EVANSVILLE - Nearly nothing is as it at first appears in Martin McDonagh's "The Cripple of Inishmaan."

The title character has more trouble walking than anyone else on his tiny Irish island, but Crippled Billy has a leg up on most of the characters in the University of Evansville Theatre's latest production.

Billy is a Shakespearean fool who limps, nods and grins through the teasi...

Friday's opening of "The Cripple of Inishmaan" marks scenic designer Kristin Ellert's first freelance commission in the University of Evansville's Shanklin Theatre, but she's no stranger to the space.

Ellert's design transforms the stage into the rocky, windswept coast of Ireland in 1934, when Robert Flaherty really filmed "Man of Aran," a fictional documentary about a way of lif...