ONSTAGE Thank you for reading the Fall 2023 edition of OnStage! While we are sad to see our University of Dallas 2022 graduates and Professor Susan Cox go, we wish them all the best and celebrate this transition period with exciting new updates! Firstly, we welcome Mr. Martin Sanchez, M.F.A., as our new resident costume designer and shop manager. He has demonstrated creativity and skill with the drama department faculty and the costume shop staff, and we are excited to see his contributions in the years to come! Secondly, Mr. Mark Kirk, Resident Scenic Designer and Technical Director, and his crew of workers are on a brand new thrust stage in the drama department building, featuring several innovations debuting during this year’s performance. Finally, we are excited to announce this semester’s mainstage, directed by Professor Kyle Lemieux, as Seagull, written by decorated Russian playwright and author Anton Chekhov. For some historical context, though the Russian empire had not yet felt the effects of the Bolshevik revolution, tension had been brewing for several years between the shrinking aristocracy and the growing working class. Horrible conditions of the expanding cities, famine, harsh climate, and war stirred Russia; the lower classes murmured that the outdated monarchy was stunting innovative growth and opportunities for a better life. Literary geniuses such as Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky refused to utilize dramatic prose and strove to reflect the bleak atmosphere that realistically surrounded them-- behind those closed doors, what were the psychological complexities behind the dark side of human nature? This literary evolution did not reach the Russian theatre scene as quickly; Chekhov, finding the lack of realistic interactions in plays (including his own) frustratingly sickening, wrote Seagull amidst a series of plays that would prove to be revolutionary in the art of acting in a true personification of the human condition. In this era of technology, change happens at such a rapid pace that we are left reeling with the consequences, prominently displayed through several methods of communication. Though good things and great things do happen, it is certainly easier to be a pessimist as we are ever more connected to national and international travesties; world events make life seem like a jagged canyon rather than a mountain range. However, it is good to ask ourselves: with this ever-continuing influx of information, how can we deduce reality from warped lenses and delusion-- is it found in the media we consume, or the things left unprinted, left unspoken everywhere but in the deep recesses of our consciences? How can we continue living and loving when disappointment and division follow us, when the past and the present are ever at war? Seagull, in a tragically comedic fashion, addresses these questions by challenging the stereotypical perspectives we usually see in theater: there is no true beginning, climax, or end, there is only transition and evolution, a play within a play. Through this constant revolution amidst this power struggle against the artistic old and new, against cruel reality and the yearning to be loved, I hope you leave this production with more questions than answers; pay attention to what happens behind the curtain rather than on stage.
Stefan Novinski, Chair of the Drama Department
TABLE OF CONTENTS
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Interacting with the Playwright: an Actor’s Insight on Chekhov
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............... A Brief Biography of Anton Chekhov
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Man’s Modern Mode: Chekhov and the Art of Letters
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.................................. Chekhov’s Adolescence
10 “Something Must Give: The Contest Between Play & Playwright
11 A Reflection of Reality in Seagull’s Set DesignCast and Management
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The Drama Department’s New Costume Designer: Professor Martin Sanchez
14 Contesting Materialism and the Definition of Family: Fall 2023 Senior Studios
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.................................... Cast and Management
Contributing Writers:
Bruce Bowen Julia Bukowski Mary Carlin Johannes Carrillo Joseph Fournier Noah Newmann Emily Philips Kate Pioch
Photography:
Lily Dorris Amelia Ebent Henry Gramling
Assistant Editor:
Katherine Pioch
Layout Editor: Editor-in-Chief: Centerfold: Stage Model
Lauren Hill
Camila Rodriguez
Interacting with the Playwright: an Actor’s Insight on Chekhov by Kate Pioch
I had the privilege of sitting down with the four talented actors who perform the principal roles in Chekhov’s enduring classic, Seagull. In this interview, we delve into their approach to handling their characters’ complex personalities, the ins and outs of delivering lines with feeling and insight, and their (and their characters’) depth of understanding of how the passage of time resonates with their respective roles, which is a major theme of the play. These actors’ dedication to character work and the thematic exploration of Chekhov’s work guarantees an impactful and profound theatrical experience for all audiences.
Seagull plays out in her place, around her life. She likes the attention drawn to her. She wants this play to be about her. BB: My name is Braden Barber. I’m a junior drama and English major. I’m playing Boris Trigorin, who is a very famous writer and author, who has come here to the countryside with Arkadina, as her lover. He spends his time fishing—partially to try and get away from his own thoughts. Partially—I’m starting to believe—-to get away from Arkadina, who is a very domineering personality. He finds himself very quickly attracted to Nina.
KP: Can each of you briefly introduce yourselves and the character in Seagull?
BT: I’m Ben Thomas, junior drama major. I’m playing Konstantin Treplev, the writer son of the famous actress. I’m a wannabe playwright whose primary obsession is sticking it SA: My name is Sienna Abbott. I’m a junior drama major to the conventions of theater at the time. A lot of my fixation with a business concentration. I’m playing Arkadina. She’s throughout the play is showing that I can write something this famous actress who is a little bit past her time. She’s which is new and fresh. Also, mom and I have a lot of creative fifty-five now. She’s not quite the young, ingenious [lady] she beef. There’s a lot of clash there. once was. So she’s very rich and is the owner of the summer estate. She’s got all of her friends here on this summer estate. FB: My name’s Faith Berry. I’m playing Nina. Nina is 19. She’s ABOVE: Dresses from Seagull in the costume shop
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the neighbor of the estate. She’s very naive, and all she wants KP: It’s like you can tell that it’s in a comedic situation, and is to be famous. She leaves Treplev to run off to Moscow to be yet… this is real stuff happening to these characters. famous with Trigorin, but then her life kind of falls to pieces. She leaves her baby, her acting career is not a success, but by the SA: I don’t have to try to be funny. end of the play, she stays hopeful and triumphant. FB: If you’re playing the character truthfully and authentically, KP: Jumping off that, how do you balance with the characters: it’s going to come out funny because that’s what’s in the words. the comedic and the dramatic and the tragic aspects of your If you approach the words authentically, it’s gonna come out characters? exactly how it’s supposed to. BT: I think that they’re one and the same usually, because half the drama that people are going through is comedic, like [a] character’s bemoaning his situation, but the fact that he’s bemoaning it is hilarious.
KP: I also know that Chekhov’s plays are known for their subtext and nuanced dialogue. Can you share any challenges that you may have faced in delivering lines that convey deeper meaning to the audience?
SA: I guess it’s not too hard when Chekhov is such a great writer.
SA: [Laughs] All of them?
BT: It’s a ton of drama that is dramatic to the characters but to an observer is comical.
BT: No line is just what it’s like written as. There’s different layers of snootiness under every single line.
SA: I think that my character specifically has this facade. She SA: It’s really honest and earnest, every single thing that hapis this actor. So this is the person that she is presenting as, but pens to us. And because it’s so well written, everyone [in the au- underneath she’s battling a lot of other things, so you say the dience] is looking at you like ‘Really: that’s honest and earnest lines with that in mind. to you.’ BB: Like with any good play, you have to make lots of deciBB: Chekhov’s done a lot of the work for us. sions as an actor on the subtext. For my character, it’s really hard for me to tell right now if he’s a bit of a player or if he’s just
2 ABOVE: Faith Berry as Nina Zarechnaya and Ben Thomas as Konstantin Treplev LEFT: Sienna Abbott as Irina Arkadina and Alice Forget as Paulina Andreyevna
attracted to two different ideals, and he’s just too weak-willed SA: I guess that would be a very fundamental way that we to actually make a full commitment. That’s something I’m in college can relate, in watching yourself change, become not certain about. Where exactly that comes from in me is a young adult, watching your friends change and your life something that is going to take a lot more time with the text change. And that’s something that I think on a personal level, to decide on this real challenge. In the time between the third the cast, the crew, anyone involved in this show, no matter and fourth acts, when he’s gone off—there’s been an affair with who you are, will understand. Nina, they had a child, and that seems that he’s left her, and she talks very badly about him, as lots of people do—it doesn’t BT: Even one semester can change someone on a deep level. quite seem in line with his character as I get it in the first three A lot can happen in two years. acts. That’s also something that I find hard to understand. KP: Let’s really dig in. In your table work, how do you apFB: It seems like that would be really hard for you to decipher. proach portraying your characters, especially in your readings? For example, you, as an actor, how are you approaching BT: I think Chekhov has done a very good job of realizing that getting into the head of this person? Are you researching characters are not static. up? How are you getting it such that you connect with this character? BB: No, not at all. BB: One of the main things we do with most plays is characBT: They change. Trigorin in Act Three is a different dude ter lists. What is something the character says about themthan Trigorin in Act Four, fundamentally, and that’s true for selves, what do they say about other people, what do other everybody. So it’s not just, here’s the character, here’s the list of people say about them, and cross-referencing all these… I facts about them, and that is true always. It’s not math. think the text does speak for itself in lots of ways. It’s just your own personal work. SA: It’s an extremely human flavor. BT: It’s really interesting because everything’s there in the BB: Especially with the two-year gap, because you think just script. You just gotta find it. You really gotta figure out what is how much people change in two years, your entire life goals happening there. can change in two years. SA: We do a lot of what’s called world-building. We’ve spent a 3
bonkers amount of time on the history of the time of under- that happens. standing the culture. We’ve spent a lot of time just researching and just gaining a really deep understanding of who these KP: How would you say that the passage of time resonates people are. Not just who they are, but what their lifestyle is. I specifically with your character, and how do you plan to think the rehearsal process has already thus far lent itself to a portray that? really good start, a really deep understanding of the headspaces of our characters and the world spaces of our characters. FB: I think for Nina, the passage of time forces her to get hit on the head with reality. I mean, because at the beginning BT: It’s one thing to try to be like [in] 1890s Russia when of the play, or the first three acts, she’s very naive, and very you’re on Twitter, versus when you’re like, ‘So they didn’t have young, and very girlish, which there’s nothing wrong with penicillin.’ You get a little better understanding of what this that, but at some point, as a woman, something happens to setting is. you that forces you to kind of jump out of that, and enter into reality. It’s her coming of age and her maturity. FB: I also think looking inward and finding a personal connection. You can do all this technical stuff, but if you can’t find SA: That’s interesting because I don’t think my character ever a way to actually connect with the character, you might not be gets to that point. able to get there. It’s important to analyze your character and analyze yourself, which is hard because then you’re going to F: I think that’s what makes your character so compelling find some things about yourself maybe that’s deep, you don’t and interesting is that she never reaches that. You can tell that want to face it, but I think that’s integral to the work. You un- she’s trying purposefully to never reach that hit on the head derstand it personally, but you also understand it technically of reality. and artistically. SA: My relationship with time is that I don’t want to have a BT: I think that really there is no such thing as a blank slate ac- relationship with time. I just don’t believe it is something that tor. It’s like a meeting-in-the-middle sort of integration of what affects me, and I don’t believe that it’s something that is real at you have from the script and what you have from you. all. SA: I would argue you have to be vulnerable to the people that BT: Right and nobody ever forces you to. you’re working on this creative project with. There’s a lot of trust that goes into the people you’re working with and your FB: Exactly, yeah. It’s a very real sense of the word. director. I think the vulnerability of what Faith is talking about comes with that. You trust your team and the art that you’re SA: Yes, I would, 120 million percent. building. BB: So, Trigorin, I’m gonna say I haven’t figured out yet the BT: It’s not a go-at-it-alone kind of thing. Not at all. main issue of the passage of time. I think the only thing I know is that the passage of time is something that forces him KP: What I’ve gathered from Seagull, there’s overall motifs of to make choices that perhaps he’s not ready to make, and artistic expression and passage of time and unrequited love. most of his drama is going to be grappling with those and Real quick, which of those three would you say is worthwhile whether or not he can make changes. I still have to figure that digging into? out. BT: I think definitely the passage of time, not just because the BT: Yeah. I think for Konstantin, time invades him a little bit, time jumps in between some of the acts, but just because of but you know, just as he gets older, he finds success, but it’s how time affects a lot of the characters. Everybody has some unfulfilling. Everything that he had falls through a little bit. nostalgia or resentment toward aging that they are trying to So I don’t think time is very kind to him at all. I think he defideal with, especially Arkadina’s son. Definitely Sorin. Definite- nitely becomes a lot more bitter. He was already a little bitter, ly Sorin. but definitely a lot more pessimistic. A lot more cynical.
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SA: And the divide is because, I mean, Braden and I’s characters are older, but theirs aren’t. And so there’s a little bit of a foil
A Brief Biography of Anton Chekhov by Bruce Bowen
IN RUSSIA during the mid-nineteenth century, amongst the rise of Marxism and anarchism, two authors took their place in the history of literature. In the 1860s, Leo Tolstoy wrote and published his seminal novel War and Peace, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote all four of his most acclaimed novels, including Crime and Punishment. Both their works analyze their characters’ psychology, a practice that became a defining attribute of Russian literature. While these novelists redefined their genre, it was not until the 1890s that this attribute and its motifs shifted into the world of Russian drama. Anton Pavlovich Chekhov would soon introduce his realist style to the palette of Russian theater and leave his influence on the Russian dramatic tradition. Chekhov was born in Taganrog, Russia to his father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov, a struggling grocer. Chekhov’s mother was kind, but his childhood was a painful time that later fueled his writings. He lived solitarily for the latter part of high school and made money by writing as a freelance journalist. After completing his primary education, he moved to Moscow with his family-- by the time he graduated from university, he had made quite a name for himself. His writings provided a foundation for the development of his artistic voice. While conducting literary experimentation, his usual comical style evolved into mature fiction, each of his on the remote penal island of Sakhalin. After witnessing a works gaining more respect than the last. resurgence of life in the Russian theatre, he wrote Seagull, In 1888, his first published work in a literary which more subtly portrayed Russian life than his prejournal consisted of a long-form story titled Steppe, ceding plays. His play met the same harsh criticism; which cemented his decision to move beyond his the disastrous opening night gave Chekhov a traumatic humorous publications. At this point in the evolution experience. of Chekhov’s early short stories, he concretely devoted In 1901, he married Olga Knipper, a major actress in his his narratives to that darker Russian style, similar to plays. For most of their marriage, they lived apart and Tolstoy’s. With his deeper dives into the more mundane had no children. As the last years of his life passed by, parts of Russian life, he ventured into the theatre realm. Chekhov would try to get his short stories and plays more The state of Russian drama disappointed him because recognized to little avail. After writing his final play, The he believed the stage should also represent the realism Cherry Orchard, he died of tuberculosis approximately of life. During the release of his second full-length play, six months later. The Wood Demon, he received so much scrutiny from Soon after his death, his work would receive internationcritics that he lost his interest in writing for the stage for al acclaim, and Chekhov would become a recognizable years. name outside of Russia. Russian drama became what it is Between 1888 and 1898, Chekhov was in his most today because of this playwright; it is difficult to discuss creative state, writing his most iconic short stories. He Russian literature without bringing him up among his balanced his writing and his practice as a doctor with other renowned contemporaries. his one-man venture to interview multitudes of convicts ABOVE: Portrait of Anton Chekhov
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Man’s Modern Mode: Chekhov and the Art of Letters by Noah Newmann
IN HIS WORKS, Anton Chekhov provides readers with pictures of unromantic Russian life parallel to his prose. By avoiding plot-heavy drama, the Russian doctor-turned-author draws the audience into the lives of his characters by accentuating the banal and the everyday. Literary contemporary Leo Tolstoy stated that Chekhov “has his own peculiar form, like that of the Impressionists. You see a man putting on paint and you think that his strokes of the brush have no relation to one another. But just move away and look, and you receive a wonderful impression.” Through his near brutal, realist style, Chekhov lends the modern reader a readily digestible, emotionally touching, and humorous glimpse into the life and times of the ordinary nineteenth-century man. Chekhov—now recognized worldwide as the father of the modern short story and the playwright of The Cherry Orchard, Uncle Vanya, and Seagull— began his writing career by penning pithy anecdotes tailored for quick and easy consumption by the reading public. Soon, having grown used to the brevity of magazine articles, he matured his writing into a style that approached a more classical mode. He brought complexities of character and plot into his work without forgetting his comic roots. In a letter, Chekhov gave his brother Alexander what he believed to be the six elements needed to compose a good story. 1. Absence of lengthy verbiage of a political-social-economic nature 2. Total objectivity
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Seagull Act I, the play within the play
3. Truthful descriptions of persons and objects 4. Extreme brevity 5. Audacity and originality—Flee the stereotype 6. Compassion This philosophy allowed Chekhov to freely express a depth of feeling in his work, nearly devoid of complex literary devices and flowery descriptions. This freedom allowed for the circumstances and characters to speak for themselves. This mode of expression did not simply apply to his work but also to his life. Maxim Gorky, the most highly decorated writer in post-Tzarist Russia, who was an acquaintance of Chekhov, said that “[i]n the presence of Anton … everyone felt an unconscious desire to be simpler, more truthful, more himself, and I had many opportunities of observing how people threw off their attire of grand bookish phrases, fashionable expressions, and all the rest.” This honesty of expression and genuine feeling for the plight of real people, expressed in his characters, earned Chekhov the Pushkin Prize in 1888, the highest award given to a Russian writer. By setting his stories in the everyday, Chekhov enabled his readers to believe that they were the characters portrayed on the page or see themselves through the actor’s movements onstage. “I wanted to tell people honestly: ‘Look at yourselves. See how badly you live and how tiresome you are.’ The main thing is that people should understand this. When they do, they will surely create a new and better life for themselves.”
