Crunch Time!

The weeks following Thanksgiving break are always packed with end-of-semester assignments and activities around Saint Mike's campus. Although every day is exhausting, it's rewarding to be productive, especially when I'm more aware than ever of the money going into my education and the benefits I'll gain when I'm done with school and job hunting.

This year I am noticing finals more than ever with a lot of my close friends finishing thesis papers and research projects: Becky and Heather, my friends who are senior English majors, are both part of the senior seminar about monsters in culture and society and have been doing a lot of work relating figures like Frankenstein, Hannibal, and Jekyll & Hyde to the real world. I love going to a liberal arts school because so many classes and themes are related and I'm able to draw concrete parallels between many theories.

My four classes for this semester are Spanish Literature, Shakespeare, Early Christianity, and Run Crew Lab. Since Crimes of the Heart is over, my time in the scene shop and backstage has diminished, though with various end-of-the-semester performances and theatre finals going on my friends and I have been putting in a few hours a week preparing for events. I have one exam for Christianity and one on Spanish theatre; an essay on Spanish theatre to do; and then a group presentation on Titus Andronicus in Shakespeare and also an advanced research paper on Hamlet to do. Although things are winding down for the most part, Shakespeare is still a very intense class!

Some of those end-of-semester events include the Saint Michael's Playhouse Holiday Benefit Concert, a sold-out show performing tonight only, featuring some of Playhouse's familiar faces, and the directing class scenes, which will be Monday of exam week.

Other than that, I'm also looking ahead to next weekend, when I'll be working as technical supervisor at the Barre Opera House loading in for their annual performance of The Green Mountain Nutcracker. I've also been doing some research for summer stock jobs, since the time to apply is drawing near. I'll keep you posted!!

Stage Combat Workshop

On Saturday, my friend Ken Nicholas came to St. Mike's to give a stage combat workshop with our Drama Club! It was a great day. We started at 9am with warm-ups and basic hand-to-hand moves like slaps, punches, falls, and chokes. There were about 15 people from the club present, and we all got the chance to do each move.

During the afternoon we worked on a line of choreography using the hand-to-hand pieces from the morning and filmed them! It was definitely the most moves I've remembered in a long time; I find dance classes very challenging. I worked with Julia, my mentee in the drama club, and we had a lot of fun!

Later, we learned how to use whips. It was like genuine Indiana Jones material! Cracking whips is harder than it looks and some of them were really heavy. The workshop was only supposed to go until 5pm, but we had some interested students stay until almost 8pm with the sword work!

The champs that stayed for hours afterward!!

I got to spend some time with Ken and his friend Jenn who came up to see Vermont as well! We went to the Skinny Pancake, the Single Pebble, and around Burlington a little. I hadn't seen Ken since leaving Gateway Playhouse this summer, so it was a real treat to have him come up. Check out a video he made from the weekend: Welcome to UVM (pun intended).

Class Registration...for the final time!

Last week I registered for classes for spring semester...my last semester at Saint Michael's College! It is so hard to believe 4 years have gone by. In a lot of ways I'm ready to be done with school: I often feel that classes and homework are holding me back from what I really want to do, but I know in the long run it's definitely worth the time and effort. I will miss the social life, however, and the safety net that school provides.

My final semester here includes 4 classes: my senior seminar class (during which I'll be discussing and presenting my work on my showcase piece, which is lighting design for the spring mainstage); a class on J. R. R. Tolkein, where we will read his works and discuss/analyze; a Spanish conversation class to keep up my skills; and Costume Crafts, where I'll learn the basics of costume use, history, certain stitches, and patterns. I will spend a lot of time in the theater again, as lighting designer for the spring mainstage, helping out with various tech elements of the other senior showcase plays, and as with this semester helping out with the tech classes there. I also may try to help out with the costume building labs more, since I'll be in the costume crafts class and haven't done costumes at all during my college career yet.

Class registration at Saint Michael's is hard. There isn't really a good way to do it, to be honest, and the registration days are often very stressful for students. I've been pretty lucky getting into the classes I need/want, but this time around especially I've heard a lot of people who haven't gotten any of the classes they needed. It seems that this is a downfall of the idea of small classes with the incoming classes growing every year.

With that update, I'm off to work on researching jobs! The life of a college senior....

