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(04/27/17 1:38am)
The Hepburn Zoo provides the perfect environment for a show about family. The audience’s proximity to the action unfolding onstage allows for complete immersion in the scene, verging on a sense of an intrusion into secret business. Even in the back row of the tiny theater, one is brought incredibly close to the actors, which creates a sense of intimacy that cannot be achieved in a larger venue.
Each scene in “Freefall” additionally gives off a sense of extreme closeness between the performers and the audience, as the show deals with deeply personal matters. “Freefall,” written by Charles Smith, follows all that unfolds when two estranged brothers reunite for the first time in over five years.
Their lives are entirely different from one another’s — the first of the brothers to be introduced, policeman and husband Grant (Jabari Matthew ’17), lives in the middle-class Chicago suburb of Beverly with his wife Alex (Rebecca Johnson ’17). Grant is able to turn away from his early life on the streets, while his brother Monk (Oliver Wijayapala ’17) is a homeless thief who has only recently been released from prison and struggles to resist provocation from dealer Spoon (Kahari Blue ’19) to get back in the drug game.
Though the brothers’ paths have diverged, they cannot stay out of each other’s lives: Grant secretly and regularly checks up on Monk when he gets out of prison, until one day Monk shows up on Grant’s doorstep. The two must deal with their differences, which are underlain by much resentment.
At one of the most gasp-worthy parts of the play, the audience finds out it was Grant who turned Monk in, and Monk blames Grant for the death of his two-year-old son who died soon after Monk was put behind bars.
Roxy Adviento ’18 directed the production. Caleb Green ’19 stage managed and Nicholas Leslie ’18 did technical direction.
“After taking two directing courses in the fall, this is the first actual play I have directed,” Adviento said. “I’ve mostly been an actor during my time in Middlebury and directing was something I just fell in love with in my junior year.”
Matthew and Wijayapala produced “Freefall,” and earned credit for their senior theater theses. They chose the show with the help of Adviento.
“‘Freefall’ was brought to me by Jabari [Matthew] and Oliver [Wijayapala],” she said. “I was definitely shocked and moved by the play and I was sold! I found myself gasping and laughing as I read it. I was also very excited to work with these two talented actors and with a cast and crew of POCs.”
The stage was split in half for the production, representing the two very different routes the brothers had taken in their adult lives. One side depicted the well-furnished living room of Grant and Alex’s home, while the other side featured a dilapidated, trash-strewn alleyway in Englewood. The polarization could not be more striking.
“For me I guess the biggest takeaway is that there’s two worlds in a play, the alleyway and a living room, and Monk and Grant kind of represent those two places,” Wijayapala said.
“Also, they represent the institutions they are part of; Grant is a police officer and Monk is a criminal, and they’re part of the larger institutions of the criminal justice system and the brotherhood. But the biggest institution they both struggle with is family, and how it overlaps between those two different worlds,” Wijayapala said. “And, granted, though they come from two different worlds, they’re both alike, and the more they realize they don’t need each other, the more they actually do need each other.”
The way in which the actors are costumed also created contrast between the brothers. While throughout the show, Grant and Alex show off Ralph Lauren-esque turtlenecks and sweater dresses, Monk sports a much different ensemble. At the end of the play, Grant even makes a point that they should burn Monk’s jacket because it smells so bad. Iram Asghar ’18, who put together the show’s costumes, did not pull any punches — the variance in wealth was not only apparent, but painfully obvious and polarizing.
There is much tension because of the socioeconomic divide between the brothers, who struggle to make peace with both the love and contempt they feel for one another.
There is also unexpected tension between Grant and Alex, brought to light by astute and honest Monk. Monk believes Grant’s life with Alex to be an escapist attempt to leave his old life behind, and in this “straw house” there is much unexplored conflict. Grant does not know Alex is pregnant, for example, though Monk notices right away, elucidating Grant’s inability to listen to Alex. This conflict comes to a head when Monk exposes the pregnancy to his brother.
A moment of tension that absolutely broke my heart came when Grant reveals to Monk that he was posing as “Mr. Ricky” — an old neighbor who Monk regards with extreme reverence — and writing Monk letters in jail. Monk cherished the letters, saying that they inspired him and kept him alive while he was locked up. The audience could feel Monk’s extreme anguish: Wijayapala’s facial expressions and passionate display of emotions said it all.
However, there are also moments of love that satisfyingly mitigate some of the familial tensions. Monk, when defending Alex on the street, refers to her as his sister — a moment that made me gasp with surprise and delight — showing the undeniability of family ties, a theme which pervades the whole show.
Through this theme and others, the various characters navigate through what it means to be a family, even one as untraditional as Grant and Monk’s.
“I think the biggest thing I want the audience to take away from this show is the commitment to family,” Matthew said. “Obviously this is a specific type of family, but I think that at the end of the day the bond and the love and the commitment to trying to create a strong family bond is something that I would hope that everybody can in some way, shape or form, relate to. That commitment to love, I hope that’s universal for everybody.”
One scene in which I felt this universality was during a tender moment between Monk and Alex. Monk questions whether Alex feels at home with Grant, and asks that if everyone else on Earth besides Grant became a stranger, she would be okay with having him alone. I was fascinated by Monk’s way of thinking about love, and this line has been ruminating with me ever since.
One of my favorite characters in the show was Spoon, who, according to a character breakdown from the play’s website, “would be working for IBM if born of a different race or class.”
“I think Spoon is very smart, and a lot of people might look at someone like him and look at the things he does and assume that he’s not,” Blue said, “but he’s actually a human being with a full body and a full range of emotion, and I think that finding his wit was really important for me in bringing out his humanity.”
Blue definitely succeeded at channeling this side of Spoon — throughout the show, Spoon was extremely smooth-talking and persuasive. My friend even noted that Blue’s voice was “like butter,” and the lines he said sounded like poetry. Blue was right in that I was not expecting him to be played the way that he was, and I was pleasantly surprised.