Chekhov’s Adolescence by Emily Phillips ANTON CHEKHOV’S WORK bears an astonishing resemblance to a bit of yarn tightly bound in knots at the end of crochet work set aside for too long. It appears as a single, unified whole and maintains a homogenous hue. Recommending itself to us because of its complexity, it begs contradictory solutions. When given a firm tug, it loosens for a moment and then seizes again, pulled taught by friction between the questioner and the substance of the piece. One needs a postmodern lens to understand the sort of crochet work that Chekhov would have his audience perform. His nuanced and deeply human portrayal of characters is a sketch. In it, we see man and the world into which he is born, leaving us with the sorts of questions and skeptical mentality that informs good thought. Because his work is bereft of a central protagonist, albeit superficially, and has no unified theme, Seagull is an effective comedy in the absurdist sense. It exhibits comedic elements in its most dramatic scenes, and its humor is dark and contemplative at its subtlest moments. It draws heavily from Shakespeare in its dialogue and characters and still clings to elements of vaudeville theater. Execution is difficult at best. In writing about the first performance in 1896 to his
friend, A. F. Koni, Anton Chekhov writes: I saw from the front only the two first acts of my play. Afterwards I sat behind the scenes and felt the whole time that Seagull was a failure. After the performance that night and day, I was assured that I had hatched out nothing but idiots, that my play was clumsy from the stage point of view, that it was not clever, that it was unintelligible, even senseless, and so on…I had written and put on the stage a play so obviously brimming over with monstrous defects, I had lost all instinct and that, therefore, my machinery must have gone wrong for good. However, the initial reception of Seagull resulted not from any substantive deficiency in the work itself but from an audience deficiency. A thoroughly postmodern play, Seagull’s emotionality, and form recall Turgenev, and its sensibility predicts Kafka and Camus. It reflected the world, which was not looking for a reflection of itself. It develops, in each incomplete character, the makings of man—not as a heroic ideal, but as he is. Each character falls short of the expression fulfilled in Turgenev’s essay “Don Quixote or Hamlet.” Chekhov recalls both of these and fulfills neither. He abandons us to delinquent adolescence, absurd and enduringly comic.
Allison Peterman as Masha Ilyinichna, Kevin Ferris running lines, Nina Zarechnaya played by Faith Berry
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The Necessity of Artistic Humility by Joseph Fournier PROTECTING ONE’S creation from criticism will ensure it never grows. At the beginning of Anton Chekhov’s Seagull, the young playwright Konstantin Treplev presents his play laden with heavy symbolism and high diction. His artistic creation is rejected and scorned by its observers, but rather than receive their displeasure with decorum, Treplev cuts it short. Pridefully believing his brainchild is beyond them, he refuses to let it be exposed to their criticism and permanently conceals it from the world. Ironically, Chekhov himself meets little success when he first produces Seagull. The first audience of his play, just like Treplev’s, condemns his creation as a failure. In contrast to his character’s actions, however, Chekhov lets his play continue despite the visceral embarrassment and thus presents a model of artistic humility that allows his work to achieve the intrinsic greatness within. While harshly delivered, the judgment Treplev hears amid the performance of his play, his art, demonstrates that it needs improvement. Instead, he takes it as a challenge to his ego and cruelly responds to the treatment of his play by cutting it short and blowing it out of proportion. The inability of Treplev to receive any negative criticism of his play demonstrates the fruits of artistic pride and destroys his play’s future-- stunting any personal growth he may have undergone from the experience of revising what he may have mistakenly thought to be perfect. Chekhov, similarly hindered, made the different, difficult choice to receive criticism. The first production of The Seagull was such a disaster, that its author hid backstage after the second act, stating he would never write another play again. Nevertheless, he allowed the play, and by default himself, to face public scrutiny, letting it run through its entire course. Because of this choice, the director Konstantin Stanislavski later turned it into a roaring success with his novel introduction to psychological realism and actor-centric training. Though it did 10
not flourish in his own hands, Chekhov passed his play on to one who could give it the life he imagined it to have and only because he weathered the discomfort of judgment. His artistic humility allowed his art to thrive instead of being snuffed out by its creator’s prideful insistence on his perfection. The attachment of an artist to his work, especially one whose passions and ideals find expression in his art, can be likened to a filial relationship. Just like a child, art must be allowed to go out into the world; audiences must experience how good and beautiful or flawed and imperfect it may be. Artists can stifle their work from public view, keeping the mere idea of what they believe their art to be, or they can suffer the pains of bringing their creation into the world, no matter how embarrassing, humiliating, or excruciating it may be. Only in the spirit of Chekhov can an artistic creation grow fully into what it could be; only in the humility of letting our art live outside ourselves can it truly live at all.
