GALESBURG -- Knox College Theatre will present "Arcadia," by Tom Stoppard at 7:30 p.m., nightly, from Wednesday, Nov. 5 through Saturday, Nov. 8 in Harbach Theatre, Ford Center for the Fine Arts, on the Knox campus in Galesburg, Illinois. Tickets are $8 for adults, $5 for senior citizens and free for all students with school ID.

"Arcadia," which premiered in 1993, is a mystery-comedy that also explores chaos theory, fractal mathematics, poetry by Lord Byron, landscape design by Capability Brown, and British history from 1809 to 1812.

"According to chaos theory, there is order within disorder, and disorder within order," explains the director, Kamesha Jackson, a 1997 Knox graduate and visiting professor of theatre. "Stoppard uses these ideas to explore 'binaries' -- concepts often thought of as opposites -- such as order and disorder, romanticism and classicism, past and present, male and female, history and fiction. Ultimately we see that binaries don't exist."

To fully explore all the concepts in the complex play, Jackson is collaborating with two theatre scholars with whom she has worked on prior productions in Minneapolis. Dramaturg Karen Jean Martinson researched the ideas and events that Stoppard refers  to in the play. Installation dramaturg Lisa Arnold will construct lobby displays that will illustrate key ideas in the play, such as fractal mathematics and landscape design.

Costume designers Margo Shively and Connie Edwards have developed clothing that reflects the period of the show -- 19th-century England -- as well as some of the mathematical concepts that the play discusses. "We examined fractal images when we were planning the costumes, at the same time that we're designing costumes that allow the audience to quickly identify a character's personality," Shively said.

Several Knox alumni have helped Knox with the costumes -- Deborah Murphy, a 1980 graduate who manages costume rental for the Guthrie Theatre and The Children's Theatre in Minneapolis; Shannon Strom, a 1995 graduate who has designed for the Los Angeles Opera; and Sarah Zimmerman a freelance theatre designer in Los Angeles.

"Arcadia is set in the early 19th-century, but it freely transcends limitations of time. "Characters from the past will interact with the present," Jackson said. "The play poses a series of questions about the 'what ifs' of life -- " Is there truly a past? Can we predict the future? How does uncertainty affect what happens?"

Concepts discussed in "Arcadia"

Fractals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractal

English Landscape Design
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capability_Brown

Poetry of Lord Byron
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_Byron

Chaos Theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory

Arcadia Photos

Sylvie Davidson as Thomasina
[download for publication]

Amanda Horton as Lady Croom,
Jeff Hendrickson as Septimus
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Anjalika Kapur as Gus,
Evan Sawdey as Noakes
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