On the Arts DR AMA
The Show Goes On, Outdoors Pingry’s Drama Department originally faced a choice this fall: live stream the Fall Play, which would mean the absence of a live audience, or move the show outdoors to give the actors an audience and the community a chance to attend. As it turns out, the show, John Cariani’s Almost, Maine, was streamed and moved al fresco! “I was excited because this was a new experience, not just for [the teachers], but for the kids,” says Drama Department Chair Stephanie Romankow. She even checked with former Drama Department Chair Al Romano to see if Pingry had mounted outdoor theater in the past. As far as they know, this was Pingry’s first venture. For their vision of an outdoor theater, Mrs. Romankow and Drama Production Designer Joseph Napolitano were inspired by Central Park’s open-air Delacorte Theater and companies that have produced outdoor-only shows that made use of lakes and other natural resources for Titanic, Into the Woods, and Carousel, to name a few. “The key to site-specific work is using the landscape— the location—to tell the story, and that works really well with Almost, Maine because the plot has a lot of outdoor
Pingry’s outdoor production, at the Pop-Up Amphitheatre, of Almost, Maine.
44
T H E P I N G R Y R E V I E W | FA L L 2 0 2 0
spaces,” says Mr. Napolitano, who has worked on outdoor productions. Almost, Maine explores love and loss in a series of short scenes that require only two or three actors per scene, ideal for social distancing and other safety protocols. Rehearsals took place primarily outdoors with students wearing masks, while a tech crew of at least 16 students constructed the outdoor stage and set. The production was staged at the Pop-Up Amphitheatre behind the Upper School building (in the Student Village, created over the summer as extra outdoor space), with one tent for a green room and two tents for the audience. “At a time when live theatre in the U.S. is largely shut down and most audiences are virtual, we presented a fully rendered piece, an approach that sets Pingry’s Drama Department apart from other programs,” Mr. Napolitano says. “After speaking with the cast and crew, I know that our drama students were excited (and grateful!) to be able to perform again in front of a live audience. We have developed new ways to deliver our program that are consistently rigorous in all aspects, performance and technical, to what we’ve offered in previous years.”
