The Taylor Theatre Playbills collection features programs from Taylor’s stage productions, including Taylor Theatre, musicals, playback theatre, and Taylor’s Touring Company. Some operas are also included.
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The Glass Menagerie
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1974 performance of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams.
The Glass Menagerie is a memory play narrated and led by a young man named Tom, who recounts life with his mother Amanda and sister Laura. The play has strong autobiographical elements of the playwright Tennessee and his experience growing up with his mother and sister.
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Christ in the Concrete City and The Prodigal Son
The playbill for Taylor University’s 1974 performances of Christ in the Concrete City by Philip Turner and The Prodigal Son by R.H. Ward, performed by the Religious Drama Company
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The Ugly Duckling
The playbill for Taylor University’s Theatre 25 Fall 1973 performance of The Ugly Duckling by A. A. Milne.
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A Mark Twain Production
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1973 performance of A Mark Twain Production adapted by Allen Goetcheus for Chamber Theatre.
A Mark Twin Production tells the story of Mark Twain and his work through collected writings and letters.
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The Taming of the Shrew
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1973 performance of The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare.
The Taming of the Shrew follows the courtship and marriage of Petruchio and Katherina, a headstrong shrew and how Petruchio "tames" her.
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The Skin of Our Teeth
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1973 performance of The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder.
The Skin of Our Teeth is an allegory about human nature which follows a family and their maid through various disasters at different points of human history.
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Grimm's Fairy Tales
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1973 performance of Grimm’s Fairy Tales adapted by Allen Goetcheus for Chamber Theatre.
Grimm’s Fairy Tales is an adaption of the classic stories by the Grimm Brothers.
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A Man for All Seasons
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1972 performance of A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt.
A Man for All Seasons is based on the life of Sir Thomas Moore, a 16th century chancellor of England who refused to endorse King Henry the VIII’s divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon, who did not bear him any sons so her could marry Anne Boleyn.
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The Importance of Being Earnest
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1972 performance of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde.
The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People, is a farcical comedy about two men who each take on the personas with the name of Earnest in order to escape the burdens of social obligations.
This production was set as a Reader's Theatre due to the limited physical space available.
This is one of three plays performed at Eastbrook Middle School Cafetorium because of the destruction of Shreiner Auditorium in Helena Music Hall. Helena Music Hall was destroyed in a fire January 20, 1972. The next building to host Taylor theatre on campus was the Little Theater in the 1972-73 school year.
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The Turn of the Screw
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1972 performance of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw adapted by Allen Goetcheus for Chamber Theatre.
The Turn of the Screw is the story of a governess who takes a job in an English country house and begins to see what she believes are the ghosts of two former employees.
This is one of three plays performed at Eastbrook Middle School Cafetorium because of the destruction of Shreiner Auditorium in Helena Music Hall. Helena Music Hall was destroyed in a fire January 20, 1972. The next building to host Taylor theatre on campus was the Little Theater in the 1972-73 school year.
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Antigone
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1972 performance of Antigone by Sophocles, (translated by Jean Anouilh).
In this story, the bold yet cursed princess Antigone, daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, chooses to confront her unmovable uncle/king about his decision to dishonor her brother by refusing his burial. Her choice to defy him shocks the entire city of Thebes. Ultimately, all concerned, including the audience, are forced to wrestle with the relationship of divine law to human laws.
This is one of three plays performed at Eastbrook Middle School Cafetorium because of the destruction of Shreiner Auditorium in Helena Music Hall. Helena Music Hall was destroyed in a fire January 20, 1972. The next building to host Taylor theatre on campus was the Little Theater in the 1972-73 school year.
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The Imaginary Invalid
The playbill for Taylor University’s October 1971 performance of The Imaginary Invalid arranged by Jean Baptiste Moliére.
The Imaginary Invalid is a satirical Comédie-ballet about the 17th century medical profession, following the story of a wealthy Frenchman named Argan who is a hypochondriac.
