Curtain Call: Everywhere You Look

On Friday, November 5 and Sunday, November 7, the SIU Department of Theatre will present Jeff Nichols's Everywhere You Look as part of the New Plays Festival.

Everywhere You Look takes place in the near-future America, where a terrorist attack has destroyed Detroit, a very right-wing government has taken control, and a father becomes the target of his son's investigation after the father harbors a suspected terrorist.

"It's really about having faith in something, believing in something, and then having that belief be questioned," writer and director Nichols tells Nightlife.

Nichols notes that two major influences on Everywhere You Look, in terms of allegorical critiques of contemporaneous issues, are the stage adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank and Arthur Miller's landmark 1953 play The Crucible. He also cites his background as a participant in Greenpeace, anti-apartheid groups, and antiwar groups as playing pivotal roles in his creative development.

"I wanted to do something that was relevant, that had a big question that everybody can relate to, because there's nobody who wouldn't be affected by things like this, or hasn't been affected by these issues," Nichols says. "[P]art of my goal, really, in being an artist is also to bring in questions of this nature. I've always been involved in political/social types of works.... I'm just trying to put together in my writing, in my art, thematic elements that I feel are of the most importance to people."

Nichols states that one of the challenges in doing a play with multiple locations is learning to work within the spatial confines of the theater.

"It's a very psychological-realism-style play in terms of the script," he says. "In terms of the presentation, it's not that detailed. It's more of a Brechtian approach, where in many of the locations we merely just suggest it in the most cursory terms."

Tickets are $12 per show for adults, and $6 per show for students.

For tickets, visit <http://www.SouthernTicketsOnline.com>, call (618) 453-6000, or stop by the box office weekdays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. or one hour before performances. There are no service charges for in-person purchases, though phone and online purchases will carry charges ranging from $1 to $1.50.

Visit <http://www.theater.siu.edu> for more information.

who: SIU Theatre Department

what: New Play Festival featuring Jeff Nichols's Everywhere You Look (live theater)

where: SIU Communications Building McLeod Theatre

when: Friday and Sunday, November 5 and 7