During the international intensity of the Cold War, John F. Kennedy, his younger brother, Marilyn Monroe, and Jackie O. struggle to keep their lives and the world from spinning out of control.

After the Battle of the Brandywine where the American soldiers are in retreat and losing hope, George Washington appears and gives them hope to move on.

In this scene Macbeth goes to confront the witches who had previously predicted his rise to power. He comes to take their advice and trusts it as if they were his own trusted advisers, never suspecting that the witches might have different motivations than his own.

In this scene Raul Castro asserts his power as the new leader of Cuba while Chavez bemoans that his mentor is dead. The leadership of Cuba is in question as Hamlet finds out that the ghost of his mentor has been spotted.

The Vitenam Conflict rages on and the President disguises himself as a solder to learn his men's feelings on the battle, the work they are doing, and his leadership. From this, he learns what it truly means to be a "King".

In the midst of the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln finds himself surrounded not only by his own despair, but also that of the soldiers on the battlefield. After listening to their grief, Lincoln finds new resolve and determination to end the war and reconcile his countrymen.

Theseus: Mike Kelly
Hyppolita: Steph Bancroft
Egeus: Al Church
Philostrate: Brooke Hurwitz
Hermia: Allison Gosney
Lysander: Aron Wiegand
Demetrius: Dave Byrd
Helena: Joanna Holmes
Bottom: Esther Van Wely
Quince: Shannon Schenck
Flute: Alex Schroer
Snout: Kaylor Garcia
Snug: Gus Zimmerman
Starvelling: Bronwen Cohn-cort
Oberon: Joe Grimme
Tatania: Layla Seale
Puck: Sean Sidbury
Peaseblossom: Lauren Elola
Mustardseed: Connie Chang
Cobweb: Leah Pope
Moth: Katie Ryan

Director: Matt Welsch
SM: James Randle
AD: Janice Sierra
EP: Shannon Schenck
Producer: Lucas Cook

Lights: Claire Harris
Sound: Khileen Herry

As someone who loves Shakespeare, I am often asked how a play written over four hundred years ago could have any relevance to the modern world. They have a point – the values, clothing, customs, and cultural expressions found in Shakespearean England are so far different from our own that they appear entirely alien.

However, if we look hard enough, there is something in each of Shakespeare's characters with which we can connect on a profound level. After all, while society has changed, the very core of humanity has remained constant.

This is especially true with a play like Midsummer, in which Shakespeare examines multiple kinds of love and the great power that love holds. Nationalistic, infatuated, unrequited, erotic, filial, fraternal, egotistical – all these and more may be found not only in the pages of Shakespeare's play and on this stage, but in each of us.

Midsummer is ultimately a show about humanity and our struggle for balance in the world. Hopefully then, we can take the overarching message, that love will ultimately triumph in the end, with us as we try to grapple with the difficulties of our daily lives.

- Matt Weslch

The Rude Mechanicals' production of William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" last weekend provided a refreshing and delightful segue into the highly ironic mid-fall season, inviting audiences to enjoy the famous playwright's fusion of fantasy, love and humor.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a romantic comedy set during the wedding of Athenian duke Theseus and Amazonian queen Hippolyta. While there are interconnecting plots, the play centers around four impassioned lovers, whose conflicting affections inspire the close intervention of fairies from the woodland. Love elixirs and several misplaced enchantments cause the lovers and fairies to all experience the comical bewilderment of love.

The most memorable performance of the play was from Esther Van Wely, a sophomore in the School of Communication, who played Nick Bottom, a member of the inspired Rude Mechanicals, a comedy troupe that performs a play for Theseus and Hippolyta. Puck, one of the main fairies, transforms Bottom's head into that of a donkey as part of a strategic love scheme. Van Wely, wearing donkey ears on her head, garnered many laughs during the show as she gave her character an unforgettable guffaw and dynamic mannerisms that created the comic relief critical to Shakespeare's romantic comedy.

The play's set design consisted of a small wooden hideout at the far corner of the stage, in which the sprightly fairies watched the lovers from behind dark gray curtains that represented the fairyland. The production would have benefited from more scenery to capture the mysticism of the woodland and forest atmosphere, though the open space of the stage admittedly helped draw favorable attention to the actors.

While the set design was spare and unimaginative, the costume design added some necessary creative mysticism to the play. The fairies wore light, airy dresses or smocks of bright fuchsia and green. These outfits gave the production a splash of color and added an ethereal sense of magic, contrasting the overall blackness of the stage. The lovers' wardrobe was casual and relaxed, most of them wearing jeans, a hoodie or a button-down shirt. This allowed audience members, most of whom were students, to relate to the play's story - especially as it involved love and relationships.

