Luke Kaven

Julie Reed '12 and Nate Mattingly '14 are two of the actors in the Schwartz Center's production of "Long Ago in May."

The new show "Long Ago in May," beginning April 26 at the Schwartz Center, is offering audience members the chance to put their own love stories on stage.

The Department of Theatre, Film and Dance will present German playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig's play, April 26-28 and May 2, 3 and 5 in the Kiplinger Theatre.

The show, a collage of vignettes about love, will involve the audience in several ways. Audience members will use iPods to select videos and photos to be shown during the performance and will be asked to write love notes to special people in their lives. Some of those will be projected in the background as the vignettes unfold onstage.

"The play offers a fun and nostalgic look at love from all angles," said director Melanie Dreyer-Lude, assistant professor of acting and directing. "It takes a look at romantic love, the love between parent and child and the love between friends."

"Long Ago in May" includes 81 short scenes involving 12 actors who tell complicated stories with their actions as they interact with several recurring props -- bicycles, an 18th-century rococo dress, suitcases and brooms. The show contains minimal dialogue but relies on music and activity to tell a progressively more complex story.

The play is filled with activity -- from characters riding bicycles around the stage carrying others on their handlebars to women with suitcases running pell-mell into kissing couples. Characters exchange furtive glances of interest at times, feign disinterest at other times and show their jealousy and their joy as they exhibit the varied emotions of love.

Schimmelpfennig is a Berlin-based author and director, and one of the most prolific and heralded young dramatists in Europe. In summer 2010, he was awarded the Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis, considered the highest honor for a playwright in the German language. His most famous work is the 2001 play "Die arabische Nacht (Arabian Night)."

To celebrate Cornell's international community, the play is also being presented in five different languages with subtitles in English, Dreyer-Lude said.

"When there is a lot of dialogue, actors can use it as a crutch," said cast member Julie Reed '12. "This performance involves so much expression and body language that is makes for a deeper and more truthful performance and pushes you as an actor."

Because the script includes minimal direction for the actors, Dreyer-Lude worked with cast members to develop their characters' personalities.

"In the beginning, I thought my character was really sad, but now that I've explored it further I don't think that she is," said Anya Gibian '12, whose character spends much of her time sweeping up messes (both literal and symbolic) created by other characters.

Tickets are $12 general, $10 for students and senior citizens, available at the Schwartz Center box office, 430 College Ave., open 12:30-4 p.m. weekdays; or by calling 607-254-ARTS. Information: http://www.theatrefilmdance.cornell.edu.

Kathy Hovis is director of marketing for the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance.