Following hectic auditions and callbacks, all Brandeis Theater Company and Undergraduate Theater Collective shows are cast and the fall theater season is set to begin, complete with an original musical, an adapted Greek tragedy, a Neil Simon classic and more.The newly-created Brandeis Theater Company's inaugural season includes two productions. The company will premiere next month with Charles L. Mee's philosophical comedy Big Love, which will run from Oct. 20 to 30 in the Laurie Theater. The work is a contemporary adaptation of Aeschylus's ancient Greek tragedy The Suppliant Women, in which societal order clashes with animal instinct.

In the play, 50 women who are betrothed to their 50 cousins have fled Greece on a ship to escape marriage. Once found, the women must choose between love and the pact they made with one another. The company promises the production will be particularly physical due to the wildness of the script and the direction of Gray Simons (who directed the intense staging of The Who's Tommy last fall). According to Assistant Director Eli Schneider '06, the play is "extremely physical... where crazy is so crazy that people actually throw themselves to the floor."

The Brandeis Theater Company will close its season with the world premiere of The Two Orphans, by Brandeis alumna Theresa Rebeck. Adapted from a 19th century melodrama of the same name, the show follows two black sisters and former slaves as they fight to survive during the post-Civil War Reconstruction. The Two Orphans is directed by Dennis Garnhum and will be performed at the Spingold Mainstage Theater from Dec. 1 to 11.

To ensure that there will be something for everyone, the Undergraduate Theater Collective will present its usual group of eclectic shows at the Carl J. Shapiro Theater. The Brandeis Players will open the UTC's season on Oct. 20 with Sam Shepherd's Fool for Love, directed by Dave Klasko '07. Fool for Love follows complicated characters May and Eddie through their tumultuous, mercurial relationship in which both are obsessed and repulsed by one another.

Next will be Brandeis Ensemble Theater's production of Terrance McNally's The Stendhal Syndrome, directed by Sandha Khin '07 and comprised of two one-act plays: "Full Frontal Nudity" and "Prelude & Liebestod."

The first portion follows a tour guide and her charges standing in front of Michelangelo's "David" and musing over their emotional reactions. The second act features a conductor and his wife reflecting on their knowledge of each other's infidelity.

Musical theater group Tympanium Euphorium will produce The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, a French fairytale-like musical that more closely resembles an opera. The production will run from Nov. 10 to 13. Directed by Deniz Cordell '07, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg tells the story of two lovers, Guy and Geneviaeve, torn apart by war in Algeria.

The Hillel Theater Group will end the undergraduate season with Neil Simon's dark comedy The Gingerbread Lady, in which a recovering alcoholic, returning home from the hospital to restart her life, confronts old friends, a destructive ex-lover and her teenage daughter. The show, directed by Kenny Fuentes '08, will be performed Nov. 17 to 20.