Hutton Honors College

HHC Afternoon at the Theatre:
Cardinal Stage Co.'s Inherit the Wind

With a Special Post-performance Talkback
with the Cast and IU Faculty Members!

Saturday, Sept. 5, 2009 * 2 p.m. Performance, Followed by Talkback * Waldron Arts Center (122 S. Walnut St.)
Refreshments Provided * SIGN-UP REQUIRED * Tickets: $12

Inherit the Wind, written in 1955 by American playwrights Jerome Lawrence and Robert Edwin Lee, provides a fictionalized account of the 1925 "Scopes Monkey Trial." John Scopes was prosecuted for teaching evolution in his high school biology class in violation of Tennessee's law that made it illegal "to teach any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals." Although Scopes lost at trial, it was a turning point in the American evolution-creationism debate. The play also reflects the authors' concerns about threats they saw to intellectual freedom in their own time, in particular the anti-communist investigations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities led by Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Cardinal Stage Company is a professional theatre company in Bloomington, and this production is part of the fall Themester programming of the College of Arts and Sciences: "Evolution, Diversity, and Change." The September 5 performance will be followed by a panel discussion featuring members of the cast and IU professors Rex Sprouse (a professor of Germanic studies and secondary language studies who is active in the Religious Society of Friends [Quakers] at the local, regional, and continental levels), Michael Wade (a professor of biology whose research focuses on evolutionary genetics), and Stephen Watt (a professor of English and theatre and drama).

If you are interested in seeing this play but cannot attend the performance on Saturday, September 5, the show will be running at the Waldron Friday, September 4, through Sunday, September 20. You can purchase your ticket at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater Box Office, located at 114 E. Kirkwood Avenue, or online here.

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