Bethel Pre­sents “Plain and Fancy”

MISHAWAKA– From March 30 to April 1, Bethel Uni­ver­si­ty’s The­atre De­part­ment will be show­ing “Plain and Fancy.” Ad­mis­sion is $18 dol­lars for stu­dents and se­niors, $21 for the gen­eral pub­lic and $13 dol­lars for chil­dren 12 and un­der. Stu­dents can also at­tend for free and watch the whole show if they sign up to be an usher for the per­for­mance. There is a 7:30 p.m. per­for­mance each evening and a 1:30 p.m. mati­nee on April 1. All per­for­mances will take place in the Ever­est-Rohrer Au­di­to­rium. 

“Plain and Fancy” is a pop­u­lar Mid­west pro­duc­tion that cap­tures the clash of so­cialite ur­ban cul­ture and rural Amish cul­ture. The play is ex­pected to be well-at­tended by sig­nif­i­cant num­bers of peo­ple from cam­pus and from the Michi­ana com­mu­nity. Abi­gail Hadley is one of the as­sis­tant stage man­agers and said the play’s genre is part of what is cre­at­ing the high ex­pec­ta­tions. 

“Es­pe­cially, since it’s a mu­si­cal, we’ll fill the whole au­di­to­rium,” Hadley said. 

Ac­cord­ing to Hadley, au­di­ence mem­bers can ex­pect at least twenty songs. The play will run for around two hours, with an in­ter­mis­sion time of 15 min­utes.  

The cast has ded­i­cated a lot of time and ef­fort into the show. Over the past two months, stu­dents put in around twenty hours a week of prac­tice. The scale of the pro­duc­tion has been a new ex­pe­ri­ence for Emily Thomas, who plays the lead role of Katie Yo­der.  

“This is the biggest pro­duc­tion I’ve ever been a part of,” Thomas said. “It was a lit­tle in­tim­i­dat­ing first com­ing into it, but Deb is an amaz­ing di­rec­tor, and they were able to get peo­ple for me to work with in the mu­sic de­part­ment to help with my singing, and all that, and it’s just amaz­ing. Every­one is so en­cour­ag­ing.” 

To pur­chase tick­ets, visit the ticket of­fice in the Ever­est-Rohrer build­ing or pur­chase them on­line at tick­ets.bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu.