If this couch could talk. That's the premise of University of Kansas student Adam Lott's play, Please Take ... Seriously! Tonight, KU's English Alternative Theatre brings the biography of a frat-house couch to the Lawrence Arts Center (940 New Hampshire, 785-843-2787), along with Whitney Rowland's Lights Fade, Curtain, another play by a KU student that tells a story spanning decades. "It essentially covers the same period, from 1958 to the present," says English professor Paul Stephen Lim. "The play is about a playwright who is trying to come to terms with his own life with regard to his parents, how they met and why their marriage fell apart." Of course, playwrights come to terms with things by writing them down. "This is what happens with writers," Lim says. "They mine their own histories for their material." With that in mind, E.A.T. has asked Lawrence locals to mine their histories for a writing competition. Finalists will read essays on the theme "How My Parents Met" before the curtain rises on the plays, tonight and Saturday at 8 and Sunday at 2:30 p.m. Tickets cost $6 to $10.
Fri., Nov. 9, 8 p.m.; Sat., Nov. 10, 8 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 11, 2:30 p.m., 2007