I also loved Johnson’s portrayal of Alex and her unexpected role as savior, when she comes into the house after Monk pulls a gun on his brother to prove himself to Spoon and the other members of “the Brotherhood.”
“I really felt connected to my character because I was the only woman in the play, and I feel like she was very strong throughout,” Johnson said. “And then, in the end, I think her determination to pull people together and think about family and people’s relationships to each other was what saved lives. It was wonderful to play such a strong female character in a play where she’s the only female character.”
The show was emotionally draining in the best way, and the resolutions at the end made me feel warm inside. (And, judging by the expressions of some of the audience members, I was not the only one who was touched.)
The power of the actors to communicate the bitter-sweet, complex family dynamics in “Freefall” was incredibly moving, and the small size of the cast and theater exposed each actor, showcasing his or her acting chops. All of which, by the way, were undeniably impressive.
“I loved working with these people,” said Adviento. “They are all my friends and I’ve just learned so much from them. Since none of us are actual ‘professionals,’ there were definitely bumps along the way. I think the most important part was that everyone kept it real and pushed through.”
“All the cast members were amazing and experienced actors,” added Wijayapala. “We also had an amazing director.”
In such a small cast and crew, that mutual respect is incredibly important and admirable.
(02/17/17 1:23am)
One chilly J-Term evening, I found myself walking 20 minutes down the hill from my dorm into the cozy town of Middlebury. I shuffled into the picturesque red-brick Town Hall Theater and sat among students and members of the community alike in the theater’s beautiful auditorium. The audience hummed with excitement as the music started for the last showing of the J-Term Musical.
This year’s show, presented by Town Hall Theater and the Middlebury Department of Music, was the 1989 musical “City of Angels.” The show ran Jan. 27-30. Douglas Anderson, executive director of the Town Hall Theater, directed the musical, and Carol Christensen, affiliate artist in the College’s Department of Music, directed music. The duo is tried and true; this was their 12th J-Term Musical together. The show featured a live pit band and an expansive production crew of both students and Town Hall Theater staff.
The J-Term Musical is a unique opportunity for students to mix academics with performance. Most of the students involved with the production receive credit for their work as part of the J-Term class “Music 103: The American Musical in Production.” The course is taught by Anderson, Christensen and Bear Irwin, who teaches trombone lessons at the College.
After a mere 18 days, the show’s cast and crew put on a full-length musical. For those who don’t speak theater, this is an incredible feat. Musicals typically take months to put on, which, in part, is what makes the J-Term Musical so remarkable. The cast worked extremely hard throughout the semester to get the show ready for its debut weekend. Rehearsals took place twice a day, from 1-4 p.m. and again from 7-10 p.m.
“Putting on this huge show in such a short amount of time was a real exercise in professionalism,” said Sebastian LaPointe ’18, who played Stone. “No other show at Middlebury requires so much of its actors. I had to show up every day, ready to do the job and ready to have a lot of fun doing it. Fortunately this company of great people made having fun everyday an inevitability, so it was a pleasure having them along for the ride.”
Some may think that putting on a show under such a time crunch is unnecessarily stressful or crazy, but the four-week nature of J-Term actually lends itself to a uniquely productive and focused rehearsal process.
“J-term is the perfect time to do the musical,” said Christensen, who has been an integral part of the J-Term Musical for years. “It allows the students to concentrate very intensively on the project without having to worry about getting assignments done for other classes. It’s more like the real world of music theater, in that once we add the dialogue, blocking, band and technical elements, we have only 18 days to get the show together before opening night.”
Olivia Christie ’19, who played Gabby/Bobbi, agreed, adding that the short-term nature of the show was invigorating.
“What’s nice about it is that there is nothing else you have to focus on, so the show is your only commitment. I was able to give my all to the show and I think in the end it pays off,” she said “The other nice thing about such a short amount of time for rehearsal is that it all stays fresh. There’s not enough time to settle into one way of acting or singing, so I stayed on my toes every night. I think that spawns this really cool, playful, energetic feeling that can get lost when there’s more time to get comfortable. It definitely puts you outside of your comfort zone, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
In addition to being put on in an extremely short amount of time, “City of Angels” had its own challenges as a musical. The show’s plot functions as a movie within a play, and revolves around the misadventures and work of Stine (Michael Koutelos ’20), an author in the process of moving his stories onto the silver screen of 1940s Hollywood. Throughout the show, Stine is at odds with Buddy Fidler (Connor Pisano ’18), the producer/director of the movie who forces the reluctant Stine to change the screenplay so that the end result hardly resembles the original. The other main character of the film is Stone (LaPointe), a detective caught in the middle of crime scene antics and drama-filled romance.
The show frequently switches between Stine’s Hollywood struggles and the action of Stine’s book-turned-movie itself. Stine and Stone’s lives intersect at various points, and the women in their lives alternate between worlds of reality and fiction. Many actors doubled as characters from Stine and Stone’s respective worlds, including Christie, playing Gabby/Bobbi, Liana Barron ’18, playing Donnie/Oolie, Samantha Allman ’17, playing Carla Haywood/Alaura Kingsley and Fink ’18, playing Avril/Mallory Kingsley. The duality these actors masterfully expressed demonstrated the striking intersections between the storylines, and effectively blurred the lines between reality and fantastical cinema.
While the show is set in a time that is both realistically and cinematically distant from present-day Hollywood, the actors still found ways to connect to the characters and story.
“As an avid fan of film noir and jazz, I felt a deep connection to this show,” said LaPointe, who looked at classic film noir detectives like Humphrey Bogart, Alan Ladd and Orson Wells to get into the genre.
“I felt a particularly deep connection with my character because of the time I spent studying film noir before J-Term. After a while, it became clear that cynicism was key for Stone. If I wanted to become Stone, I would need to become a cynic first. Once I took this pivotal step, it was all about peeling away the veneer of my own life, until that of my character had taken hold. When Stone finally got his hooks in me, we took quite a ride.”
