CHOICES tell the STORY.

Memorial High School

Theatre Directors

Director’s Note

Whether it be through a lengthy recounting of a complex historical event or an amusing anecdote

shared at a party, humans are storytellers. Our seemingly endless capacity to create narratives

based on fact or imagination is one of the necessary conditions for the creation of theatre. But,

for all this ability gives us, it also allows for the existence of LIES.

We learn at a very young age that the truth is no barrier to a good story. We can separate our

knowledge of reality from what we choose to say about it. In this way, THE LIES WE TELL can

alter and distort the understanding other people have about the world. This can be a powerful

thing, at least in the short term. So powerful that we can lie to ourselves as easily as we can lie to

others.

For the 2024-2025 season of Memorial Theatre, we have selected the theme THE LIES WE

TELL. Each of our mainstage productions will explore the reasons humans lie and the

consequences that proceed from them. We open the season with Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the

People adapted by Brad Birch which situates deceit within the digital age and asks whether lies

can serve a greater good. Our winter musical will be Chicago: Teen Edition by Bob Fosse, Fred

Ebb, and John Kander. This frequently revived musical dances around the juxtaposition of fame

and the public appetite for sensational stories, no matter how real they are. Our one act play

contest piece will be You on the Moors Now by Jaclyn Backhaus. This literary fantasia

imaginatively wages war against corrupt social norms and stories that reinforce them.

We invite you to join us for a wonderful season of poison, jazz, and broken engagements. No

lie!

Bradley Hewlett, MFA

Theatre Director