The Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble will present Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days, March 26-30, 2008 at the Theatre Lab on the Bloomsburg University campus. Happy Days is the third installment in BTE’s new alternative “Not For Everybody” series, and will be directed by BTE Associate Ensemble Member Peter Brown.

In Happy Days, one of theatre’s most wonderful characters, Winnie, experiences life, just like anyone else, as a daily routine: she wakes up, counts her possessions, interacts with her laconic husband, Willie, and goes to sleep. That’s what Winnie does. But, it’s what Winnie says that prompted Beckett himself to describe her as “eternally optimistic.” Winnie is hopeful about life and her situation, which is no small feat considering she’s buried up to her waist, literally, with no sign of a change. In fact, before her days are over, she’ll be buried up to her neck! So, how does Winnie remain so happy? She wakes up every morning and proclaims “Another heavenly day!” in a show of cheerfulness that will inspire even the most cynical spectators. As Beckett said, “Strangeness is the necessary condition of the play.”

BTE Ensemble Member Laurie McCants plays Winnie in a role described by British Actress Dame Peggy Ashcroft as “one of those parts, I believe, that actresses will want to play the way actors aim at Hamlet, a ‘summit part.’” Bloomsburg University Theatre Professor Michael Collins plays Winnie’s brusque husband, Willie.

Samuel Beckett, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1969, wrote Happy Days in 1960 and 1961 when his wife, Maureen Cusak, requested that he “write a happy play.” The Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble last performed Beckett with 1996’s Waiting for Godot.

Happy Days runs Wednesday, March 26; Thursday, March 27; Friday, March 28; and Saturday, March 29 at 7:30PM and Sunday, March 30 at 3:00PM at the Bloomsburg University Theatre Lab. To get to the BU Theatre Lab, park in the parking garage on the corner of Penn Street and East Second Street, walk up East Second Street to Schyuler Dr. on the left hand side of the street. The lab is located in the building on the corner of these two streets, behind the police office. Tickets are just $10.00 and are available at the door and through the BTE box office at 784-8181 or 1-800-282-0283 or by visiting www.bte.org.