Christie, who played two different characters in the show, worked with very multifaceted roles for her performance.
“Bobbi is this tragic character who wants so badly to be famous and ruins her life because of it,” she said. “Gabby is this powerful businesswoman who is continually brought back to her jerk husband because of love. I spent some serious time thinking about how to best connect to these women and decided that love was what fueled them. Love for their art, love for their significant other, but lack of love for themselves. The both of them do a lot of searching for self in the show and I found that angle to be particularly compelling.”
The music in the show also tested the resolve of the cast.
“Being as the musical is a co-production between the Town Hall Theater and the Music Department, Doug and I chose ‘City of Angels’ for its musical complexity,” said Christensen. “The music for the Angel City Five, the jazz quintet in our production [including Kate Allman ’17, Sam Boudreau ’19, Jack DesBois ’19, Fink and Jessie Kuzmicki ’19], is particularly demanding in its close harmonies, difficult intervals and often lickety-split tempi.”
Christensen also commented on how the show offered unique elements that have been explored less in previous years’ musicals, among which are “Chicago” and “Les Misérables.”
“Most of the musicals Doug Anderson and I have done in the past are ‘sung-through’ musicals that involve little or no spoken dialogue, plus we’ve often done musicals with a large vocal ensemble component, and often a large dance presence. ‘City of Angels’ was quite a departure, being as it has a smaller cast, a much smaller ensemble element, virtually no dance and lots of spoken dialogue. It was a good opportunity for our students to hone not only their Broadway singing skills, but also to work with Doug on their line interpretation and delivery.”
“The music was so difficult,” added Christie. “The notes were all over the place: huge jumps, weird keys, difficult rhythms. My character Gabby/Bobbi had to sing some really low notes, but the finale number had her singing an octave about the tenor line. Basically, anything outrageous that could happen in jazz music probably happened in this show.”
As evidenced by the expansive age range of the show’s audience, the J-Term Musical offers a rare connection to the greater Middlebury community that can be hard to find in the College bubble. Especially during J-Term, when many students find it easier to stay cozied up in their beds with Netflix, the musical is an exceptional chance to connect to the community.
“The Town Hall Theater tech staff is made up of community members, and we’ll often invite some actors from the community to join us for various roles,” Christensen said. “It’s a wonderful town-gown activity.”
“Performing in the Town Hall Theater draws Middlebury community members, and they make up the majority of the audience and don’t have to go onto campus to see students perform,” Christie said. “It is this shared experience between the College and the town which doesn’t happen that often. The musical brings the show to them, in a way.”
And, of course, the show also forged bonds between members of the cast and crew.
“Students who enjoy music theater are some of the nicest people you’ll find on the planet,” Christensen said. “I really enjoy spending time with them and introducing them to the best scores in the genre. We work very diligently learning the notes and putting all the vocal elements together in our fall rehearsals (through sickness and in health), all while sharing a lot of really good times. If you’ve worked in theater, you know a special bond develops between cast and crew – a ‘theater family,’ if you will. This is especially true with the students in the musical, as we work so energetically together from September until the end of January. I become very close with the students – I want to thank them for all they have done, and let them know that I love them, and I will miss them.”
(01/27/17 1:31am)
CDs take a lot of time to make. From song conception, to recording, to producing, the process of creating a finished record is painstaking and exhaustive. It requires careful precision and patience. Lots and lots of patience.
Three of the College’s a cappella groups are recording CDs this year: the Paradiddles, the Dissipated Eight and the Middlebury Mamajamas. The Paradiddles and Dissipated Eight are recording in the spring, while the Mamajamas are recording this J-term.
The Paradiddles, one of the College’s female a cappella groups, will be recording an album from April 21 to 23 using JBS Recording from Brooklyn. Since JBS has a “mobile recording studio,” they will be able to record right on campus.
“We last recorded fall 2013,” Emma Picardi ’17.5 said, “and we’ve been raising funds through paid shows and through MiddStart.”
The group also raised money in the fall when they spent a day singing in parks in Burlington — otherwise known as “busking” — and sold copies of their last CD to passersbys. Come April, the group plans to record some of their more recent material.
“We’re trying to get a lot of the newer songs that have been arranged for us onto a CD,” Laurel Rand-Lewis ’20 said. “A lot of our usual repertoire has not been recorded yet.”
Rand-Lewis joined the group during the fall semester. This will be her first CD recording with the Paradiddles.
“I think it’s going to be very different going into this semester, like really trying to grind and get everything perfect for the CD,” she added. “But I’m up for it.”
The Dissipated Eight is also up to the challenge, and will be recording in the spring. Colloquially called D8, the all-male group is the College’s oldest a cappella group.
“We will be recording hopefully right after graduation, at a studio in town called LionTone studio,” Erick Masias ’18 said. Masias is the group’s music director. “[The studio] is run by a D8 alum, Clint Bierman ’97. We will be using the funds from our fall shows, Feb Break Tour and spring shows.”
So how might a Middlebury student have time for such an ambitious endeavor? I mulled over the question as I geared up this past Friday for two busy weekends chock-full of 28 hours total of recording with my a cappella group, the Middlebury Mamajamas. We spent the preceding week preparing a total of 11 songs, most of which had been previously unrecorded by our group. The songs covered a wide range of styles, from Pentatonix’s made-for-a-cappella original “Run to You” to a cover of Alt-J’s “Breezeblocks”.
Our upcoming CD, the name of which is to be determined, will be recorded over the course of two J-Term weekends. During the first weekend, we recorded the backing tracks to many of the songs. For the second weekend, we plan on finishing the backing-tracks in addition to adding in the soloists’ tracks and body percussion (such as stomps and claps). While at first it felt strange singing the songs without their respective soloists, we soon became used to the format.
