JCCC Theatre Department
Schedule and Synopsis of Plays
2007-2008 Season

These plays are performed by students of the Theatre Department at Johnson County Community College, and are free to JCCC students with valid ID cards. I encourage you to attend one or more of these performances and to consider one of them for your Performance Arts Analysis Papers.

ACADEMIC THEATRE PERFORMS “TABULA RASA”

The JCCC academic theater department will premiere a new play, “Tabula Rasa,” by Whitney Reece Rowland. The play, about family relationships and the impact of abuse, shows at 8 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, Oct. 3-6, and 2 p.m. Saturday-Sunday, Oct. 6-7, in the Black Box Theatre of the Carlsen Center.

The protagonist, Lila, is married to the neglectful, but hardworking Eric. The play begins with Lila's discovery of her old family table in their current dining room. Lila’s father, Henry, is dying in the hospital, and so Susette, Lila’s mother, who is mentally unstable, is giving away many of the family belongings. At the sight of the table, Lila's mind travels back to the years of her unhappy, abusive childhood. Her visions and memories of the past, her conflict with Eric and the sudden death of her father all drive Lila to seek the solace of a man named Deuce. As the play unfolds, Lila’s “victim” status comes into question, as does her memory, and her sanity.

The author, Whitney Reece Rowland, is a former JCCC student and now a junior at the University of Kansas. She is working toward a creative writing degree, with an emphasis in playwriting. Rowland was the 2007 winner in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival “10-minute Play Festival” for this region; her 10-minute play, Suicide by Punchbowl, was then chosen for performance at the Kennedy Center in April 2007 during the national festival.

Rowland named the play Tabula Rasa, for its many meanings. “Tabula Rasa” literally means a scraped tablet, clean slate, and also has the double meanings: 1. a mind not yet affected by experience and impressions 2. anything existing undisturbed in its original pure state.

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