Goucher Students Present "The Nina Variations"

Release date: November 20, 2009 |

Students in Goucher’s directing and lighting design courses will stage and perform The Nina Variations, a funny and poignant homage to Anton Chekov’s The Seagull, on Friday, November 20, and Saturday, November 21, at 8 p.m. in the college’s Mildred Dunnock Theatre.

These performances are free and open to the public, but tickets must be reserved. Contact the Mildred Dunnock Box Office at 410-337-6512 to reserve a ticket or for more information.

When playwright Steven Dietz was approached to write a new adaptation of Chekhov’s The Seagull, he was mesmerized by the final scene between the star-crossed lovers Nina and Treplev. His passion for this scene and these two characters grew so strong that he finally granted them a second chance – 43 chances, actually – to change the plot. Hence, The Nina Variations was born.

In these variations on the famous final scene, the young actress Nina and the young writer Treplev pit their vibrant wit and uprising passions against each other in a fast-paced tour de force of romantic entanglement. In scene after scene, they try to say all the things that were never said, but may have been thought, in Chekhov’s original. And by finally speaking their minds, they allow for the possibility that they might find each other in the end.

Since 1981, Dietz’s 20-plus plays and adaptations have been widely produced at regional theaters across the United States, as well as Off-Broadway, and have won him several prizes all over the world. Productions of his works have been seen on all continents. His recent work includes Fiction, Over the Moon, and The Last of the Boys. He lives in Seattle and works as a playwright and director.

Goucher’s production of The Nina Variations will be conceived and staged by students in the college’s directing and lighting design courses, and it will feature more than a dozen student actors rotating through the roles of the two lovers.