We recorded with Mr. Lane Gibson, a Vermonter who runs a full-scale music recording and mastering business on his property in Charlotte, Vt. (a 35-minute drive from the College). In the live room, we were set up with microphones for each member of the group, and Mr. Gibson adjusted each mic to fit our individual voices. We recorded each track multiple times and listened to the tracks as a group, deciding which were best to use for the final copy.
This deliberation was not always so easy — each track had parts that were good and bad, and we would sometimes have to decide whether the not-so-great sections were good enough for the final cut. Some songs were only recorded in two to three tries, while others took many more attempts. Mr. Gibson gave us lots of advice along the way, telling us which parts he could dub over and edit and which parts he thought we should re-record.
So far, the recording process has been a positive one. According to some members of the Mamajamas, this year’s process has been a stark contrast from the recording process of three years ago. This is because the Mamajamas worked with a different producer to create their last CD, “Winter.”
“For the last CD we recorded all the parts individually, which was disjointed, and it felt like I was performing for the producer rather than the producer working for us,” Harry Cramer ’16.5 said. “The recording process this year has been a lot less painful because we recorded as a group instead of individually, which allowed us to gel in the recording studio and has been more authentic and more musical.”
As a group, we definitely were able to “gel” in the studio, and singing together allowed us to feed off each other’s energy. This made the process less of a chore. However, it was still a lot of hard work.
“It’s kind of like basting a turkey,” Cody Cintrón ’17 mused. “It takes a lot more juice to get it basted than you think.”
Raising funds for this project was no small task; recording a CD is more expensive than one might think. Much funding came from paid gigs that the Mamajamas did last spring, as well as the tour that we went on this fall. During our fall tour, we traveled to Boston, New York City and many places in between, raising money along the way and staying with members’ families. We sung at various schools and taught workshops to earn money, and even sang on the Highline in New York City.
Midd a cappella fans can start getting excited about the upcoming CDs. There is a lot of new music coming out, so make sure you keep your eyes and ears peeled.
(12/09/16 2:06am)
It is not often that we, as college students, venture outside the college bubble. Sometimes it is easy to forget that not everyone is a teenager or a twenty-something, and that there are people living in Middlebury who are not students or teachers at the College. However, when we do find ourselves exploring the town and beyond, we are awakened and inspired by the experiences that those in the outer community have to share.
Celia Watson ’17 brought the stories of elders in the Middlebury community to life in her senior independent work, “Old Enough to Know Better, Young Enough to Do It Again.” In this piece, Watson created an intriguing and stunning picture of senior life, as told by the elderly residents of Project Independence in Middlebury. Project Independence, a branch of Elderly Service in town, serves as a day center for elderly people who need supervision, and provides a wealth of services for seniors throughout Addison County.
The play, which was written, devised and produced by Watson, was transcribed almost completely verbatim from interviews with members of Project Independence. It was performed on Dec. 2 and 3 at Project Independence and at the College on Dec. 4. There was a question and answer session after the performance, which gave the audience the opportunity to learn about the process that Watson and the actors went through to get the final product. The work featured actors Lucie Heerman ’19, Will Kelley ’19.5, Steven Medina ’17 and Gabrielle Owens ’17, as well as sound operator Alex Williamson ’17.
“When I first began discussing this project with Theatre faculty, we talked about a number of different organizations in town that were centered around a specific social issue or population,” Watson said. “I am good friends with Jack DesBois ’15.5 who works full-time at Project Independence, and when I talked about my idea to do a verbatim piece, he was supportive and helped set up introductions with the staff there. I had heard and read about devised plays featuring the elderly population (often associated with ‘Reminiscence theatre’) and I thought this group would bring a variety of topics to explore. There is also something profound about theatrically exploring aging, as it is a process that happens to all of us and also isn’t frequently talked about in our culture.”
According to Owens, who played Mary, Dorothy and Diane, sharing and relating the elders’ stories to a broader audience was one of the project’s goals.
“Elders are too often forgotten and shoved aside, hidden away in nursing homes or care centers, in modern American society, while the stories and wisdom they have to share with us remain immensely valuable,” she stated. “I think what we were all working towards in this production was a greater understanding, both for ourselves and for our audience, of what it means to age — what is lost, but also what is gained.”
The stories touched upon the lives and traumatic experiences of the interviewees. One story depicted the condition of Parkinson’s; another told of the death of a spouse; another, a first date at the drive-in movies. Since the interviews were recounted and acted verbatim, the actors worked with the unique oratory habits of each interviewee. This attested to the impressive acting chops of the performers, who used voices and physicality to retell the stories of the elders.
“The process of doing a verbatim show is different because it was a new way of approaching my character,” said Medina, who played Pedro. “It felt as though I relied less on analyzing a text, and more on feeling what it is like to be a human, and because Pedro was such a great guy, what it means to be a wonderful person who has come such a long way.”
The recordings from the interviews with the elders were essential in Medina’s portrayal of Pedro.
“Being that Pedro had a stroke and spoke English as a second language, there were some noticeable differences in his speech pattern. Learning this would be hard if I did not have both the vocal recordings and written script. The vocal recording allowed me to understand what he actually said because I was able to listen and interpret his speech, which allowed me to ‘feel’ like Pedro.”
“Working with verbatim text brings a lot of character, humanity and originality to dialogue that is often hard to convey through fictional speech,” affirmed Watson. “However it does pose many challenges, in that if you want to stay true to the person’s words, you perform them word for word, even if it flows less smoothly than typical theatre speech.”
Throughout the night, the various stories recounted on the stage created lifelike portrayals of the people from the center. The stories told of heartbreak and loss, of mental and physical atrophy, of youth and aging. As a whole, the stories showed sides of the community that can be lost in the on-campus bubble, reminding the audience that there are people outside the College who have experiences to share.