University of Vermont's The Good Woman of Setzuan

Last night, I drove some first-years from Professor Nick Clary's first-year seminar class Drama & Culture to see UVM's performance of The Good Woman of Setzuan, a Brecht piece usually classified as epic theatre. The plot is fairly complex, involving a benevolent woman in the imaginary Chinese city Setzuan who is noticed by the gods for her goodness and rewarded with money. She buys a tobacco shop...and immediately is beset by the impoverished and the wealthy alike. The twists in the plot are unpredictable, and the ending left me absolutely stunned and wanting more.

While the point of epic theatre is to alienate the audience, or for the audience to always be aware that they are watching a play, this production directed by Peter Jack Tkatch emphasized the humanity of the characters and elements of both eastern and western theatre styles.

I was particularly interested in the scenic and lighting elements, even more than usual because I know both designers. Hannah Bean Brosnan, currently a senior at UVM who I worked closely with as a fellow stage management intern in 2010 at Saint Michael's Playhouse, designed a flexible world that emphasized oriental aspects, which is a change from the usual epic theatre starkness, but worked with the production very well to create coherency. The lighting by John Forbes was remarkable, creating several dramatic moments, especially with flying specials that isolated characters for certain moments, a dreamy sewer chute, and highlighting and silhouetting the gods. The costume design was an essential part of the revised theme of humanity, emphasizing reality, and differentiating characters.

The questions posed by Brecht in this play are endless, crossing lines of myth and religion, society and government. It fits this country's-- and the world's-- current struggles with poverty and economic crisis perfectly. Is it possible to be good to the world and good to oneself as well? How much is too much? Are the gods able to change anything? Can human nature be changed, or is the solution to change society?

Crimes of the Heart update

This weekend we are going into tech rehearsals for Saint Michael's College fall mainstage, Crimes of the Heart! Written by Beth Henley and set in Mississippi in the '70s, the play is a dark comedy about three sisters reuniting in the face of their grandfather's illness and a family scandal. Katelyn Brisson stars as Meg for her senior showcase; sophomore Kit Rivers and first-year Evyn Whiteley are featured as Lenny and Babe, the other sisters. The supporting cast is a great mix of students, especially first-years. I have been continually impressed so far this semester by our freshman class in the theater program!

For Crimes of the Heart, I've been working on a variety of projects. Officially I am the assistant scenic designer, the props master, and the master electrician. I have been hunting props for the most part: digging through the Klein basement, where our props storage is, shopping for the strangest combination of things, and doing small projects like outfitting my bulletin board with hooks and fixing spindles on kitchen chairs. We also have a fair amount of consumable food in the show, which means the people at Shaws have gotten very familiar with my face (or hair) and eccentric purchases. Props has definitely taken up most of my time in the past few weeks and has been pretty stressful-- if only I didn't have classes and homework to worry about as well!

This is the set about a week ago...coming along!

There are 2 classes that meet during the week to build the set and hang lights, and for the past month I've been coming in to work with all of them. The work study students have also been a huge presence in the shop this fall, which is great. Some of the projects I've been given during those times include wiring and hanging the ceiling fan, putting in wall scones and pendant lights, building walls, and helping the lab kids figure stuff out.

I had excellent help with the ceiling fan.

John Devlin is one of the most patient people I know! I can't imagine having to explain things over and over to students who sometimes only care about the credits. This semester's classes have gotten pretty invested in the process, however, which is very exciting to see. The play opens next Wednesday, Nov. 2nd at 7pm and runs through Saturday, Nov. 5th. Admission is free and open to the public, as always. Hope to see you there!

American Shakespeare Center at Saint Mike's

Last Thursday, Saint Michael's College welcomed the American Shakespeare Center's Almost Blasphemy tour for an afternoon performance of Midsummer Night's Dream. The company comes every year to UVM and St. Mike's, and students flock to see the shows. The ASC performs in the style of Shakespeare's time, as much as possible, with a thrust stage, contemporary music pre-show, and with all the lights on.

