PRINCETON, NJ Restaurant Dining Guide Announcement

Rider Theatre Presents "In Every Note" April 10 - 14

Rider Theatre will present the world premiere of Ivan Fuller's In Every Note in the Yvonne Theater on the campus of Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. April 10 through April 14. A preview performance will be presented Wednesday, April 10 at 7:30 p.m. Performances are Thursday, April 11 at 7:30 p.m., Friday, April 12 at 7:30 p.m., Saturday, April 13 at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, April 14 at 2 p.m. The production, also directed by Ivan Fuller, will be performed by Rider University students. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. They can be purchased at the door, through the box office at 609-896-7775 or online at www.rider.edu/arts. General admission preview tickets are $9 for adults and students and $5 for seniors and are only available at the door.

In Every Note is the third play in Fuller's Siege Cycle, focusing on how the arts helped people survive during the Second World War's siege of Leningrad. The play centers on Russian Dmitri Shostakovich and his Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad," which he composed while he was trapped in the dying city.  

"The Siege of Leningrad lasted approximately 900 days, during which time over half of the city's three million citizens died from hunger, the cold or the bombs that dropped on the city almost every day," Fuller writes.  "Temperatures during the first winter of the siege dropped to record lows of -40 degrees F! And yet, the people refused to surrender. Their resistance, fueled in part by the strength given them through the arts, allowed them to outlast the blockade of their city and eventually restore it to its former glory. While it may seem hard to believe, Shostakovich's seventh symphony played a key role in their survival, for it helped remind them that resistance was the only way forward."

"This is a work of historical fiction with the emphasis on fiction," he continues. "While the major historical events surrounding the siege and Shostakovich's public life are real, everything else is an invention."

Ivan Fuller served as the founder and artistic director of the Bare Bodkins Theatre Company producing Shakespeare in Sioux Falls, S.D. for 15 years. His play, Eating into the Fabric, was chosen for the Mainstage Reading Series at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in May 2009, where it was awarded a Holland New Voices Award for outstanding play. It was also a semi-finalist for the Eugene O'Neill National Playwriting Conference. In July 2009 Fuller served as playwright-in-residence for Summer Literary Seminars in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he completed the first draft of Awake in Me. In 2010 and 2012, he returned to St. Petersburg, where he finished the latest chapter of his siege cycle, In Every Note. In 2016 and 2017 he traveled to Rwanda, where he wrote and presented his latest play, Deceived by Silence. Dr. Fuller serves as professor theatre, chair of the Theatre & Dance Department, interim chair of the Fine Arts Department and associate dean of the School of Fine and Performing Arts at Rider University.

Rider University's Theatre program has a rich tradition of preparing students for successful careers in all aspects of the theatre. Graduates of the program are working with national theatre companies, in film and on television. Campus productions have earned critical praise for more than 50 years and offer the community the opportunity to see aspiring actors in the early stages of their careers.

Rider University is located at 2038 Lawrenceville Road in Lawrenceville, N.J. For more information on, visit www.rider.edu/arts.