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Ghosts
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1971 performance of Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen.
Ghosts tells the story of widow Mrs. Alving who has built an orphanage in honor of her late husband though he was unfaithful to her. The play shows her navigation of various issues with her son and husband’s illegitimate daughter, attacking conventional morals of the time.
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Short Stories from the South
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1971 performance of Short Stories From the South adapted by Allen Goetcheus for Chamber Theatre.
Short Stories From the South features stories and excerpts from the works of Eudora Welty, Flannery O’Conner, and William Faulkner.
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The Cherry Orchard
The playbill for Taylor University’s April 1971 performance of The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov.
The play follows an aristocratic Russian landowner who returns to her family estate (which includes a large and well-known cherry orchard) just before it is auctioned to pay the mortgage.
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The Fantasticks
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1971 performance of The Fantasticks with music by Harvey Schmidt and book and lyrics by Tom Jones.
The Fantasticks is an allegorical musical about two scheming neighbor fathers who pretend to feud in order to make their children fall in love.
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Much Ado About Nothing
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1970 performance of Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare.
Much Ado About Nothing tells the story of two couples, the feuding Benedick and Beatrice, and the deeply in love Claudio and Hero. Through the use of gossip Benedick and Beatrice are brought together again, and Claudio and Hero, at first separated by malicious lies, are brought together again.
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She Stoops to Conquer
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1970 performance of She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith.
She Stoops to Conquer is the story of Kate Hardcastle, a high society woman whom her father is trying to marry to rich Londoner Charles Marlow. When Marlow rejects her in favor of marrying someone less intimidating and of a lower class, she takes on the persona of a maid to woo him.
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Amahl and the Night visitors
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1969 performance of Amal and the Night Visitors by Gian-Carlo Menotti.
Amal and the Night Visitors is an opera about a young crippled boy name Amal who lives with his mother, and special night they are visited by the Magi, who are journeying in search of the Christ child.
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Charley's Aunt
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1969 performance of Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas.
Charley’s Aunt is the story of Lord Fancourt Babberley, an undergraduate persuaded by two of his friends, Jack and Charley, to impersonate Charley’s aunt so they can spend time with they beaus. Their plan is complicated when an elderly fortune hunter tries to woo the fake aunt and Charley’s real aunt appears.
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The Cocktail Party
The playbill for Taylor University’s Fall 1969 performance of The Cocktail Party by T. S. Elliot.
The Cocktail Party by T. S. Elliot is the story of a separated couple who are brought together by their psychiatrist to a cocktail party so they might be reunited.
This show was performed by the Faculty Readers reader’s theater.
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The World of Carl Sandburg
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1969 performance of The World of Carl Sandburg arranged by Norman Corwin.
The World of Carl Sandburg features selections from the poetry and prose of Carl Sandburg.
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The Madwoman of Chaillot
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1969 performance of The Madwoman of Chaillot by Jean Giraudoux.
The Madwoman of Chaillot is a satire about an eccentric woman who uncovers the plot of a group of businessmen to dig up Paris for oil and sets out to thwart them with the help of other ordinary and peculiar people.
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Oklahoma!
The playbill for Taylor University’s Spring 1969 performance of Oklahoma!. Books and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II, music by Richard Rogers.
The high-spirited rivalry between the farmers and cowmen of the Western Indian Territory provides the colorful, turn-of-the-century backdrop for Curley and Laurey’s love story. But with these headstrong romantics holding the reins, the road to love is as bumpy as a surrey ride down a dusty road. Despite many hardships, their rocky romance leads to a new life beginning in a brand new state. Rodgers & Hammerstein's first collaboration remains, in many ways, their most innovative, having set the standards and established the rules that musical theatre still follows today.
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An Evening of One-Act Plays
The playbill for Taylor University’s 1968 student-directed productions, including The American Dream by Edward Albee, The Room by Harold Pinter, and The Bald Soprano by Eugene Ionesco.