Pro-Art Event - Rhinoceros

Friday, November 14, 2025 - 7:00pm


Rhinoceros

This fall, the University of Virginia’s College at Wise Theater Division stages Eugène Ionesco’s Rhinoceros, an absurd and hilarious play hailed by The New York Times as, “An allegory for our times.”

Performances will run November 13th-15th at 7 p.m. and November 16th at 2 p.m. on the UVA Wise campus in the Gilliam Center for the Arts Black Box Theater. Tickets are $5 for the public, or free with presentation of UVA Wise ID. Through partnership with the Pro-Art Association, Pro-Art season ticket holders are also free to attend. The Box Office opens one hour prior to the start of each performance.

The sublime is confused with the ridiculous in this savage commentary on the human condition, a staple of every theatre classroom and 20th century drama. A small town is besieged by one roaring citizen who becomes a rhinoceros and proceeds to trample on the social order. As more citizens are transformed into rhinoceroses, the trampling becomes overwhelming, and more and more citizens become rhinoceroses. One sane man, Berenger, remains, unable to change his form and identity. Theatergoers are in for an evening the New York Post calls, "strange, disturbing and arresting.”