, Fräulein Schneider, proprietor of Cliff and Sally’s boarding house, tentatively begins a romance with Herr Schultz, a mild-mannered fruit seller who happens to be Jewish.

Pantomime

By: Derek Walcott

Director: George Potter

Location: Studio Theatre

Performances: October 16-17 at 8:00 p.m.; October 18-19 at 2:00 pm

About the Performance:
A fast-paced comedy set in Tobago. In the hope of entertaining future guests, an English hotel owner proposes that he and his black handyman work up a satire on the Robinson Crusoe story.

Dance Ensemble

Director: Salena Elish

Location: University Theatre

Performances: February 6-7 at 8:00 pm; February 7-8 at 2:00 pm

About the Performance:
The Dance Ensemble takes the stage in the month of February, bringing student and faculty choreographed dance to the Valparaiso community.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Presented by: Christ College Seminar, Shakespeare Live!

Director: Amanda Ruud

By: William Shakespeare

May 1-2 at 7:00 pm; May 2-3 at 2:00 pm

Vinegar Tom

Director: George Potter

By: Caryl Churchill

Location: University Theatre

Performances: April 16-17 at 8:00 pm; April 18-19 at 2:00 pm

About the Performance:
This exciting early play by an acclaimed Obie Award winning author was created in association with a British feminist theatre who requested a play about witches. Although vinegar Tom is set in the 16th or 17th century in rural England, it has a contemporary feel and may be staged very simply. It tells the story of two farm women who are named as witches by a man whom they have spurned sexually. The connection between fear of female sexuality and witch hysteria is shown to be at the root of many of society’s problems.

Past Performances

Past main stage performances have included such titles as Anastasia, Let the Right One In, She Kills Monsters, Tuck Everlasting, Nice People Dancing to Good Country Music, Doublewide, Texas, The Dream of the Burning Boy, Lady Windermere’s Fan, Our Town, Pippin, The Lady from the Sea, Rose and the Rime, The Spitfire Grill, Mr. Burns, The Musical of Musicals (The Musical!), The Bacchae, Sylvia, Godspell, Mosque Alert, The Eyre Affair, God of Carnage, The School for Lies, An Evening of Short Plays by Beckett, Dido and Aeneas, Eurydice, Arcadia, Macbeth, Sweeney Todd, Marriage, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, How I Learned to Drive, The House of Bernarda Alba, Brighton Beach Memoirs, Circle Mirror Transformation, Hansel and Gretel, The Arabian Nights, Floyd Collins, The Universal Wolf, Tartuffe, Almost Maine, Twelfth Night, Cabaret, and Fuddy Meers.

Photos and videos

MuSIC department

Testimonials

Stefan Roseen, a young man in a cardigan and tie, stands indoors with hands in pockets, smiling at the camera.

Performances

“One thing that drew me to Valpo was the variety of shows that the department performs. In just one season we did a translation of a Russian show; Sweeney Todd, which is one of the best musicals ever written; Macbeth, which is Shakespeare and difficult; and Arcadia, considered one of the best-written plays of the 20th century. We’re given challenges, that’s for sure.”

— Stefan Roseen ’15

Theatre & Dance

MuSIC department