The ASC's A Midsummer Night's Dream features 9 professional actors and 2 acting interns. I attended a workshop Thursday morning with some of the actors as a part of my Shakespeare class with Professor Nick Clary, which was a great chance to meet the cast and the troupe manager/assistant director Glenn Schudel and ask them some questions. We learned a lot about their rehearsal process, which is different from a typical theater schedule: rather than starting out with the director assigning ideas from the start, the ASC cast gets together and has a day to put the play together with all of their ideas-- the bigger, the better-- and from there the play gets toned down or worked out by the director and the artistic director.

The play itself was, as expected from the ASC's comedies, side-splitting. Myself and some friends sat onstage and enjoyed the different perspective; the recital hall was nearly full. They had performed the other 2 shows in current repertoire at UVM the weekend before: 'Tis a Pity She's a Whore and Winter's Tale, which I am sorry to have missed. 

Afterward, a veritable host of theater students stayed to help the company load out, despite the fact that they are completely self-sufficient. Professor Nick Clary of the English department has seen the ASC tour at Saint Michael's for the past 20 years and extended his gratitude and love for the work at a presidential dinner post-show, which several of his classes had the pleasure to attend. It was a great experience meeting the cast and learning more about them, especially for those of us who may be doing similar things for years to come!

2011/12 Almost Blasphemy Troupe (Clockwise from Top Left): Kevin Hauver, Rick Blunt, Ronald Peet, Stephanie Holladay Earl, Patrick Earl, Bridget Rue, Michael Amendola, Jake Mahler, Denice Mahler, Eugene Douglas, and Daniel Stevens.  Photo by Michael Bailey.http://www.americanshakespearecenter.com/v.php?pg=88

The company was in town for a few days, during which time we saw them a few times and gave some local sightseeing advice. They are currently in Canton, NY, and I may be taking a road trip up there (weather depending) to see the other plays we missed out on! For more information on the American Shakespeare Center's annual tour, visit their touring page here. Several of the actors keep blogs as they travel: check out Michael Amendola's blog here. 

Saint Michael's College Theatre Department

This fall, Saint Michael's Theatre Department is producing Crimes of the Heart, a dark comedy by Beth Henley. It performs in the beginning of November and, as always here at St. Mike's, admission is free.

I'll write more about the play itself when we get closer to showtime. For now, an update on the production side of things and a look at how St. Michael's College gets things done. While over the summer the professional summer stock company St. Michael's Playhouse hires interns and professionals to design and create the set, props, and costumes, during the school year the academic shows work a little differently.

We have one professor in charge of all elements technical (excepting costumes): John Devlin, Associate Professor of Fine Arts, and my advisor. During the school year, he supervises several lab classes in the scene shop made up of students who come in, often knowing nothing about carpentry or lighting, to work for credit. He is also usually the scenic and lighting designer on the mainstage performances, unless a competent student is interested in designing. There are also design and history classes available with John. For an update on the scenic elements of Crimes of the Heart, please visit the department blog.

Peter Harrigan, Professor of Fine Arts and head of the Theatre Department, usually undertakes costumes for the mainstage productions, which involves a lab setup similar to the scene shop lab, only with costumes. He also teaches costume crafts, theatre history, and intro. to theatre. Every other semester, Peter directs the mainstage production, and this semester he is the director for Crimes of the Heart.

Another professor in the Theatre Department is Cathy Hurst, Professor of Fine Arts. She teaches acting, directing, and several specialty courses in both of those fields, in addition to directing every other mainstage season (alternating with Peter). Cathy also spends a lot of time with her duties as the Co-Chair of the New England region for ACTF, the American College Theatre Festival, a big event in January that colleges send students to every year. Plans and preliminary rehearsals for the spring mainstage, APP-etite, are underway as well.

As you can imagine, our faculty has a lot on their plates! This power trio produces two mainstage productions every year, one per semester. I've noted throughout my time here that other places do more shows, probably a result of more faculty members and greater funds. Cathy, John, and Peter have to work extremely hard as it is to give each of us a personal learning experience, not to mention put in extensive time in rehearsal, production meetings, and labor for each of the productions.

Other theatre opportunities at Saint Michael's College include getting involved with the Drama Club, which hosts numerous events, trips, and performances throughout the year, including a 24-hour play festival, a mentor program, and most currently a haunted house! Also coming up, auditions for the directing class scenes this Friday: anyone can try out and the rehearsals are less intensive than the mainstage schedule. There are also classes offered through the English department: Shakespeare, First-Year Seminar Drama & Culture, and more!