Eldred Theater and Mather Dance Center will conclude their seasons with performances of An Ideal Husband and Footpaths, respectively.

An Ideal Husband

CWRU's department of theater arts will conclude this season at Eldred Theater with An Ideal Husband, a witty society play by Oscar Wilde.

Performances take place at 8 p.m. April 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12 with two matinees at 2:30 p.m. April 6 and 13 at the theater.

Directed by Ron Wilson, theater arts department chair, An Ideal Husband features both graduate and undergraduate theater students.

Though Wilde is best known for his final play, The Importance of Being Earnest, Wilson describes An Ideal Husband as a different kind of play in the author's body of work. Audiences will find a more serious message underlying the brilliant witticisms for which Wilde is so famous, according to Wilson. In dealing with the social structures of his day, Wilde portrays characters bound by a very superficial sense of morality that pervades their lives.

The "ideal husband" named in the title is Sir Robert Chiltern, a well-to-do government official of the 1890s who enjoys the admiration of his peers and a wife who adores him. When troublesome foreigner Mrs. Cheveley surfaces with a secret from Sir Chiltern's past, however, he risks losing everything unless he can outsmart her in a deft game of manipulation. Throughout the story, Wilde's writing moves audience members quickly from scene to scene.

Wilson said that the play will be performed in the traditional style of the period in which it was written.

Michael Roesch designed the set for the show and CWRU master's of fine arts. graduate Kathleen Burke Clay served as costume designer. The cast also includes local actor Dennis Runkle as Lord Caversham and CWRU theater arts faculty member Jerrold Scott as Lord Goring, among others.

General admission is $10, with discounted prices of $7 for adults over 60 and CWRU personnel and $5 for students. For ticket reservations or more information, call the Eldred Theater at 368-6262.

Footpaths

Kathleen Kohatsu, graduate student of the CWRU dance program, will conclude the Mather Dance season with Footpaths from April 3 through April 6.

The concert takes place at 8 p.m. April 3-5 and at 2:30 p.m. on April 6 in the Mather Dance Center.

The program will feature six works entitled Thru Line, Handwritten, Playfare, Slow Turning of the Sky, Migration and Sylvan Encounters-the second and sixth of which are solos featuring Kohatsu. Her fellow performers include staff and graduate and undergraduate students of the Mather Dance program, along with students and graduates of both the Cleveland Institute of Art and the Cleveland Institute of Music.

The materials in each piece will showcase Kohatsu's eclectic and creative choreography as well as her skill as a dancer.

Kohatsu cultivated her interest in dance with the Colby Dancers at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, as an economics major there. Upon graduation, she spent three years teaching in Maine before enrolling in the CWRU dance training program, where she is currently a third-year masater's of fine arts candidate. She has served as the co-director of Mather Dance Collective for three semesters and also teaches modern dance to undergraduate students.

A recipient of the Ruth Barber Moon Award for demonstration of academic promise and leadership ability, Kohatsu presents Footpaths as her thesis in fulfillment of her master's degree.

For ticket reservations or further information, call the Eldred Theatre Box Office at 216-368-6262. General admission is $10, with discounted prices of $7 for adults over 60 and University personnel and $5 for students.