NATCHITOCHES – The Department of Theatre and Dance at Northwestern State University will present “The Government Inspector” on October 26-30 and Nov. 2-5 in the A.A. Fredericks Auditorium. Performance time is 7:30 p.m. except for Sunday, Oct. 30 which will be a 2 p.m. matinee. Dr. Sean Bartley is the director.
Tickets are $15 and $12 for senior citizens. NSU, BPCC@NSU and Louisiana School for Math, Science, and the Arts students are admitted free with a current student I.D. For ticket information call (318) 357-4483 or email theatreanddance@nsula.edu.
Nikolai Gogol’s classic Russian comedy starts simply enough: all seems well in a tiny, remote, friendly town. But when rumors of an inspector sent from Moscow start to swirl, the mayor and his bureaucrats descend into a chaotic series of schemes to appease the Kremlin and save their own skins. NSU’s production moves the action from the 19th century into the present day, reimagining the inspector as a wannabe social media influencer in a world of Tik Tok celebrity, small-time bribery and corruption and big-time laughs.
“For almost 200 years, audiences, scholars, critics and Tsars have argued about who exactly Nikolai Gogol intended to mock in ‘The Government Inspector,’” said Bartley. “By setting our production in the present day and reimagining the main character as a wannabe social media star, we hope to suggest with a laugh that provincial Russian life in the 1830s and life in our own small town today might not be as different as we imagine at first.”
The cast is Austin Anderson of Metairie as the mayor, Joy Davis of Minden as the school superintendent, Allyson Adams of San Augustine, Texas, as the district judge, Abigail Aldridge of Mandeville as the postmaster, Logan Dupuy of Prairieville, as the hospital director Sarah Lord Holoubek of Shreveport as Dobchinksky, a banker, Virginia Tudor of Alexandria as Bobchinksky, a banker, Mikiah Odum of Marshall, Texas, as the police chief, Victoria Hickman of Mandeville as Anya, the mayor’s wife, Mallory Speir of Pineville as Sasha, the mayor’s daughter, Derek Walle of Prairieville as Khlestakov, a young man from Moscow, Mia Claire Huffman of Pineville as Tik Toker 1, Charlysse Casma of Baton Rouge as Tik Toker 2 and Andrea Mouton of Lafayette as a waiter.