“I found that the elderly really appreciate one-on-one conversation and interest in their lives and stories,” Watson said. “Some of the most gratifying moments were actually having the interviews themselves, being off-campus for a bit and having coffee with them at the breakfast table.”
According to the cast, the interviewees received the performance very well.
“As a performer, I have rarely felt that I had such a strong and immediately evident impact on an audience as I did at Project Independence,” Owens said. “I saw several of the interviewees crying or on the verge of tears during the performance. Most notably for me personally, the real life version of ‘Diane,’ who was the character in the jean jacket, was sitting right in front of me while I delivered her monologue and she started crying about midway through. After I finished her monologue, she called out, ‘Thank you.’”
(12/02/16 1:57am)
What do you get when you cross three upperclassman actors, a red prop phone and gardening sex metaphors? You get Does This Woman Have a Name? — a short and energetic play by Theresa Rebeck that follows two enterprising women who turn to phone sex to make some extra cash. The show was acted and directed by Matthew Blake ’17, Paige Guarino ’18.5 and Mariah Levin ’16.5, and was performed in the Hepburn Zoo Nov. 18–19.
The project came about spontaneously when Blake, Guarino and Levin auditioned for the First Year Show and were turned away because they were “too old.” They still wanted to pursue an acting project, however, which is how they stumbled upon Does This Woman Have a Name?
“The three of us really wanted to do some theater this semester, but the right opportunity didn’t already exist anywhere,” Guarino said. “Not willing to give up on the idea, we decided to create our own opportunity and put the show together ourselves.”
The trio had the help of First Year Show director Rebecca Martin ’04.5, who acted as consulting director for the performance.
“My goal was to help them with their acting,” Martin said. “A couple of them had never done a show before, so I wanted to teach them the basics of acting and just guide their process. I directed their acting but other than that, they did all of the rest.”
Does This Woman Have a Name? follows the lives of two friends, Mel and Sarah, who are struggling to get by in the city. To solve their money problems, the duo team up to work a phone sex line, using their writing and acting skills to create scripts and act out callers’ fantasies.
The line soon becomes successful, much to the dismay of Mel’s boyfriend Jon. Jon insists on financially supporting Mel, but Mel wants to be independent, and she tries to reassure him that phone sex is not as bad as he thinks it is. The couple’s relationship is called into question, all the while Sarah and Mel learn the ropes of their new business.
The show, while light and humorous at the surface, is actually a source of deeper social commentary. The cast excitingly and masterfully grappled with themes that ranged from intimacy to occupational independence.
“I think it’s easy to see this as a play about phone sex, but there are underlying issues of power dynamics and whether it’s important to take care of ourselves,” Levin said. “Especially at this age, we’re getting to that stage where it’s like, do we rely on our parents, do we rely on our significant others or do we rely on ourselves?”
“This is a complicated play that reflects how we all speak different languages of love and all have different understandings of empowerment,” Blake added. “Communicating these contrasting views of success and love is difficult but necessary in order to have healthy, interpersonal relationships — and who doesn’t want those!”
Does This Woman Have a Name? was Blake’s first show at the College.
“It was a special opportunity to have such a personal, active and engaged role in my first show at Middlebury,” Blake said. “This process has definitely inspired me to do more acting. Acting allows you to live inside another’s mind and soul. It sharpens your empathetic faculties and encourages you to see the world through different eyes.”
Nothing like a show about phone sex to really dive headfirst into acting.
(11/18/16 1:53am)
What is feminist glaciology? How should we talk about intersectionality? Can graffiti bring people together? Is there a solution to mass incarceration?
These are just some of the many questions that were addressed at the TEDxMiddlebury event on Sunday, Nov. 13. The event, hosted in the Mahaney Center for the Arts (MCA), brought together seven live and two previously recorded speakers in three hour-long sessions. The speakers’ topics covered a range of ideas but all fit under the umbrella theme of “Playing the Game.”
The theme encompassed the different ways in which we navigate and play “the game,” and to each speaker this meant something different. Some interpretations were abstract while some were literal, creating a fascinatingly diverse arrangement of talks.
The conference was a function of TEDx, a branch of the TED conferences. TEDx offers independently organized events that amplify the sharing of “ideas worth spreading” in communities. The informative and entertaining TEDx talks, covering a wide range of subjects, allow speakers to communicate to the audience their novel ideas and passions in an enthralling way.
The student-run TEDxMiddlebury board, a branch of the Center for Creativity, Innovation & Social Entrepreneurship (CCISE), was the brain behind the conference. The TEDxMiddlebury volunteers and board members worked extremely hard to choose the theme, contact potential speakers and organize the event. Their efforts were evident in the enormous success of the event.
This year’s TEDxMiddlebury event was split into three sessions. Each speaker spoke for 18 minutes, and many used projected images to supplement their talks. The talks were followed by student-led discussions, as audience members commented and reflected on the speakers’ talks.
The afternoon began with Kaamila Mohamed’s talk, entitled “Intersecting Identities and Space Making.” Mohamed referenced their identity as a black genderqueer Muslim to show how these identities do not need to exist in separate spheres. Instead, they drew upon intersectionality to find peace with themself, and promoted a powerful message about self-acceptance and love.
Mohamed was followed by Sarah Finnie Robinson, a Breadloaf School of English alumnus. In her talk, “The Game of Our Lives,” Robinson referred to the election and other recent political and environmental contexts in order to destroy the idea that climate change is a belief and not a fact. She praised the College for its environmental efforts, but acknowledged that there is more that needs to be done.
Reshma Saujani came next with her pre-recorded talk, “Teach Girls Bravery, Not Perfection.” Saujani is the Founder and CEO of the tech organization, Girls Who Code. In her discussion, Saujani criticized society for teaching girls to be perfect but failing to encourage female bravery and ambition. She cited this as a source of the deficit of girls in STEM careers, and encouraged a shift in the way we address girls and their work.
