Peter Giovine, who will take on the role of Pip in ‘Great Expectations’, pictured here as Lensky in the Lewis Center’s 2012 production of Eugene Onegin. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski).
The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater is set to present a dramatic adaptation of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations by Neil Bartlett.
The play is directed by faculty member Tim Vasen and features Princeton University seniors Peter Giovine as Pip and Emma Boettcher as dramaturg.
Great Expectations, written in the first-person, tells the story of orphan Philip Pirrip or Pip, as he struggles through an impoverished youth and his harrowing encounter aiding the escaped convict Magwitch in the marshes of Kent. In his visits to the wealthy spinster Miss Havisham at Satis House, he falls in love with her aloof ward, Estella. An anonymous benefactor makes it possible for Pip to become a gentleman and move to London. Ensuing intrigue and unexpected plot twists that have captivated generations of readers lead to the climactic ending, an ending that Dickens rewrote for the 1863 edition.
The all-student cast also features Nathalie Ellis-Einhorn, John Somers Fairchild, Evelyn Giovine, Kanoa Mulling, Cameron Platt, Caroline Slutsky and Jake Tempchin.
Performances are scheduled for 8 p.m. Feb. 14, 15, 20, 21 and 22 at 8:00 p.m. at the Marie and Edward Matthews ‘53 Acting Studio, 185 Nassau St., Princeton. A talk-back is set to follow the Feb. 15 performance.
Tickets are $12 for general admission and $10 students and seniors.
The Lewis Center’s Program in Theater annually presents a major, professionally produced play, as well as a number of student senior thesis productions throughout the year. Other productions this season are set to include the Mel Brooks musical The Producers and Euripides’ Hippolytus, as well as two new works written by seniors in the program.
More information is online at arts.princeton.edu.