Likewise, the musical selection erected exotic and entrancing scenes that contributed to the fantasy of Shakespeare's play. During one scene of the play, the fairies performed a dance sequence to an alluring musical number that created a dream-like effect. The fairies used strips of equally bright fabric to delicately whisk the audience into their fairy world.

The Mechanicals' production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was a satisfying adaptation of Shakespeare's original 1604 play and is a remarkable testament to the enduring power of plays, love and dreams.

FAE
This is a place of break-ups, of tears shed against an
unwashed table. Of a man staring uncomprehending into
an empty glass bottle and wondering where the years of
his life have gone, as well as the beer. Of clandestine
meetings beneath the Christmas mistletoe that hangs
over the bar. It’s the place for the old, the tired,
the poor, the huddled masses yearning to drown their
sorrows for just one minute longer, until it’s last
call and the bar is empty and you lift your head from a
counter scratched with every combination of initials
imaginable to glare at lights that had once seemed so
dim but are now awfully bright.
(pause)
My brother used to say this place was where tired
people go to die. You would have liked him--you, the
audience--would have liked him. He was a good kid. Not
like Diana. Better than Diana. He was what we call an
old soul. But in the end he got caught up in the idea
of righteousness, and it swept him under the carpet,
like a bad memory.

Another spotlight comes on, this one on DIANA, far
upstage, still in her wedding gown. FAE turns to
her.

I wish I could have been a better sister to you. Or a
better friend. I wish I could have said goodbye. You
deserved that. You deserved something better than your
life gave you--you deserved fulfillment, and
conclusion, and a decent eulogy. And I deserved
closure. Which I never got.

DASHER - Lucas Cook
DANCER - Liz Ennis
HOLLYWOOD - Brooke Hurwitz
VIXEN - Shannon Schenck
COMET - Aron Wiegand
CUPID - Joe Grimme
DONNER - Sean Sidbury
BLITZEN - Joanna Holmes

Directed by James Randle
Stage Manager - Leah Pope

 

In all our lives, we realize that we need to have more fun. That's what this show is… fun! I appreciate the opportunity to get to direct another show, one that I particularly like – for a few reasons.

First, this play is one that I feel everyone can relate to. Everyone knows someone who is like each of these characters. You may have had a friend whose mom was like Mrs. Fredricks or a dad like Mr. Overmire. You may have even had a teacher like Fran.

Second, The relationships that evolve throughout the play, I feel, are representative of how all relationships are – no matter what age you are. The adults are just as awkward as the students, and in some ways, even more so.

Third, as a student in the School of Education, the show brings to light many of the problems that first year teacher’s face. How do you connect with your students? How do you control your class? How do you go about gaining their respect instead of demanding it? Fran is a character with many flaws but, I feel at least, that she is one of the most human because of that. So, think about your own relationships and the people that you know when watching. Thank you for coming and enjoy the show. Welcome back to High School!

- Joseph Grimme

Fran Caldwell - Janice Sierra
Ed Summers - Lucas Cook
Mrs. Stockton - Diana Hutter
Mrs. Fredricks - Shannon Schenck
Mr. Overmire - Al Church
Sherrie - Connie Chang
Tim - David Byrd
Joan - Joanna Holmes
Tony - Ryan Korn
Ray - Sean Sidbury
Phyllis - Brooke Hurwitz
Donna - Esther Van Wely
Mickey - Alex Yoo
Beth - Leah Pope
Gina - Melissa Englander
Cassie - Jordan Ven Clief
Loudspeaker - Becky Topol

US Cassie/Donna/Sherrie - Liz Ennis
US Joan/Phyllis/Gina - Becky Topol

AU troupe stages personal 'R & J'

By Ali Goldstein on 3/19/09

Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet" is perhaps the most iconic love story. Some high schools read "Hamlet," others "Macbeth," but everyone has read "Romeo and Juliet." Even more than our memories of struggling with iambic pentameter, "Romeo and Juliet" shaped some of our earliest thoughts about love.

With production support from the GLBTA Resource Center, Rude Mechanicals' latest staging - "Romeo and Julien" - adapts the framework of this classic love story to modern times, provoking powerful commentary on our generation's own taboos. The Montagues still hate the Capulets, but "Romeo and Julien" tells the tragic love story between two men. Staged with passionate and personal connection to the work, the piece succeeds in challenging our assumptions about relationships.

James Randle, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences and School of International Service who plays Julien, said that the transformation of the play's love story did not change the nature of the play. Rather, it deepened its themes.