After a 15-minute break we heard from Will Kasso, with his talk entitled “Colors.” Kasso, who grew up in the inner city of Trenton, New Jersey, used art as a way to escape the criminal activity of his neighborhood in his youth. Through graffiti, he not only found a community of artists, but also a profession he loved — he is now a professional visual artist. While on stage, Kasso did a live painting, and his talk was so well-received by the audience that it earned a standing ovation.
Adam Foss’s pre-recorded talk, “A Prosecutor’s Vision for a Better Justice System” came next. Foss, a prosecutor in Boston, discussed the importance of keeping people out of jail. Offering real and educational solutions, he said, will end the self-fulfilling prophecy of returning to jail over and over again throughout one’s life and will break individuals out of the prison system and propel them into more productive lifestyles.
Next came speaker Mattie Brice, with “Using Play for Everyday Activism.” Brice discussed using video games for change and how she has engineered video games to help her friends understand her battles with depression. In this way, video games have been an important avenue of social action for her.
The conference resumed after the second break with Gabbie Santos ’17. Santos is an International Politics and Economics (IPE) major at the College. He competed for a spot at the conference against many other students and told himself that if he won he would come out to his parents — hence the title of his talk, “Go Big and Call Home.” Santos spoke of his experiences as a transgender male and critiqued the gender binary and heteronormativity that are embedded in society. Santos received a standing ovation from his peers.
“I like to imagine a block,” said Santos, “with a spectrum on it that we cut into two parts, then four, then eight and we keep cutting and cutting and cutting until the parts are so small, the divisions so thin, that when we take a step back, we can no longer tell that there any divisions at all. It begins to look like one whole block again, a fluid spectrum.”
Next, Marco Mezzavilla, a research fellow in engineering at the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering gave a talk entitled, “Wireless, Faster, Closer: 5G and Beyond.” He discussed the implications of up-and-coming 5G technology and travelled through the different generations of cell phones and Internet access. He tied these ideas to the importance of connecting worlds and how incredible it is that we can send messages across oceans “in a blink of an eye.”
Taking a different interpretation of the same theme was M. Jackson, with “Glacier, Gender, and Science: We Need More Stories of Ice.” Jackson described her experiences as a feminist glaciologist and the extensive criticism she has received towards her unique career. She discussed the necessity of having both female and male glaciologists in order to produce a well-rounded knowledge of the study. She proceeded to take this thought beyond glaciology and said it represents a greater indication of how we treat women in science and beyond.
Jackson’s talk about feminist glaciology resonated strongly with one student in particular, Georgia Grace Edwards ’18.
“I have always been obsessed with TED Talks,” said Edwards. “But I never expected to feel such a deep, meaningful level of connection like that which I experienced during M’s talk.”
“This past summer,” continued Edwards, “I worked for a helicopter company as a glacier guide on the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau, Alaska, and I experienced so many of the gendered assertions that M voiced. However, in the moment, I didn’t know how to make sense of them and I didn’t understand what they meant in terms of a bigger picture.”
Jackson’s talk helped Edwards see the sexism she faced over the summer through a new lens and to realize the stigma surrounding female glacier guides.
“All my male co-workers had these big, scruffy beards and just looked like your typical rugged, Alaskan mountain men,” Edwards reflected. “And I think for tourists, that was the idea and the expectation they had in mind when they decided to come to Alaska. So no matter how many times I gave a more informative or energizing or funny tour, no matter how many times I gave my own gloves up to tourists or went the extra mile for them in any way (which the guys never did), I was never going to measure up to the masculine ideal that parallels the ‘man conquers glacier’ narrative.”
“And sure enough,” Edwards continued, “while I did make more in tips than any other female glacier guide, I did not even come close to that of my male counterparts. To have seemingly small observations like this one validated at the intersection of science and gender studies by a professional in the field of ‘feminist glaciology’ — which I had no idea even existed — was both liberating and relieving. I am incredibly grateful to Middlebury and to the TEDx team for bringing this speaker to campus, and for inspiring what may potentially become a new career goal for me.”
As Edwards’s revelation demonstrates, these talks offered unique connections between the speakers and the audience.
“TED Talks are an expression of something that you’re really into and love,” said Brice. “While I’ve always had these ideas in my head, I really got to communicate them to others, which forced me to shrink them down and make them concise and strong and factual.”
Santos added, “Speaking at TEDxMiddlebury was a very powerful experience, and I am very grateful for the opportunity. I came back from my year abroad in France, and I felt so ready and excited to share my most authentic self with our college community, especially as it is my senior year and days feel numbered. In important ways, my talk meant more to me than just any speech or any performance.”
The event’s nine individual talks were conducive to a deeply personal offering and receiving of ideas. The vulnerability of the speakers created intimacy in the theater, which made the event all the more meaningful. From climate change to video games to transexuality, the audience experienced a host of topics and was left to ruminate on a wide and range of ideas.
(11/04/16 12:44am)
When you think of the Greek literary figure Antigone, you probably do not think of surfers, an African village or a postmodern underworld.
From Oct. 27-29, the Middlebury College Theatre and Dance Department’s most recent show, The Antigone Project, challenged the audience’s preconceptions about Sophocles’ well-known Greek tragedy Antigone. The Seeler Studio Theater at the Mahaney Center for the Arts was transformed into a storytelling space, with large monitors on the walls playing both pre-recorded and live footage to compliment the activity on stage. These projections were just some of the many contemporary elements in this re-telling of the ancient story.
Sophocles’ story holds up surprisingly well in its modern renewal. The original story of Antigone follows the young protagonist Antigone, who is determined to bury her brother Polynices after her uncle, the King Creon of Thebes, condemns his corpse to be unburied. After sprinkling dirt on her fallen brother — who fought against Creon in the war — Antigone is condemned for her crime, and she and her lover commit suicide in the end.
