When the Corona virus hit one year ago, the department of theatre revamped all of its courses to serving the students online. We had to be creative in continuing all live performance projects, the bedrock of our discipline. We were forced to cancel the final show of last season. At that time, we decided that our previously selected 2010-2021 season would not continue as planned. What took its place has been an intensely creative reminder of our basic goals as theatre-makers: collaborative creation, learning and applying new skills, and storytelling as a journey for practitioners and audience alike. This season is dominated by original productions, four virtual theatre pieces that use the available tools and technology imaginatively.
Our theatre students have been asking for the demands of a mainstage production of a Shakespeare play. A comedy was set for this year. In its place, I created a thematic Shakespearean entertainment that explores the meaning and representation of gender. Gender inequality is social and cultural in nature, shaped by the societal expectations of how men and women are supposed to behave. This results in a wide variety of survival-based role playing.
Shakespeare remains the most produced playwright of our world. I believe that is due to his intensely satirical view of human nature and relationships. Audiences bring a subjective view to the plays, and it is a short leap from the world onstage to the one that’s lived in. Personality and behavior onstage relate to offstage ideas of human consciousness, agency, personhood, reality, and truth.
This is the first exploration of Shakespeare for many of the performers, and they have brought their own knowledge of human behavior to the task. It is a joy to collaborate with all of them and watch their artistic growth. Paul Boesing was involved as composer from the start in helping select sonnets that would emotionally ground our Shakespearean vaudeville show, and set them to music. He continued as the voice and text coach for the entire cast. Musical Director Hal France and Violinist Olga Smola bring joy and professionalism to every moment. The technical faculty profoundly helped develop this piece and what you see has the following hands all over it, Charleen Willoughby, Grant Hilgencamp, Jason Jamerson and Steven Williams. Steven served as a hands-on producer, guiding all the elements to completion. Jason has taken on new territory as visual designer, tackling current technology in greenscreen, filming, and editing, without losing an ounce of his integrity and creativity. Much deserved praise goes to student leaders who enabled a smooth-running ship to sail, Stage Manager Mykenzie Brannan, and Director of Photography Jarod Cernousek.
---D. Scott Glasser,
director/adapter