Jan 25 – New play “Wittenberg” opens at the Upstream Theater

REVIEWS

https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/arts-and-theatre/reviews/upstream-s-wittenberg-is-witty-and-imaginative/article_f5d3dcf6-ec9a-5f34-98fd-33d98629aca0.html
https://www.talkinbroadway.com/page/regional/stl/index.html

“Wittenberg”

Tragical-Comical-Historical play by David Davalos

St. Louis Premiere directed by Philip Boehm

Featuring Alan Knoll, Steve Isom, Caitlin Mickey, and Casey Boland.

From Dramatists Play service: It is October 1517 in northern Germany. The beginning of another fall semester at the University of Wittenberg finds certain members of the faculty and student body at personal and professional crossroads. Hamlet (senior, class of 1518) is returning from a summer in Poland spent studying astronomy, where he has come in contact with a revolutionary scientific theory that threatens the very order of the universe, resulting in psychic trauma and a crisis of faith for him. His teacher and mentor John Faustus (professor, philosophy) has decided at long last to make an honest woman of his paramour, Helen, a former nun who is now one of the Continent’s most sought-after courtesans. And Faustus’ colleague and Hamlet’s instructor and priest, Martin Luther (professor, theology), is dealing with the spiritual and medical consequences of his long-simmering outrage at certain abusive practices of the Church—the same Church to which he has sworn undying obedience. How these three men’s sagas overlap and intertwine and how they end up irrevocably affecting the course of each other’s lives is the substance of WITTENBERG, a comedy that reveals the story behind the stories of Hamlet, Doctor Faustus and the Protestant Reformation. Tavern disputes, tennis duels, 16th century lounge hits, and the slings and arrows of outrageous wit will tickle your brain into overdrive.