UpDate - Vol. 15, No. 37, Page 4
July 18, 1996
'Off Course!' recreates lifelong learning academy

     Off Course!, a new play about "outrageously alive lifelong
learners," will have its premiere at 3 p.m., Saturday, July 27, at
Arsht Hall, 2700 Pennsylvania Ave. on the University's Wilmington
campus, and then be performed again at 3 p.m., Sunday, July 28, at the
Chapel Street Players theatre in Newark.
     The First Stage Theatre Company, in coordination with the College
of Arts and Science, is presenting the matinee performances.
     Off Course! brings to life a fictional lifelong learning academy
(Everlasting Education and Knowledge Society-EEKS), whose members are
caught in the currents of dissension when a feisty, flirtatious female
in a wheelchair proposes lowering the age limit for admittance to the
academy.
     Drury Pifer, First Stage artistic director and author of two
books and almost 30 plays, recruited coauthors Sima Robbins, author of
First Stage's Man Imperfect in 1994, and Deanna Riley, author of more
than 20 plays and two-time Emmy nominee, to create Off Course!, which
was inspired by actual interviews with students in the University's
Academy of Lifelong Learning.
     First Stage representatives Pifer and Joyce Hill Stoner, art
conservation, conducted interviews with several academy members to
discuss a variety of topics, including generation and gender battles,
politics, race, the changing attitudes of society, aging, romance,
marriage and popular courses. It was clear that there was an abundance
of material for an entertaining fictional theatre presentation, Stoner
said.
     The cast of 10 ranges in age from the mid-50s to the mid-70s, and
seven are academy members. Ellie Young plays Leah, the gracious
current president of EEKS whose husband (Frank Baker) is suddenly
smitten by Rosalie, a spitfire in a wheelchair (Joan Lane) who
proposes to admit younger people to class.
     Other members of EEKS who rapidly line up to support either Leah
or Rosalie include Barbara Miller as the conservative Ruth Mayflower
and Irv Engelson as Guy, a retiree who has embraced a new-age outlook.
     Also in the cast are Joe Brumskill, Florence Clark, Lois Hanak,
Mitzi Herrmann and Joe Ryan. John Anderson is the stage manager.
     Each performance will include a celebrity cameo appearance,
including Roxana Arsht, Delaware's first woman judge and a benefactor
of and participant in the Academy of Lifelong Learning, and Edward
Loper Sr. noted Wilmington African-American artist.
     Tickets are $5 for students and senior citizens and $10 for all
others.
     For more information or to make reservations, call Stoner at 831-
8092.
     This production is sponsored, in part, by a grant from the
Delaware Division of the Arts.
                                                          -Gerry Elter