It may be a difficult story for audiences to relate to, but these incarnations show that there is more than meets the eye. Each of the five plays in The Antigone Project touches on new themes and elaborates on old themes, modernizing the story of Antigone while staying true to its original subject matter. Each of the one-act plays were written by female playwrights, four of whom are women of color.
“I wanted to do plays by American women,” said Director Richard Romagnoli, a professor of theatre at the College. “These five plays also offered me a great variety of casting and different takes on the condition of women in this country as well as other continents. I thought that was important to capture without necessarily becoming polemical.”
This sentiment was affirmed by Jackson Prince ’17, who took on a plethora of roles in the show.
“We don’t see enough strong women on stage,” said Prince. “The opportunity to tell five different stories in which strong and fiercely motivated women are the focus was a privilege.”
The performance energetically launched into action when the robed two narrators came onstage for a prologue. They were dressed in full Greek drama garb, but soon ditched the masks and tall platform shoes for more comfortable and modern attire. So began the modern rendition of Antigone, but it was only the tip of the iceberg on a wild and emotionally moving journey through time and space.
The first play, “Hang Ten” by Karen Hartman, centers on a Californian, bikini-clad version of Antigone and her flirtatious sister Ismene. They argue about their family’s incestuous history and Antigone’s fixation on her brother’s death until an attractive surfer boy comes ashore and whisks Ismene away.
It is followed by “Medallion” by Tanya Barfield, which is somehow both similar yet distinct from its precursor. Barfield’s interpretation follows Antigone, now played by a black woman, as she desperately tries to attain a Medal of Honor from the United States military so that she can bury her brother who died in battle. The frustration of Antigone as she appeals to the general reflects the frustration of the original Antigone, who was so determined to give Polynices a proper burial.
“Antigone Arkhe” by Caridad Svich harnesses technology to tell the next story. In the play, an archivist gives a slideshow at a museum as Antigone adjacently tells of the thoughts going through her head as she hangs herself in her prison cell.
This was followed by “A Stone’s Throw” by Lynn Nottage, which depicts the plight of a recent widow who is condemned to death by stoning for becoming pregnant while unmarried. This play poignantly highlights the wildly unjust and inhumane treatment of innocent women in countries around the globe, and gives a new life to the story of Antigone.
The performance concludes with “Red Again” by Chiori Miyagawa, in which Antigone and her fiancé find themselves in a Buddhist-inspired underworld after committing suicide. Their condition is juxtaposed with the image of Ismene, who touches upon some of the world’s most significant political disasters such as 9/11 and the bombing of Hiroshima.
The Antigone Project’s depiction of the plight of the modern female – wherever in the world she may be – was not inherently easy to accomplish, according to actress Amanda Whitley ’19.
“As an actor you have to take your character’s side,” said Whitley, who played Antigone in “Antigone Arkhe” and “Red Again.” “Even if you don’t agree with some of their choices or beliefs, you have to own their mindset for the hour and a half that you spend with them. Antigone is not an inherently likable or accessible character for many modern audiences. Her ideals about death and ritual are hard to grasp in a society so far removed from the highly ritualistic world of ancient Greece. So what became a goal and a wonderful take away from The Antigone Project was owning those ideals and making them accessible through various contexts.”
Unlocking this accessibility was one of Romagnoli’s intentions and one of the reasons he picked this show.
“I wanted to give actors who are between 18-21 the opportunity to play characters who are mostly between 18-21,” Romagnoli said. “I thought that with this show there were opportunities for young actors to play characters who were very connected to them.”
This connection contributed to the resonance it had with its audience. The script yielded a diverse and full portrait of a woman from ancient history, while the cast brought each iteration to life.
(10/28/16 12:51am)
Smashing watermelons into smithereens, an interview with Bob Dylan, a monologue from a fallen angel; the cast of the Middlebury first-year show Savage + Love took these difficult and outlandish acts on with enthusiasm and ease. These actors, who all took the Middlebury stage for the first time, graced the Hepburn Zoo from Oct. 20-22, performing a series of Sam Shepard one-act plays that were anything but conventional.
Most of the one-acts were written early in Shepard’s career and were experimental in nature, but the actors did not back away from the challenge, and their proficiency in his work was evident in their performances.
First-year director and alumna, Rebecca Martin ’04.5, joined the fourteen first-years in putting on Savage+Love. This was her first time back on the College campus since she graduated, and she was thrilled to share the first-year experience with the cast. Martin had performed Shepard as an actress and wanted her actors to challenge themselves with his work as a part of their first Middlebury theater experience.
“I really respond to the visceral quality in his writing,” Martin said. “I respond to the imagination, the multi-sensorial images and things that he makes his actors do, and I love that. That’s why I gravitated towards this material; I want people to have a raw experience of theater.”
One of Martin’s goals for the actors in the show was to form long-lasting bonds with each other. These bonds, Martin said, are the relationships that can carry a cast through grueling rehearsals and late nights. Martin also hoped that exposing the cast to Shepard’s earlier pieces would push the actors and teach them what it is like to do theater at a high level.
The show’s material was physically and emotionally demanding, which made the cast’s mastery of it all the more impressive. Each act varied greatly in subject matter and theme, calling upon new challenges and roles for the cast to assume with each time the stage was lit up. The first act, “Short Life of Trouble,” chronicled an actual interview between Shepard and Bob Dylan. Another, “Icarus’s Mother,” depicted an unusual scene at a Fourth of July picnic, complete with fireworks, a plane crash and an equivocal and suspenseful ending.
“The War in Heaven (Angel’s Monologue)” explored the condition of a fallen angel and the woman keeping him prisoner for herself. One of the final acts, “Just Space,” was a phone conversation between a daughter and her mother as the daughter explains the predicament of her recent estrangement from her husband. Many scenes were accompanied by a live keyboard, others with acoustic and electric guitars. Each act was unique and unpredictable, and the actors explored each new character with both emotional and intellectual depth.
One such actor, Sean Meagher ’20, made his Middlebury theater debut in the one act “Icarus’s Mother.”
