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What to Know about Nine Years

Know Before You Go

Nine Years by Michael Combs, recent BYU Theatre, playwriting graduate

Director: Isabel Ownby, current BYU Theatre student

Production Details: This award-winning script was written by then-student Michael Combs, and was workshopped for a full semester as part of a playwriting-dramaturgy partnership in the TMA department.

Run Time: approximately 2 hours

Location: Black Box Theatre at BYU West Campus

About the show: Set in the near future, Nine Years asks what is lost and what is gained if technology advances so that people can choose to remove traumatic moments from their memories. This new play—written, directed, designed, and acted all by BYU students—is a heartbreaking look at love, loss, and the cost of moving on.

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Near the end of his life, Anton Chekhov who had suffered from tuberculosis and depression throughout his life, decided to move to the seaside town of Yalta in order to heal. On January 18, 1904, he wrote to his wife, the actress Olga Knipper, “I’m writing The Cherry Orchard very slowly. Sometimes I feel it’s a success, sometimes a failure…It’s all very ordinary, but that’s how things are, unfortunately.”
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Study Guide for The Cherry Orchard

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For this production we are trying something new! You'll still see some dramaturgical information in your printed program, including the dramaturg's note, "The Weight of Waiting in The Cherry Orchard."
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