Schmidt, a Manhattan native who had never seen a destitute person before coming to Bloomington for college, admitted that she is not quite used to the Midwestern lifestyle.  “Everyone is poor and stupid, and their handbags are knockoffs.”

Schmidt is just one of hundreds of East Coasters trying to get settled into the South-Central Indiana scene, where the natives make up for their bad hygiene by being extremely polite.  The discomfort seems to be a mutual feeling, though, as local folk grow more and more suspicious of the outsiders on a daily basis.

“Most of them are packed together in Smallwood, which reeks of Banana Republic and ‘new car daddy gave me’ smell” says IU junior Miina Rhodes. A native of Indianapolis, she used to be the one that could feel smug about the quaintness of Bloomington, now no more.  “I live on campus, and try to steer clear of them when they walk through campus oblivious, texting away on their blackberries, and will them to smack right into a limestone wall.”

Rhodes’s distaste for East Coasters is echoed by Bloomington native, Johnny Joe Johnson, a cutoff shorts enthusiast.  “I heard some of ‘em ain’t never been in a Steak ‘n Shake,” related Johnson.  “And their donuts aren’t fried, they’re toasted.  It’s weird.”

These toasted donuts are actually called bagels, and they comprise half of the East Coasters’ diets.  The other half is made up mostly of cigarettes and cocaine.  “It’s annoying trying to shop for food here,” stated Joey Gotti, a Bronx native and arrogant prick.  “All they have is corn pone and Mountain Dew.”

This isn’t Gotti’s only problem with Bloomington, as his car has been keyed three times this month alone.  “Last week I was flying around in the helicopter my dad bought me for my half-birthday,” he said.  “I was just minding my own business, yelling at the local retards and occasionally peeing out the window onto them.  Then I saw one of them flipping me off.  He was just jealous because he drives, like, a pickup truck or something.
“When I landed, I saw that the tires on my Audi were slashed.  I was like, ‘What the hell?’”

When asked if he thought there might be some sort of correlation between his being a total bastard and his property being vandalized, Gotti crinkled his eyebrows inquisitively.  “I’m pretty sure it’s because I’m from the coast,” he said, right before putting his cigarette out in a stranger’s eye.  “I don’t know what else it could be.”

McGee, an Owen County native and 2001 Indiana State graduate, was already an acclaimed playwright before bringing his gifts to the Bloomington area. His plays Ankhenaten & Nefertiti, The Clockwork Man, and Silent Cinema, have won him awards, as well as both regional and international recognition.

McGee founded Starrynight Productions in January and has already received a respectable amount of critical acclaim for the work the burgeoning company has done in its young life. With two successful productions under its belt in as many months, as well as another slated for later in the year, the company is showing signs of becoming a very fruitful and entertaining mainstay in Bloomington’s already impressive dramatic arts market.

Starrynight’s first show, McGee’s own The Babbling Banshee, had previously been produced by the Monroe County Civic Theatre as part of its Dinner Theatre Series, another Russell McGee initiative. The revamped Starrynight production opened in mid-March to warm receptions at the Cinemat and Rachael’s Café, thus placing Starrynight Productions on Bloomington’s theatrical map.

Late April and early May saw Starrynight’s take on Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. The performances took place at the John Waldron Arts Center, on the Rose Firebay stage. The cast featured several recognizable Bloomington performers and helped to further establish McGee as a talented director.

In the future, McGee hopes to develop Starrynight productions into a larger company that will also produce films, opening the door for himself and other artists to create in a different medium. He also wants to move beyond strictly producing. Soon he hopes to handle the sales and royalty side of the business.

In August, Starrynight will be performing at the Indianapolis Fringe Festival. The production, though, promises to be worth the drive to Indy, as McGee continues to fulfill his vow of “bringing quality entertainment to audiences in the form of theatre and film”.

“I had always thought they were mythological creatures,” Gassensmith told reporters last week. “Evidently, the things run rampant down there. It’s really mind-blowing.”

The finding came early in the week for Dr. Gassensmith, as he ran over what he assumed was an opossum stuck in a turtle shell. “I felt bad for it at first,” he said, “because I thought it had crawled in there and couldn’t get out. When I did the autopsy in my hotel room though, I realized that I had something special on my hands.”

Dr. Gassensmith plans to dispel what he believes to be popular myths about armadillos in a press conference scheduled for next Thursday at the IMU. “I have what we in the business call the Burden of Knowledge,” he said, “and I can’t hold this information back from the community.”

“I don’t want to give away too much before the press conference,” Gassensmith continued, “but I will tell you that everything you think you know about these critters is probably wrong.” Critter, as Gassensmith explained, is the Texan word for armadillo.

IU Biology department heads were unavailable for comment, but Gassensmith’s graduate assistant, Jason Parsons, had much to say about his boss. “I’m sure this will be like the discovery he made last semester,” Parsons said. “I’ll never forget him running up to me in Jordan Hall and telling me that most men have two testicles instead of three. I won’t tell you how he figured that one out.”

