Forum Players & Theatre Arts Department

ABOUT THE SHOWS

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (November 12-14, 2026)

Created by The Neo-Futurist Theatre in Chicago-the epicenter of improvisational, sketch, and experimental theatre, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind opened in 1988 and is still playing today as the longest-running show in Chicago history.  The show is an ensemble experiment presenting “30 Plays in 60 Minutes.” At every performance, each two-minute play (ranging in tone and style from hilarious to somber, trivial to thought provoking, even traditional to the Avant Garde,) is performed in a random order determined by an interactive audience. 

A clothesline of papers numbered 1 to 30 is strung across the stage. A menu of play titles and corresponding numbers is given to the audience. As the audience shouts out numbers, an ensemble member hears a number and grabs one of the papers off the clothesline, reads the title, shouts “GO” and we’re off! What follows is a wild evening of organized chaos as an onstage timer keeps the show speeding towards the 60-minute finish line. 

Directed by GCC Theatre faculty Sandy Nagar and presented with the audience sitting onstage in an intimate black-box theatre/comedy club setting, this production will be an exciting opportunity for performers and audiences alike. Using performance styles and skills such as sketch comedy, improv, physical theatre, and audience participation, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind invites performers and audiences to re-examine and re-define the theatrical experience and have a blast doing so!

Auditions for Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind will be on Tuesday September 8^th. For audition info reach out to Sandy Nagar at sanagar@genesee.edu, check the bulletin board outside the theater Scene Shop (E115) in the Arts Center, or stop by the Forum Players table at the Club Fair on Thursday September 3^rd.

Finding Nemo: A Family Musical (April 22-25, 2027)

Disney and Pixar’s Finding Nemo: A Family Musical is a new stage version of the beloved 2003 Pixar film, and features an adapted book by Lindsay Anderson and a memorable score from award-winning songwriting team Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez (Frozen, Coco, The Book of Mormon, Avenue Q). This fun and lively musical will delight the entire family as audiences young and old will be enthralled and moved by the story of Marlin and Nemo, as they recognize themselves in the characters adventures, struggles, and accomplishments.  

Finding Nemo follows Marlin, an anxious and over-protective clownfish who lives in the Great Barrier Reef with his son Nemo. When Nemo is captured and taken to Sydney, Marlin must face his fears and set off on an epic odyssey across the ocean to find his son. At the same time, Nemo must the strength and confidence to overcome his physical challenges and survive (and thrive) in a world without his father’s guidance and protection. With the help of lovable characters such as optimistic but forgetful Dory, laid-back surfer sea turtle Crush, the supportive Tank Gang, and Bruce and his fellow friendly sharks, Marlin and Nemo both overcome challenges on their journey to find each other and themselves. 

Student performing in our production of Finding Nemo will have an amazing opportunity to develop and expand their musical theatre skills such as singing and dancing. In addition, actors will be working extensively with character puppets that are designed and built to convey the full range of thoughts and feelings of both the character and the performer. Performers will have a wonderful time bringing the iconic film characters and scenes to life onstage  

Finding Nemo: A Family Musical will be directed by GCC Department of Fine & Performing Arts Chair Maryanne Arena. In addition to the regular schedule of public performances, there will be several performances local school-aged children, as well as opportunities to tour a modified version of the show to area schools.

Auditions for Finding Nemo: A Family Musical will be on Thursday September 10^th. For audition info reach out to Maryanne Arena at marena@genesee.edu or Sandy Nagar at sanagar@genesee.edu, check the bulletin board outside the theater Scene Shop (E115) in the Arts Center, or stop by the Forum Players table at the Club Fair on Thursday September 3^rd.

Amadeus (October 16-17, 2026)

Amadeus by Peter Shaffer is an award-winning play set in Vienna, Austria in the years 1783 to 1825. In the court of the Austrian Emperor Joseph II, Antonio Salieri is the established composer. Devoutly religious, Salieri has given himself to God so that he might realize his sole ambition – to be a great composer. Enter the greatest musical genius of all time: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Mozart is a young, foul-mouthed, graceless oaf who has that which is beyond Salieri’s envious grasp: Genius. Told by an aging Salieri on his deathbed,  the memories of the intensifying rivalry between himself and Mozart is brought to life through confessional flashbacks to ghosts of the past. A drama filled with the sounds of rivalry and inspiration.

Amadeus first premiered at the National Theatre in London in 1979 and went on to premier in 1980 on Broadway in a Tony Award-winning production featuring Ian McKellen as Salieri and Tim Curry as Mozart. The 1984 film version won 8 Oscars at the 57^th Academy Awards including Best Picture, Best Actor (F. Murray Abraham as Salieri,) and Best Adapted Screenplay (by Shaffer himself.)

Directed by GCC Theatre faculty Sandy Nagar, Amadeus will be presented as a script-in-hand staged reading. Amadeus will be presented with only three (3) rehearsals and two (2) performances, no sets, minimal props, and just a few minor suggestions of costumes, student actors involved in this performance will have the opportunity to deeply (albeit quickly) explore the richness of Shaffer’s text, and experiment with developing a character free from the external trappings of a full theatrical production.   

Kindertransport (January 26-27, 2027)

Brutally separated from her German Jewish parents during the Holocaust at the age of nine, Eva is brought to England with the promise of a new life…

Between 1939 until the outbreak of World War II, nearly 10,000 Jewish children were taken from their families in Nazi-occupied Germany and sent to live with foster families in Britain. Diane Samuels’ award winning, seminal play, Kindertransport, imagines the fate of one such child through the lens of one woman’s struggle to come to terms with the horrors of her past and the denial of her identity within her present life of survival and hope.

Originally staged by the Soho Theatre Company for its world premiere at the Cockpit Theatre in London in 1993, Kindertransport is a Holocaust play considered by many to be a modern classic. 

The second of our script-in-hand staged reading offerings and also directed by GCC Theatre faculty Sandy Nagar, Kindertransport will be presented at the end of January to coincide with Holocaust Remembrance Day (January 27^th). With only three (3) rehearsals, minimal props, and no sets or costumes, student actors involved in this performance will tackle Samuels vivid text and richly complex characters to explore what it means to try and reconcile the past and present while being torn between who one truly is and who they wish to be.

The Monologue Showcase (February 25-27, 2027)

Directed by GCC Department of Fine & Performing Arts Chair Maryanne Arena, The Monologue Showcase is an evening of solo-performed pieces selected from a range of contemporary plays. Involvement in this production will allow student actors to explore the craft of creating a character and using the isolated “vessel” of a monologue to mine and convey the depths, nuances, and emotional life of that character. 

Audiences attending The Monologue Showcase are in for an entertaining and thought provoking evening of performances exploring the broad emotional landscape of the human experience and our ever-changing relationship to that landscape and each other.