SMSU Theatre to Present FROST/NIXON on Sept. 9
Published Thursday, August 22, 2024
The Southwest Minnesota State University Theatre Program will present FROST/NIXON, a play by Peter Morgan on Monday, Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in the SMSU Fine Arts Theatre.
FROST/NIXON is a dramatization of the controversial interviews by British broadcaster, David Frost, with former US President Richard Nixon, televised in 1977. The impeachment process began by the House of Representatives in October 1973 and continued through August 9, 1974 when Nixon resigned from office. His successor, Gerald Ford, pardoned him on Sept. 8, 1974. This year is the 50th anniversary of that historic occasion.
The presentation of FROST/NIXON will be presented ONE NIGHT ONLY by SMSU students in a staged reading format. The play is read without intermission. Admission is a free-will donation/pay what you can.
The reader’s theatre performance FROST/NIXON is presented in partnership with the Center for Civic and Community Engagement as part of Mustangs Vote, SMSU’s voter engagement initiative. Mustangs Vote is the on-campus effort to educate and encourage SMSU students and all eligible voters to exercise their right to vote in this year’s election on November 5th.
FROST/NIXON is directed by SMSU Theatre Professor Sheila Tabaka. Assistant Professor of Theatre Tetta M. Askeland designed the lighting and coordinated the projections. The cast features local and regional performers including:
- Sean Byrd, Minneapolis actor, director, and Normandale College Theatre instructor, as British television host David Frost
- Ryan Robert Nelson, Minneapolis actor and SMSU Theatre alumnus, as Richard Nixon
- Tom Isbell, Duluth actor, director, and retired University of Minnesota Duluth Theatre professor, as American journalist and writer Jim Reston
- Tom Woldt, Indianola, Ia. actor, director, artistic director, and former Theatre professor, as Bob Zelnick, American journalist and executive editor of the Frost/Nixon interviews; Manolo Sanchez, Nixon’s valet; and others
- Local actor Michael Van Keulen as British television producer John Birt, and Ollie, the White House photographer
- James Wood, Brookings, So. Dak. actor, director, and Artistic Director of Theatre at South Dakota State University, as Jack Brennan, Nixon’s post-resignation Chief of Staff
- Charlotte Wahle, SMSU’s Director of Admission as British socialite and budding journalist Caroline Cushing
- Local actor and SMSU Theatre alumnus Jordan Stangeland as Nixon’s agent Swifty Lazar; American investigative journalist Mike Wallace; and others
- SMSU Theatre Professor Nadine Purvis Schmidt as Australian tennis star Evonne Goolagong, and others
- Senior SMSU Theatre Arts major Bryn Mongeau as the reader of the stage directions
FROST/NIXON is presented by special arrangement with Broadway Licensing, LLC, servicing the Dramatists Play Service collection. (www.dramatists.com) It was first presented onstage in London by Matthew Byam Shaw and St Elmo Productions Ltd and subsequently produced on Broadway by Arielle Tepper Madover, Matthew Byam Shaw, Robert Fox, Act Productions, David Binder, Debra Black, Annette Niemtzow, Harlene Freezer and The Weinstein Company.
The full description of FROST/NIXON by Dramatists Play Service:
THE STORY: British talk-show host David Frost has become a lowbrow laughingstock. Richard M. Nixon has just resigned the United States presidency in total disgrace over Vietnam and the Watergate scandal. Determined to resurrect his career, Frost risks everything on a series of in-depth interviews in order to extract an apology from Nixon. The cagey Nixon, however, is equally bent on redeeming himself in his nation’s eyes. In the television age, image is king, and both men are desperate to out-talk and upstage each other as the cameras roll. The result is the interview that sealed a president’s legacy.
Contact the SMSU Theatre Program for more information: www.SMSU.edu/go/theatre or call 507-537-7103.
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