Homegrown theatre hits home with students

Author: Grace Duggan


Audio produced by Radio Arts Middlebury.

Students who were smart enough to reserve a ticket ahead of time or lucky enough to get in off of the waiting list for "Certified Organic Musical" this weekend were treated to a sharp and hilarious satire about the intersection between love and environmental activism at Linden College, an imaginary liberal arts college much like Middlebury. Mallory Falk '09 and Adam Levine '09.5 did a lot more than co-direct the show - they wrote it.

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During a road trip this summer Falk and Levine - schoolmates since the sixth grade - decided to work together. They wrote the script and score for "Certified Organic Musical" this summer with Levine composing the music before sending it to Falk so she could write the lyrics. They wrote the dialogue together before holding auditions the first week of the semester, later rehearsing five times a week to get the show polished in just three weeks. Both were new to directing and producing, which put them in the same boat as many members of the cast, who had either never before been in a show at Middlebury or in a show at all.

"Certified Organic Musical" follows the budding relationship between Ted (Jimmy Wong '09.5) and Daffodil June (Casey Donahue '10), two down-to-earth Linden students that fall for one another during the opening number, "Ode to a Panini Machine." Ted is an International Studies major who plays the straight man to his two hilarious best friends - Gabe the New Yorker (Casey Mahoney '11) and Brandon the Bostonian (Jeremy Martin '09.5) - as they spend a significant amount of time berating one another with crass geographically-based one-liners that never failed to make the audience laugh. June's life revolves around trying to save the planet, a goal shared by the other residents of Blenheim House, a warped and surreal environmental house with overt references to Middlebury's own Weybridge House. Rounding out the main cast is June's rival for Ted's affections, a well-dressed conniver named Mercedes (Elizabeth Goffe '10) whose entourage includes Topaz (Christine Chung '10) and Milan (Jessica Spar '11), two amusingly ditsy girls who help Mercedes out with her dirty work.

As Ted becomes increasingly involved with the environmentalists at Linden and their push for a carbon-neutral campus, Gabe and Brandon are the first ones to criticize Ted for not staying true to himself. President Dioxide (Aaron Smith '09) agrees to go carbon neutral in order to shift attention away from a recent social house sex scanda. Linden becomes an eco-dictatorship with changes that include turning off the power in the dorms, giving citations to students who waste paper and extra Public Safety officers to ensure that students recycle their beer cans. A bad case of food poisoning puts Ted in the hospital thanks to a contraband Big Mac used by Mercedes in an attempt to seduce him in "My Meat," one of the strongest numbers in the play and a showcase for Goffe's fantastic voice. Goffe also excelled in "Frumpy Bitch," during which she and her two cohorts insulted June's hygiene and exclaimed "that eco-freak has got nothing on me." Ted convinces President Dioxide that Linden must take smaller steps toward becoming a greener campus, a message with particular poignance given the landmark decision made last year in which Middlebury pledged to be completely carbon neutral by 2016.

Ted and June stood out as the only characters in "Certified Organic Musical" that were not easily stereotyped. During "Blenheim House Hello," June was the only one able to recognize that Ted felt very much out of his element in the house. Ted and June added balance to a cast of witty and humorous roles that included the overstressed "Library Girl" (Nell Williams '09) who danced at the Grape Concert with her backpack on while reading Shakespeare, the spaced-out hippie Dakota (Phil Ziff '10.5) who likes to go on hunger strikes and views time as an oppressive social construct and Small as an indie rocker that strutted around the dining hall like he owned the place. Although many of these smaller roles seemed more two-dimensional when compared to those of Ted and June, their over-the-top dialogue and mannerisms made them some of the strongest and most enjoyable aspects of the show.

Another component of the show's success was the references that only a Middlebury student could understand. Sometimes the production felt like one long inside joke that everyone on campus got, although some allusions were probably lost on first years. "Certified Organic Musical" included subtle references to the curtains in Proctor, the way meals work at Weybridge House and the recent lack of trays in the dining halls. One of the most memorable references to life at Middlebury was a thinly-veiled jab at the questionable art installation that appeared outside of Hillcrest this summer. President Dioxide pointed to the sculpture - made out of a Sobe bottle, newspapers and electrical tape - and declared it an excellent use of student tuition funds.

With more rehearsal time "Certified Organic Musical" could definitely have been less rough around the edges, but the production's appeal rested firmly on its biting commentary on life at Middlebury that did not view any group on campus, especially the environmentalists, as sacred. Weybridge House resident Toral Patel '09 was initially surprised by the portrayal of environmentalists in "Certified Organic Musical."

"During the intermission I thought, 'Oh my God, is that what they think of us?'" said Patel. "Afterward, I still felt this way, but I do think it was a really funny ensemble." Other students saw the play as a breath of fresh air.

"It was like being on the outside looking in, for once," said Dave Birr '09, who went on to add, "but better."

"I think it's exactly what we needed to have a musical about now," said Chester Harvey '09, who was heavily involved in Middlebury's push for carbon neutrality.

Regardless of whether or not students enjoyed how they were portrayed on the stage, everyone seemed to agree that it was great to see a show so deeply rooted in our own college community. It's not every day that you get to see a show with students singing about getting sexiled or trying to get their classmates to stop "treating the earth like a 25-cent whore."



Radio Arts Middlebury went behind the scenes of of Certified Organic and spoke to its creators. To hear this online audio exclusive, head over to www.middleburycampus.com . For more radio news, tune in to Radio Arts Middlebury every Wednesday at 4:30 on 91.1 FM WRMC.