Event: Illinois Wesleyan University School of Theatre Arts presents: Blood Brothers, a musical by Willy Russell
Date: March 26-30, 2003 (Wednesday-Sunday)
Time: 8 p.m. (Wednesday-Saturday)
2 p.m. (Saturday and Sunday)
Admission: $5 for Friday and Saturday evenings, all other shows $2
$1 for students with valid I.D. for all shows
Location: E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre, 2 Ames Plaza East, Bloomington
Background: Willy Russell’s musical Blood Brothers features the story of two twin boys separated at birth. The mother, deserted by her husband and already with a house full of children, decides she cannot afford to keep her twins. The mother’s childless neighbor learns of her problem and begs to raise one of the twins herself.
The two boys grow up streets apart never knowing their true background but becoming good friends. The pressures of superstition, class and economics trap them both and determine their fate. Their paths are destined to cross again not only in friendship but also in anger as they will fulfill the superstitious prophecy that twins parted at birth will die on the day they find out their heritage.
Blood Brothers originally opened in England in the early 1980s for a short run. After minor revisions on focus and tone it was revived in a new production in 1988.
Author Willy Russell, born near Liverpool, England in 1947, has written a string of well-known plays and musicals in addition to Blood Brothers. One of his most well known, Educating Rita, was successfully made into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Michael Caine and Julie Walters.
Contact: For additional information, contact Danielle Drogos, publicity coordinator for the Illinois Wesleyan School of Theatre Arts, at 309/556-3442.
