Collaboration creates nationally acclaimed theatre program at USI
Dress rehearsal is scheduled to begin in five minutes. The theatre is empty, except for the lighting designer, who sits at a table in the back row, his right leg bouncing furiously, as if it were powered by its own motor. Dim fluorescent work lights provide just enough of a glow for him to see the notes he made at the last rehearsal.
“Can I get my headset down here please?” he calls up to the control booth. No reply. A few seconds later, he tries again. “Can I please get my headset down here now? I need to add a cue before we start the run.”
The sound engineer appears at his side a few minutes later with the necessary equipment. Speaking softly into the headset now, the lighting designer says, “Group 101 at 50,” then observes the results as the operator brings the theatre lights up. “At 45,” he continues, adjusting the intensity of the lighting till he hits on the right cue for the end of the show.
An assistant stage manager walks in and says to no one in particular, “Did the painters paint over the glow tape last night?” The production stage manager replies from the booth, “I think they did. We’ll have to fix that.”
Backstage, performers are doing vocal warm-ups as they get into costume. One actor tells the costume designer that his shoes don’t fit. “Don’t worry,” she tells him, “we’ll have a new pair for you before the show tomorrow.”
Back in the theatre, the director, designers, and music director have filed in and are chatting with the photographers who have come to take archival photos of the show. With rehearsal about to begin, the stage manager yells from the booth, “Can I have quiet in the house please? Quiet in the house.” After a few moments of silence the director calls up, “Are we ready, Michele?” She replies, her calm voice betraying only the slightest bit of stress, “We’re waiting on the harmonica.”
Moments later, the harmonica appears and the run begins.
This was the scene at Mallette Studio Theatre in the Liberal Arts Center on November 5 as theatre students and faculty members along with professional actors and a professional stage manager prepared to open USI’s second annual Repertory Project, featuring productions of “Waiting for Lefty” by Clifford Odets and “Much Ado About Nothing” by William Shakespeare.
The Repertory Project is one of USI’s most unique programs, bringing together the resources of New Harmony Theatre and USI Theatre, giving undergraduate theatre students the rare opportunity to work alongside professionals from New York, and providing audiences with the chance to see two plays of classic stature in the same three-week period.
The guest actors and stage manager participating in the Repertory Project are members of Actors’ Equity Association, the union for professional actors and stage managers. To enter the union, aspiring actors and stage managers must have worked for fifty weeks in a union theatre. Students working on The Repertory Project will receive eight weeks of credit toward their union membership. USI is one of only a handful of undergraduate institutions nationwide to offer such an advantage to their students.
Students auditioned and interviewed for positions in The Repertory Project in early September. Rehearsals began later that month, and since then students have devoted themselves to learning lines, building and painting scenery, hanging and focusing lighting instruments, creating costumes and masks, and marketing the productions. Their titles range from assistant costume designer to usher and from master electrician to stitcher.
Lenny Leibowitz, artistic director of New Harmony Theatre and assistant professor of theatre, dreamed up The Repertory Project and proposed the idea to Linda Bennett, vice-president for academic affairs, who offered support to get it off the ground. Leibowitz and Bennett envisioned a “fertile interaction between veteran professionals and aspiring students…offering students a powerful foundation for real world experience and a practical model for transition into the professional arena.”
The Repertory Project has achieved those goals, and USI students have won rave reviews from the professionals who note that “if we don’t bring our ‘A’ game all the time, they are likely to show us up.”
Remaining Repertory Project performances of “Waiting for Lefty,” directed by Elliot Wasserman, chair of the Department of Performing Arts, are November 15 and 20 at 7:30 p.m., and November 16 at 2 p.m. Remaining performances of “Much Ado About Nothing,” directed by Lenny Leibowitz, are November 13, 14, 21, and 22 at 7:30 p.m., and November 15 and 23 at 2 p.m. Tickets range from $8 to $18 and may be purchased through the New Harmony Theatre box office at 1-877-NHT-SHOW.
POST CONTRIBUTED BY: AMY ESTES, managing/marketing director for USI Theatre/New Harmony Theatre.