Mr. Parsons did say, however, that he overheard Dr. Gassensmith informing a colleague of some interesting critter tidbits. “He was talking to Dr. Adams on the phone,” Parsons recalls. “He said that people were going to flip out when he told them that armadillos can’t fly.

“He also said that he was disappointed when he found out their shells aren’t filled with precious jewels, and that they don’t grant you any wishes if you capture one. I’m also pretty sure I heard him say that you’re invisible when you’re holding one, but I don’t know how he came to that conclusion. I guess we’ll find out on Thursday.”

“I’ve been to every single play IU has done this year, and even some of the townie ones,” Curry huffed. “And you know how many boobs I’ve seen? Zero boobs, dude. Zero. This is not the experience I thought college would be.”

The news came as a shock to Curry’s parents, who had previously believed their son was excelling. “He even bought books twice last semester,” claimed Jane Curry, Rick’s mother. “Our credit card bill had a $400 charge from T.I.S. and $200 from a place called College Books.”

Rick’s fellow dorm mates tell a different story, reporting that he had seemed increasingly “less chill” as the year progressed. “He’s been really bummed,” said roommate Ian Corson. “I mean, sure he didn’t really expect to see Cindy Lou’s who in that Dr. Seuss thing, but after Metamorphosis he was in critical condish.”

“Yeah, after that last one,” added neighbor Andy Fontaine, “we had to sit him down to watch Total Recall. Luckily, the chick with the three boobs was enough to pull him through.”

In terms of future plans, Curry is undecided. He is currently looking for a school on another echelon of artistic integrity, where art is open and fearless: “With, like, a ton of boobies.”

Bloomington is in for a healthy dose of satire in March when this Robert O’Hara-penned comedy hits the Wells-Metz Theatre. The IU production, under the direction of Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, will run the 21st-22nd and 25th-29th of this month.

The play, which is the final installment in a satirical trilogy, examines an America of the not-too-distant future- one that also looks strangely similar to an America of the past. The populace is despondent, the government is inept, and the future looks insurmountably bleak.

A short-lived glimmer of hope shines through in the form of a new type of cotton. Chaos ensues, though, when the President literally rips the 14^th amendment from the constitution. Who would be more perfect candidates to rebuild the nation, he asks, than the direct descendents of those that built it in the first place?

An American Maul features everything from self-righteous prostitutes, to a Bill Clintonesque deposition of Thomas Jefferson, to a drag queen named Ruth that regresses down the evolutionary chain. It is at once funny, sad and immensely thought provoking.

To say the show is bizarre may be the understatement of a lifetime. But it is that strangeness, and the frightening thought of how close it is to the present American reality, that makes the play so powerful. “O’Hara creates an extreme version of reality,” said cast member Dawn Thomas. “But oddly enough, is it really that extreme? There are scary threads of truth in the script.”

Through the undoing of social and political progress that takes place in the play, O’Hara aims to elicit consciousness about the history, the present and the potential future of the United States. He shows his audience a ridiculous future and asks them to view the present and past through the same scope, lest that future become more of a reality than it already is.

This message is one that the IU Department of Theatre and Drama is excited to deliver. “I hope we can stir people,” Thomas said. “I hope we can incite them. I hope we can challenge and upset their sensibilities.”

Cast member Jamaal McCray echoed that outlook. “Our ensemble is successful if we make them laugh and think later. Or vice versa. Our aim is awareness,” he said. “And to spark—ignite action.”

This production is not McCray’s first experience with Robert O’Hara’s work. He collaborated with Cooper-Anifowoshe and several American Maul cast members on O’Hara’s BootyCandy, as a member of an IU student-run theatre group, Black Curtain.

Black Curtain, which is affiliated with the university’s Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies, is a smaller-scale group that specializes in highlighting the African American experience.

To have the opportunity to take O’Hara’s material to the masses on the grand Wells-Metz stage is an exciting next step. “This is the first black playwright that has been on that stage in a long while,” McCray stated. “His work is very much in tune with what I like about theatre . . . It’s alive, it’s funny, it’s raw, unforgiving, scathing, blunt and dirty fun.”

McCray points out that the production is not only significant for him, the director, and the rest of the cast. It is also not important merely for a certain social group, particular race, or individual political or religious sect. “It is a live, exciting, vibrant play that actually has relevance for every single person who comes and sees it, if they have any sensitivity about the current state of things going on in America and its effect on the globe.”

This sentiment for the production is shared throughout the Department. “Its theatrical presence is really powerful,” said John Kinzer, head of IU Theater Audience Development. “It deals with powerful issues we all need to face.”

This play is only the beginning though, according to Kinzer. The Department plans to continue to do socially and politically involved productions that raise awareness and call for change. Next year’s lineup is not set, but it promises to feature performances that exhibit the lively, conscious themes that make An American Maul as gravely important as it is incredibly entertaining.

Production and ticketing information are available at www.indiana.edu/~thtr/.