Cornell-Riverside production ‘Prosperity’ moves to Mount Vernon Oct. 6

MOUNT VERNON — “Prosperity,” a new play that follows a band of actors as they improvise a raucous comedy about community greed, murder and sacrifice, comes to the Kimmel Theatre stage at Cornell College on Thursday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m.

This is a world-premiere co-production with Riverside Theatre in Iowa City, where the play opened Riverside’s 25th anniversary season earlier in September. Performances continue at Cornell on Oct. 7 and 8 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 9 at 2 p.m.

Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for youth, students and senior citizens. Admission is free for Cornell students, faculty, staff, emeriti faculty and retired staff. For reservations, call 895-4293.

“ ‘Prosperity’ is a madcap theatrical journey that spins tales of murder, greed, corruption, ghosts and fairies, even while developing a series of very sophisticated ideas about the nature of truth and narrative,” says director Mark Hunter, chair of Cornell’s theatre and communications studies department. “Never has learning that we all have the capacity to create our own life stories been so much fun!”

Playwright Keith Huff is a graduate of the University of Iowa’s Playwrights Workshop, a Resident Playwright at Chicago Dramatists where he also teaches and is the recipient of numerous playwriting awards and fellowships. His plays have been produced off-Broadway and nationally. He has developed plays at theaters throughout the United States including The Public Theater, Steppenwolf, Berkeley Rep, Studio Arena Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Florida Studio Theatre and Midwest PlayLabs.

The co-production is the sixth Cornell-Riverside collaboration since 1996. Riverside Theatre’s artistic directors, Ron Clark and Jody Hovland, are artists-in-residence at Cornell, and Clark appears in the play. “Prosperity” director Hunter is artistic associate at Riverside, where he has directed a production at the Riverside Theatre Shakespeare Festival each summer since its inception.