Students Take Command
Duke students will take command of stages on both East and West campus this spring to flex their theater muscles. Some are directing plays for senior distinction projects; others are having their original plays produced. All are intent on bringing exciting theater to the Duke community.
Vanessa Rodriguez (T'06) won a Benenson Award to go to Belfast, Northern Ireland last summer to research the "troubles" (between those loyal to the British crown and those who want to be a part of the Republic of Ireland) in preparation for directing Loyal Women by Northern Irish playwright Gary Mitchell. Set among the criminals and paramilitaries of today's Northern Ireland, Mitchell takes the audience behind the scenes and behind the politics to show how women live, and he examines how responsible they may be for their own repression and suffering. Are they victims or willing participants in the violence? Rodriguez brings Loyal Women to Sheafer Theater February 9 for four performances.
Colin Crowe (T'06) will direct her own play, Joy, Delirious, for her distinction project. Crowe's play is about a young woman, Joy Moore, who joins her family at home for the first Christmas without her mother. Crowe wrote her first one act play last year, and it was accepted in the 2005 New Works Festival. "I took Dramatic Writing as a fun experiment without having any previous experience with any type of creative writing," she says. Having her play produced last year ranks as one of her favorite Duke experiences, so she decided to write a full length play this year.
"I think playwriting is so incredibly thrilling because a play is both an act of craft and imagination," she says. "I've tried very hard in Joy, Delirious to make all of the words carry weight and further the plot or characterization." Crowe's play runs in 209 East Duke March 3 and 4.
Bridget Bailey (T'06) brings "Works by Ludmila Petrushevskaya" to the stage in 209 East Duke March 25 and 26. For her distinction project, Bailey calls on both her majors of theater studies and Russian in her one woman show of excerpts of the contemporary Russian writer's work. "It's a wonderful opportunity to be able to expose some of the fine work that never received much attention during the Soviet and post-Soviet era," says Bailey.
Three other students are having their original works produced in this spring's New Works Festival (April 20-23 in Branson Theater). Eyes Like Fire Opals by Martin Zimmerman (T'07), It's Not Whether You Win or Lose by Tiffany Webber (T'06) and Parallel Play by Judd Schlossberg (T'08) make up the festival fare and will be produced, directed and acted by students.
Zimmerman is especially looking forward to the opportunity to collaborate with his fellow students. "Being able to witness great actors, and a great director and dramaturg wrestle with a piece of my writing allows me to make a lot more discoveries about it than if I just worked alone," he says. "They can say things or make certain choices with the acting or direction that can help deepen the dialogue and the characters, and help make the piece a more engaging experience."
" It's an incredible feeling knowing that something I thought up and created is going to be produced for an actual audience," adds Webber. "I've read the lines several times to myself, but it's completely different hearing my words in the mouths of others."
The breadth of opportunity in drama at Duke has given these students a taste of every aspect of theater, and Crowe appreciates that. "I feel comfortable in so many capacities in the theater after my time at Duke--onstage, backstage, as a playwright, as an audience member--but working in this capacity [playwriting] has made me love the theater even more," she says. "I think students working in theater are finding that the department has great resources and that the faculty and staff have energy and a willingness to make the study of theater both academically stimulating and unbelievably fun."
www.duke.edu/web/theaterstudies for play information.
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