Above: Promotional art for Bill Cain, S.J. '65's 9 Circles and Juan Arturo
Villar-Ojito '12's The Oregon Trail. (Courtesy The Sheen Center for
Thought and Culture and Fault Line Theatre) 

Alumni Shine in Theater World

As one alumnus finishes a limited run acting at Fault Line Theatre, another prepares to witness his words coming to life at the Sheen Center for Thought and Culture.

Forty-seven years separate award-winning Jesuit playwright Bill Cain, S.J. ’65 and the young actor Juan Arturo Villar-Ojito ’12, but they join a timeless tradition of Xavier contributions to theater in New York City and beyond. Villar-Ojito, now performing as Juan Arturo, played Billy in Fault Line’s production of The Oregon Trail, a dramedy written by Bekah Brunstetter, one of the producers behind NBC’s breakout hit This is Us. Alexis Soloski of The New York Times covered the play’s debut in January. The show's limited run ended on February 12.

The New York premiere of Cain’s Iraq War thriller 9 Circles comes to the Sheen Center on February 21 and runs through March 19. Inspired by a true story, the play (based on the 9 circles of hell in Dante’s Inferno) centers on Daniel Reeves, a soldier arrested and prosecuted for crimes he may have committed while serving in the U.S. Army.

Cain wrote the play after several stories about a young soldier appeared in the news. "The play is my version of the journey of a young man who sets out to be a warrior in a war that has been going on since prehistory, seeks God, seeks sanity, is consumed by the war, and perhaps emerges with some part of his soul intact," he said. 

To purchase tickets for the play (which has received rave reviews at regional theaters across the country), click here.