Per a press release from Krannert Center/Illinois Theatre:
Illinois Theatre is pleased to announce the extension of its acclaimed fall production Oh What a Lovely War. After a highly successful November run, Oh What a Lovely War returns to the Studio Theatre at Krannert Center from Wednesday, February 18, through Sunday, February 22. Jeffrey Eric Jenkins, producer of Illinois Theatre, states, “We have so much terrific work happening in our classrooms and on our stages here at Illinois Theatre that we can sometimes be flexible about our programming. In this case, we can make a truly wonderful production available for a larger audience when we reopen Oh What a Lovely War in February.”
This return engagement replaces The Sullivan Project, which is being postponed and will not be presented this season. Daniel Sullivan, Swanlund Chair in Theatre, notes, “The project I have in mind needs more development time before we can bring it to a Krannert Center stage. We’ve decided to delay The Sullivan Project until next year to allow for that time.”
Patrons holding tickets for The Sullivan Project will be contacted by the Ticket Office and will receive first option on tickets for Oh What a Lovely War. Tickets will go on sale to the public at 10am on Monday, January 5.
As the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign commemorates the centenary of the beginning of World War I, Illinois Theatre revisits the era with Oh What a Lovely War. Fifty years ago, as the war’s semicentennial approached, Joan Littlewood and her company at the Theatre Royal in London captured events surrounding the “Great War” with this collectively developed piece. A 1963 response to growing cultural interest in uncovering truths about World War I—the first modern, industrial, mechanized war—the company’s work drew into sharp relief the human impact of global conflict. The News-Gazette recently called the musical production “brilliant and beautiful . . . theatrically fresh and provocatively honest.”
Performance dates for Oh What a Lovely War are:
We-Sa Feb 18-21 at 7:30pm
Su Feb 22 at 3pm