MATC Matters

Madison Area Technical College Performing Arts will present Oscar Wilde’s witty and well-loved play, The Importance of Being Earnest, March 9-11 and 16-18. Friday and Saturday performances start at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday matinees begin at 2 p.m. The play will be performed in the college’s Mitby Theatre, 3550 Anderson St. in Madison.

Wilde’s play satirizes the English upper classes with light-hearted humor. The play focuses on Jack and Algernon, two young men in love with girls both determined to marry someone named Earnest. Both men have been leading double lives. Algernon, a city dweller, uses the excuse of visiting a nonexistent friend in the country to avoid social commitments, while Jack, a quiet country gentleman, visits the city as the fun-loving “Ernest,â€? but tells friends at home he is visiting a wayward brother by that name.

MATC Performing Arts welcomes guest director Rick Graves, an administrator at MATC, whose past background in educational and professional theatre includes serving as chair of the theatre and dance program at the University Minnesota-Duluth, national chair of the Kennedy Center’s American College Theatre Festival and as a director for the Minneapolis-based Illusion Theatre.

Tickets are $12 general admission, $10 for seniors, $8 for youth and $6 for MATC students and may be purchased by calling the Mitby Theater Box Office at (608) 243-4000 Monday - Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

A pre-show dinner prepared by the MATC Connoisseur’s Club, under the direction of Chef Joseph Gaglio, is available for the Saturday performances on March 10 and 17. Dinner and show tickets are $32 (adults), $30 (seniors). Check the Mitby Theater Website for menu and additional information.