Augie Prof Writes, Stages Play on Siege of Leningrad

Augustana director of theater Dr. Ivan Fuller offers "Eating into the Fabric," the first full-length play he has written, as a staged reading this Friday night (7 p.m., Edith Mortenson Center Theatre, Augustana College, Sioux Falls). The play deals with a theater company in Leningrad struggling to survive the 900-day siege during World War II, when the Nazis tried to bomb and starve that great city into submission. A million and a half people died. (And people wonder why the Russians think we didn't do much to help win World War II.)

I just watched Jay Kirschenmann's video interview with Dr. Fuller on that Sioux Falls paper's Link Beta, and it sounds like really good theater. After 2:00 on the video, Dr. Fuller treats us to a brief reading of a few lines from the play, where the director of the Leningrad theater asks his actors if they plan to join those evacuating the city. He says he will stay, says that artists have a duty to tell their stories, to minister to their people. The passage is clearly close to Dr. Fuller's heart and his firm belief that the arts matter.

Attend the reading. Attend the full production scheduled for March. You'll see for yourself why art matters.

And stay tuned for the full production, tentatively scheduled, says Dr. Fuller, for March 2009.