Lucy Gallagher, Mary Carlin, Faith Berry, and Isabel Williams preforming the play within the play in Act I
A Reflection of Reality in Seagull’s Set Design by Mary Carlin
DURING THIS SEPTEMBER, the buzz of activity and anticipation in the Drama building is palpable-- there are already piles of wood boards, rolls of insulation, and the occasional hisses of the table saw. Prof. Lemieux, director for Seagull, and Mark Kirk, Technical and Design Director for Seagull, have been planning the design for the Fall Main Stage since last spring. According to Kirk, “There’s no one person driving everything.” The director, costume designer, and set designer all help to plan the new set design, and “It starts off, if you’re lucky, very chaotic because that’s where the essence of creativity is coming in.” The different perspectives of the designer, director, actor, and many others all have to be explored during the early stages of the production. The set design is a thrust stage, with audience
Scene shop team
seating on three sides and several back walls on the fourth side, including a hallway for actors to maneuver easily backstage. The materials include construction-grade lumber, plywood, insulation, hardwood flooring, and wallpaper. Mr. Kirk says that when planning a set, he likes “to create a playground for the actors and the directors to explore the play.” The set design directly reflects the realism present in Chekhov’s writing in its mode of raw transition. Kirk noted that “The show will have little pieces that will add to it, but a whole part of Seagull show is we want it to look like it’s a rehearsal space.” Actors will appear as if they are simply rehearsing; props will seem improvised, and costumes will emulate modern styles. As for the set, the windows are printed banners, the lake is a brick wall, and a Russian arch is only half-completed. With-
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in the story, a plastic table will represent the stage of Konstantin, played by Ben Thomas. The stage and the props evoke “the illusion of improvisation,” remarked Kirk. So that, just as the audience sees “actors playing actors doing a play,” the whole stage is itself a representation of how real actors work during rehearsal. Seagull is about an artist’s work, and the set design conveys all the messy chaos of staging a play. The audience will see “the rehearsal gradually evolve into reality,” as he further explained. As the
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play artistically progresses, without a clear beginning, climax, or end, so too does the set design, ever-changing and evolving into something more exciting than its previous version. It works in harmony with the characters in Seagull, who endeavor to create new realities through art. Just as the Drama building began this year as a chaotic world full of wood and noise, it will become a little pocket of space where actors can create whole new worlds.
Marina Cuatepotzo working on Masha’s dress
The Drama Department’s New Costume Designer: Mr. Martin Sanchez by Johannes Carrillo
MR. MARTIN SANCHEZ, the new Resident Costume Designer and Costume Shop Manager, comes to the University of Dallas Drama Department with a wealth of knowledge and experience. He was born in San Antonio and is incredibly proud of his Texan heritage. He received his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Incarnate Word in his hometown and took his experience with him to obtain his Master’s from the University of Washington. His notable achievements include teaching at a high school, nonprofit projects, involvement in dance, technical design, stage management, sound design, and even a costume design internship at Caeser’s Palace. When asked about his extensive travels outside of Texas, he replied, “I’ve been a little here and there. I really value my time in Seattle because it was just a great opportunity for me to grow as an artist.” So why decide on UD? Mr. Sanchez responded, “I just had a really good sense that the work that’s being done here is very respectful to the students, and at the same time, it challenges them intellectually. I thought that it would be a great opportunity for me to grow as an artist, but also as a teacher.” He later added, “The costume shop is fantastic… I really like the challenge of creating theater in such a very intimate spot. And I’m eager to teach [the costume crew] how to sew, how to design, everything that needs to happen… They’ll learn a little bit of everything and then we’re going to hit the ground running.” Concerning Fall 2023’s Mainstage production of Anton Chekov’s Seagull, Sanchez commented: There’s going to be a major shift between acts three and four and stylistically when it comes to the traditional time of the 1880s (which Seagull is placed in), it feels wrong not to include it. But at the same time, the play has for me, in acts one, two, and three, such a modern sensibility to it. It’s frenetic. There’s a lot of
movement and energy. So period didn’t seem appropriate for acts one through three because a period costume can weigh down an actor. So we arrived at a sort of compromise between having a combination of modern clothing for the beginning of the show and then period [pieces] for the last act. Right now I’m approaching the final phase. The magic of a character coming to life happens in the fitting room. I’m really eager to start collaborating with the actors on how they see their characters and how we bring that character to life, how we channel who Chekhov wrote over 100 years ago and bring them into today’s world. It is with respect and admiration that Sanchez continues the work done by the previous costume designer, Susie Cox-- for him, it felt as if he was reuniting with an old friend upon first meeting her. As he completes his first semester of residency, he intends to forge new connections with the theatre artists in the drama department and contribute to the University of Dallas to the best of his ability.
