Playwright: Donald Crafton
Director: Damian Enyaosah
Producers: Christine Veras and Catherine Parsoneault

Winsor & Gertie is a historical play that combines a live performer (Winsor) interacting on the stage with an animated dinosaur (Gertie) in restored classic film footage accompanied by live music. The play revives the history and vaudeville act created by the American cartoonist and animation pioneer Winsor McCay (1869-1934) in early 20th century America. This play brings together, for the first time at UT Dallas, an interdisciplinary collaboration between the areas of animation, music, and performing arts. The play will premiere for two nights in University Theatre on September 8 and 9, during the Fall semester of 2023. 

The play, written by animation scholar Donald Crafton, using newly restored animation footage, premiered as the closing event at the Annecy International Animation Festival in France in 2018—one of the most critically acclaimed long-running international animation festivals worldwide. It has since been performed internationally in Amsterdam, Brussels, Tübingen, and Montreal. In the United States, the play was performed in Los Angeles, California, and Notre-Dame, Indiana. This is the Texas premiere of the play.

There will be a pre-show talk-back starting at 6:30 pm with the playwright Donald Crafton discussing the play with Dr. Christine Veras on both performance nights.

Two nights only!
Opening night: Sept/8 at 6:30 pm pre-show, play starts at 7 pm
Last performance night: Sept/9 at 6:30 pm pre-show, play starts at 7 pm.

Buy Tickets

FREE tickets with Comet Card on the day of the performances and while seats last.

PARKING: You may park in Green parking spaces after 5 p.m. on Fridays, or any time on Saturday or Sunday. All other parking is enforced, even after business hours and on weekends. Visitors to campus may utilize our metered parking available throughout different areas of our campus, or contact park@utdallas.edu for more options.