"Had this been a homosexual love story, it would have colored all those other personal relationships," he said. For example, the director chose to make the nurse character a male to create the only male character that Julien feels he can talk to.

Director Janice Sierra, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences, said she was attracted to the unique storytelling capacity of theater as a way to convey her message of tolerance.

"Theater's so close to my heart," she said. "People get such different things out of it."

The production preserves the classic language and characters of the play, and in doing so really makes the audience re-imagine the play it thinks it knows so well. This is an unquestionably serious interpretation - just a different one. Romeo and Julien still have that fated moment at the party where they see each other across the room, and their love unfolds with the same blindness and tragedy.

Sierra said she wanted to work with such a famous love story to get people to really think about love in a different way.

"This is arguably one of the best known love stories," she said. "And I wanted to show that it doesn't matter who is doing the loving."

Many find the original play inaccessible because they can't appreciate the taboo nature of the main character's love; we've evolved into a time where feuds between families rarely shape our understanding of acceptable relationships. Transforming the play to showcase a modern take on forbidden love makes the play more accessible and tangible. Romeo and Juliet are no longer star-crossed lovers in a yellowed literature book, but people in our lives.

For Sierra, staging this play was a deeply personal project. She grew up in a small conservative town, where a close friend struggling to come out of the closet ended up committing suicide.

"It's the hardest thing I've ever been through," she said. A lifelong dancer, she saw years later a ballet of "Romeo and Juliet" staged by one of her favorite choreographers that recast the love story between two men. The ballet inspired her to adapt the play's script to a similar theme, and she worked closely with friends in Rude Mechanicals to create her project.

"It's helped me heal," she said. "But it's also so emotional, almost painful to see it become real. This does sort of mean I have to let him go."

Randle said that it was both fulfilling and challenging to work with a director who is so personally connected to the work. He worked with Sierra from the beginning, and has accordingly watched the play evolve from an idea to an actuality.

"I care that Janice gets across what she wants to," he said. He added that he could always read Sierra's emotional response at rehearsal - elation or incredible disappointment - to know whether he hit or missed a performance. It was never just a director going through the motions, but someone nursing an emotional vision to life, he said.

Both the director and cast, however, said that they wanted the homosexual nature of the love story to be secondary to the plot. Indeed, watching the unexpected relationship unfold within the confines of the more traditional play normalizes what society otherwise deems as taboo.

"I want the audience to almost forget that it's a gay relationship," Randle said. "And just look at it as two characters trapped in a vicious cycle."

The play opens this Friday night in Ward 1 and continues with a matinee and evening performance on Saturday. Tickets are $5 at the door.

This Is Not Macbeth started out as a scene in a café between a man and a woman, neither of whom gave any indication that they were complete strangers until the very last line. Thirteen months, two staged readings, five rewrites, and an obscene amount of caffeine later, that first scene has grown into a two act, 60+ page terror of a play. I invariably stumble over an explanation when asked what this play is about, usually coming up with a stellar gem along the lines of “Um, it’s….complicated”. I’ve only recently realized that perhaps the reason I have such trouble coming up with an answer is that there really is no simple explanation. TINM is about a lot of things. It is about a man trying very hard to escape his past; it is about a woman desperate to forestall an unknowable future. It is about the complexities of the human psyche; the multifaceted and often dark nature of love; the resilience of the spirit.

There were times it seemed that TINM was writing itself, but there were just as many days when I thought I would never be able to figure it out. There are so many people responsible for guiding this project to the point it has reached now, far more names than will fit in this paragraph. However, I would be horribly remiss if I didn’t profusely thank Joe Grimme and Shannon Schenck for their faith and encouragement; Lucas Cook and Becky Mezzanotte for their vision, time, and dedication; and most notably Caleen Jennings, for all the time, trust, ideas and patience it took to turn a short scene into the play I am pleased and proud to share with everyone tonight. Verbose as I am, I’ll never have enough words to tell you all how grateful I am. Thank you.

- Joanna Holmes

Being asked to direct a show that a good friend has written is both a great honor and a slightly terrifying prospect. It is an honor to be trusted with someone thing she spent a great deal of time and effort on and it terrifying for much the same reasons. More than anything else I want to give the show the treatment it deserves.

This show can most easily be described as one person’s journey through an emotionally charged ambiguous situation, and how he uses what tools he has at his disposal to deal with it. He does the best he can but that may not be enough.

I have to say that without the amazing support I have received from my Stage manager, technical crew, the rest of the rude mechanicals, and most importantly Joanna I would not have been able to do as much as I have been able to do with this script. These people have been fantastic enablers and have allowed me to focus on the acting and the vision of the show. My thanks go out to all of them.

Lucas Cook