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Theatre and Dance Productions

Saint Louis University Theatre and Dance has produced the finest in academic theatre for 77 years. SLU students form the company and production team, mentored by expert faculty and staff.
Two people stand on ladders with the moon overhead while other cast members stand with their backs to the audience and others sit at tables

SLU Theatre and Dance students in Our Town by Thornton Wilder, directed by Gaby Rodriguez. Presented in November 2023 in the Xavier Hall Main Stage Theatre. Photo credit: ProPhotoSTL.

2023-2024 Theatre and Dance Season

Alabama Story | by Kenneth Jones

October 5-7, 2023
8 p.m., Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
2 p.m., Saturday

The Grandel

Directed by Nancy Bell

As the Civil Rights movement is brewing, a controversial children’s book about a black rabbit marrying a white rabbit stirs the passions of a segregationist state senator and a no-nonsense state librarian in 1959 Montgomery, Alabama. A contrasting story of childhood friends — an African American man and a woman of white privilege, reunited in adulthood — provides private counterpoint to the public events swirling in the state capital. Political foes, star-crossed lovers, and one feisty children’s author inhabit the same page in a Deep South of the imagination that brims with humor, heartbreak and hope. Inspired by true events!

Content advisory: Alabama Story contains descriptions of violence, depictions of historical racism and racist attitudes, and references to suicide.

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Our Town | by Thornton Wilder

November 16-19, 2023
8 p.m., Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
2 p.m., Friday and Sunday 

Xavier Hall, Main Stage Theatre

Directed by guest artist Gaby Rodriguez

Described by Edward Albee as "the greatest American play ever written," Our Town presents the small town of Grover’s Corners in three acts: "Daily Life," "Love and Marriage" and "Death and Eternity." Narrated by a stage manager, and performed with minimal props and sets, the play depicts the simple daily lives of the Webb and Gibbs families as their children fall in love, marry, and eventually — in one of the most famous scenes in American theatre — die.

Sponsored by Ms. Marianne Muellerleile

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Dreaming of Lear |  A Devised Work Based on Shakespeare’s King Lear

Produced in Collaboration with Prison Performing Arts

February 29- March 3, 2024
8 p.m., Thursday, Friday, and Saturday
2 p.m., Saturday and Sunday

The Kranzberg, Black Box Theatre

Directed by Lucy Cashion

Dreaming of Lear is a multi-media reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s tragedy filtered through the unconscious. It is a work of devised theatre in which participating artists reconstruct the play based on dreams while listening to King Lear's recordings. The production the audience experiences consists of recorded interviews with the ensemble of dreamers, fragments of Shakespeare's King Lear, and the realization of the ensemble’s dreams on stage. Dreaming of Lear is created in collaboration with Prison Performing Arts’ Alumni Company.

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Dreamscape | Dance Concert

April 26-28, 2024
8 p.m., Friday and Saturday
2 p.m., Sunday

The Grandel

Directed by Holly Seitz Marchant

The interplay between dreams and reality has long fueled human imagination. Our personal ideas, hopes, dreams and nightmares work at the edges of our subconscious awareness often revealing the inner dimensions of our lives. Movement is an ideal medium for contemplating and expressing the lived experience at the liminal intersection of the oneiric and waking mind. Join the student choreographers of SLU Theatre and Dance for an evening of new and original dance artworks that bring dreamscapes into reality.

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Tickets on Sale Now

Season ticketholders can mix and match performances for a discounted price.

Auditions and Tech Interviews

Participate in Upcoming Productions

Auditions and technical interviews are complete for the Spring 2024 productions of Dreaming of Lear and Dreamscape. The 2024-2025 season will be announced in April and audition information will be available by Summer 2024.

For more details, please contact the Production Office at produce.theatre@slu.edu. All SLU students are invited to participate. You do not have to be a theatre major or minor.

Theatre and Dance Parking

The Xavier Hall Main Stage is located in Xavier Hall on the Saint Louis University campus at 3733 West Pine Mall, one block east of Vandeventer Boulevard and one block south of Lindell Boulevard. Parking for performances at this venue is available in the Queen's Daughters Hall lot at 3730 Lindell Blvd.

Parking for Kranzberg Arts Foundation venues is as follows:

  • The Grandel, 3610 Grandel Square — public garage or street parking
  • Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N. Grand Ave. — public garage or street parking

Safety Precautions

We will follow the health and safety protocols set up by our university in line with the CDC and St. Louis City guidelines. All precautions regarding ticketing, masking, distancing, etc., are subject to change based on these guidelines.

We are Missouri Artsafe Certified.

Learn More About Missouri Artsafe