Editor: Keith Davis Writers: Dave Maley Publisher: Office of Public Information Volume 22, No. 3   September 20, 1999

Ithaca College Theatre Opens 1999–2000 Season Eric Overmeyer’s DarkRapture will raise the curtain on Ithaca College Theatre’s 1999–2000 season. Performances in the Clark Theatre will run from September 30–October 2 and October 5–9, with a preview on Wednesday, September 29. Performance times for this dark, comic send-up of the American film noir genre will be 8:00 p.m., with a Saturday matinee on October 9 at 2:00. Tickets go on sale Monday, September 27, with prices ranging from $3.50 to $9.00. The box office is open from noon to 5:00 p.m., Monday through Friday, in Dillingham Center. For ticket reservations and information, call 274-3224. "Dark Rapture is about escape," writes Roger Downey in American Theatre. "Escape from the self, from the sane, and from the ordinary." The escape hatch, he explains, is offered by a fire that leaves the Berkeley Hills home of Ray and Julia Gaines a pile of smoldering rubble with a charred and unrecognizable corpse beneath it. Whose corpse is it: Ray’s or a looter’s? Just where was Julia when the house burned down? And what happened to the parcel Julia says she left in Ray’s custody? Did it go up in flames, too? Any number of sinister people want to know. "In classic noir manner," says Downey, "the story advances tableau by moody tableau, from Baja bedroom to Key West bar deck to Tampa kitchenette, each offering its sharply etched character cameo, its fragment of information, its new complication, straight to a conclusion redolent with irony." The cast for Dark Rapture includes Mika Duncan ’00 as Ray, Angela Groeschen ’00 as Julia, Allison Nega ’00 as Max, Jonah P. Von Spreecken ’00 as Babcock, Chandra R. Curtis ’00 as Renee, Mitch Bisschop ’00 as Danny, Ben Tostado ’01 as Vegas, and Brian Lee Huynh ’02 as Lexington. The artistic team for Dark Rapture is composed of Norm Johnson Jr., director; Alison Harma ’01, stage manager; Shana Skop ’00, costume designer; Gordon Strain ’00, scenic designer; Richard Dunks ’02, sound designer; and Jennette Kollman ’00, lighting designer.