Eighteen actors, 57 roles, and one statement on a vanishing culture will be walking out of a museum display in Missouri Southern’s Black Box theatre at 7:30 Sept. 12-16.

The Dining Room by A. R. Gurney will be directed by Dr. Jay E. Fields, director of theatre, and takes an in-depth look at the changing world of the upper middle-class WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant).

The play features 10 students and eight faculty members playing upper-class parents, 5-year-olds at a birthday party and teenagers raiding the liquor cabinet.

The play was originally written for six actors, but Fields wanted to broaden the opportunity for Southern’s students.

“For us to use six actors in a department where we have 60 some majors would just be a waste of our talent,” Fields said.

All 19 scenes take place in a formal dining room and bring to life the slowly dissipating culture of the wealthy Anglo-Saxon protestant. Each scene is individual in content and they all tie together only through the overall theme of changing traditions.

Though all the scenes take place in the same setting, the dining room is meant to represent not only the highly formal room but also the institution of the family that has recently been disappearing in American homes.

“Dining rooms are no longer what they use to be,” Fields said. “Used to be you’d sit down at five o’clock and have a meal with your family. Now, that doesn’t happen much.

“People are on the go, people eat in kitchens, people have frozen meals, they watch TV and things, so its almost as if the dining room belongs in a museum.”

The set, designed by Ben Horine, senior theatre major, is meant to give the impression of life stepping out of a museum tableau. “It’s a museum piece, its in the Smithsonian, as if right next to Archie Bunkers chair” said Anne Jaros, costumes coordinator and associate professor of theatre.

Even with 57 different characters, the dining room itself becomes a major player in the illustration of how life has changed for the American family. The Dining Room embodies a way of life that the audience may or may not be familiar with.

“My grandmothers dining room I think of a lot in this show,” said Assistant Technical Director and actor Lyndall Burrow. “She has the table that seats 10, she has the buffet where all the stuff is stored and she has the china cabinet. It’s part of the way I grew up.”

Though the vehicle for this message is the culture of the white aristocrat, no unpleasantries are left out, from having affairs to planning a funeral.

“It all ends up being part of life,” said Burrow. “I don’t think there’s a part of life that doesn’t get discussed.”

Though the show has a somewhat weighty message, there are plenty of comedic notes as well and actors such as sophamore theatre major Zackery Self hope that the audience will learn something as well as be entertained.

” Its got a good depiction of what life use to be and how its changed since then,” Self said. “It has a comedic aspect but also a dramatic aspect and I think the beautiful thing about it is that everyone in the audience can take at least one thing away from the show.”

Admission is $3 for adults, $1 for high school students and senior citizens and free for faculty and staff and students with ID.