“It took us a long time to understand the play that we were doing,” he said. “It’s very experimental, very profound in some ways, but so fun to do.”
He added that he grew very close with the other actors in his cast as they bonded over the difficulties and charms of Shepard’s work.
Another cast member, Steph Miller ’20, gave some insight on the rehearsal process, which started soon after classes began.
“I think it’s really nice that they have it start so soon so that freshmen can get involved so early,” Miller said.
First-year student Laurel Rand-Lewis ’20 agreed, and added that she liked performing one acts as opposed to a full-length play.
“Doing one acts gives you much more freedom to have more people,” she said. “It’s also much more coherent to do in such a short period of time.”
Alexander Herdman ’17 stage managed the show with help from Assistant Stage Manager Coralie Tyler ’20. Herdman was also the set designer and properties manager of the performance, and acted in his own first year show three years ago.
“I’m still friends with the cast!” he added, a testament to the teambuilding and sense of community with which the first year show provides newcomers. He has taken part in faculty shows ever since.
As a new-coming director at the College, Martin also emphasized the camaraderie of the first-year cast.
“We don’t know what to expect and we don’t know what to do,” said Martin. “We don’t know exactly what it’s going to be but we kind of created it together.”
(10/28/16 12:49am)
You know the yoga is relaxing when you are standing in eagle pose and have completely forgotten about the two papers, midterm and four homework assignments due Monday. That was me finding my zen on Sunday night in the Chateau Grand Lounge. I stood in a position I had previously considered to be contortional, wobbling only a little bit, listening to instructions from a fellow student and loving every minute of it. I wasn’t stressing about my academic classes or worrying what the other yogis around me were thinking; I was just practicing yoga, something I had never tried before.
As a college student, finding peace of mind is no small feat, which is what makes the Middlebury Yoga Club such a wonderful organization. The Yoga Club has been functioning as a de-stresser and exercise option for students for five years now, and its accessible nature and student-taught classes help it to achieve its goal as stated in the club’s mission statement, “…to provide yoga series for the Middlebury College community to offer the benefits of yoga’s reflective and balancing effects.”
The goals of the Yoga Club have remained consistent since the club’s humble beginnings in 2011. The idea for the club began in the town of Middlebury at the Otter Creek Yoga Studio, when students Cassy Charyn ’12 and Lilah Leopold ’12.5 approached instructor Russell Comstock and asked him to teach a class at the college. The students secured a space in the Hepburn lounge, but as more and more newcomers from different dorms joined the club, it was apparent the small space would no longer do. The yoga bug was catching at Midd, and it was catching fast.
After two or three semesters at Hepburn, the effort was underway to create an official Yoga Club. Comstock began teaching classes at the CFA, and classes were open to students from all dorms. Comstock saw much enthusiasm among the kids in the club, who he says were looking for a way to “help balance some of the pressure and various demands of college life.”
Five years later Comstock still teaches yoga at Midd and offers two classes a week to accommodate the large number of students who are part of the Yoga Club, ranging from 60 to 100 students per class. Eight Middlebury students teach the remaining nine weekly classes. Chelsea Colby ’17.5 is a certified yoga instructor who became involved with the club two years ago when she needed teaching hours for her yoga training certification. Now Colby is the club treasurer and teaches two classes a week. Her goals for the club include expanding on its sense of community and introducing possibilities such as a yoga rave, collaborations with the mountain club and added morning classes to work into students’ busy schedules.
“We’re trying to see how we can make it more of a community,” she said. “There is such a focus on individual practice and your own mat and your own practice and your own hour.”
The yoga club has seen immense success, which is in part due to its accessibility. Classes are free and students are allowed to go to any classes they want, depending on which best fit into their days. There are 11 classes to choose from and a range of options each day of the week, and each class welcomes yogis of all levels. Breaking the rigidity of a typical club schedule gives Yoga Club members more control over their own yoga practices, and allows them to choose whichever classes work best for them.
Adeline Cleveland, an employee at the Snow Bowl, and one of the original members of the Yoga Club, pointed out the need for this availability and method of escaping academic pressures. “Middlebury College is an amazing institution and a very overwhelming environment,” she said. “We recognized the need to get students out of their heads and into their bodies and wanted to provide free classes for anyone and everyone interested, including faculty!”
The availability is also implicit in the club’s constitution, which reads as one of its purposes: “To offer classes accessible to those who want to try yoga for the first time, for those who want to practice weekly, or for those who would like to drop in on a particularly stressful week.” So, whether you have been practicing for years or have never even stepped foot on a yoga mat, the Yoga Club is a viable involvement opportunity for you.
The tolerance for yoga newcomers was evident in the Restorative Yoga class I attended, which began with easier practices like stretching and slowly increased in difficulty to a vinyasa flow sequence. Throughout the class Colby was encouraging and accommodating, offering up alternatives to poses for those who had more experience but explaining in detail the poses for those – like myself – who had none. By the end of the hour I was extremely relaxed and felt strong and in control of my own body.
According to Comstock, “one big benefit [of yoga] is gaining a deeper sense of learning about your own energy and how to manage that energy, and how to feel like you have some sort of internal guidance as a student because you have so many external pressures.”
In this way the yoga classes offer a diversion from the anxiety and intensity of school, and allow students to take care of their bodies. This effect of the practice is not lost on the Middlebury community, which has enthusiastically embraced the club.
The Yoga Club is still growing, owing much to the passion that students bring to the table. The club also has evolved with the changing goals of the school.
“In the past year or so with [President of the College Laurie L. Patton] coming onto campus, there’s been a lot more talk about mindfulness on campus,” said Colby, “and so it’s definitely grown, even since my time starting here.”
However the club is still very much connected to its roots. The mission of the original founders of the Club is very much in sync with that of the Club leaders now.
And ask any of the hundreds of kids who attend the classes weekly – I am sure they would agree.