Mr. Sanchez in the costume shop.
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Contesting Materialism and the Definition of Family: Fall 2023 Senior Studios by Julia Bukowski
Love, commitment, and knowledge. These three things, often interwoven into human relationships, are key elements to this year’s Senior Studios. The regional debut of Adrienne Kennedy’s Electra, directed by Maylis Quesnel, and Tennessee Williams’s The Magic Tower, directed by Marcelle Van de Voorde, invite the audience to question themselves and their lives about what truly matters. Both ask the audience to actively listen while they offer an opportunity to help further people on their life journeys. Electra juxtaposes attitudes and relationships to reveal the broken family structure of the house of Atreus. It brings to light the reality that blood relations do not always determine the nature of one’s family. Instead, family is more of a concept; it is tied to the virtue of faithfulness and to people one loves, whether or not blood relations exist. The main character, Electra, struggles with her relationship with her peasant husband, who ought to be united with her as one flesh, and her mother. Moreover, her difficulties with her husband are unusual because he seems to be the “perfect man,” someone who is reliable, funny, and good-hearted, despite his issues with her in their relationship. The husband, Maylis’s favorite character, is one of those people who are “hard to find but easy to lose,” as Maylis says. Kennedy compares Electra’s relationships to the brotherly love that Orestes and Pylades have for one another—a relationship that some viewers argue is closer than that of Electra and her blood relations. It is a steadfast testament to the acknowledgment of suffering in human life. The Magic Tower takes a different route. Considered “gritty and authentic,” it provides audiences with a sense of empowerment and control over their lives. Today, materialism is one of many world rulers; peo14 ABOVE:
ple yearn to find what they cannot in transient things like money and mansions. The Magic Tower addresses this concept by proving that appreciation and love for others can mean much more than materialistic, worldly success. The plot revolves around Linda and her husband, Jim. They live off a small wage yet find themselves content because they have each other. They are rich in the things that matter. However, things do not always go as planned, and Linda’s past becomes a part of her life once more. As director Marcelle Van de Voorde states, “She is the start of the play, both delightful and anger-inducing, fragile and strong.” When asked what each director wanted people to take away from their performances, the answers proved both directors are passionate about not only performances but also bringing the audience to “feel.” Whether it be the inevitable nature of suffering and its ability to change our perspectives or the realization that human connection is priceless, the Senior Studios pose multitudes of relevant questions and ideas for people of all backgrounds.
TOP LEFT: Braden Barber, Sienna Abbott, Kevin Ferris, Andrew Arlinghaus, Allison Peterman, and Alice Forget in Act IV BOTTOM LEFT: Sienna Abbott in costume idea for Irina Arkadina (Lucy Gallagher playing Maid in the background)
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CAST & MANAGEMENT
Sienna Abbott Irina Arkadina Junior Drama
Andrew Arlinghaus Ilya Shamrayev Freshman English
Faith Berry Nina Zarechnaya Junior Drama
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Kevin Ferris Yevgeny Dorn Senior Psychology
Mary Carlin Yakov Sophomore Drama
Braden Barber Boris Trigorin Junior Drama/English
Johannes Carrillo Peter Sorin Freshman English
Alice Forget Paulina Shamrayev Junior Drama
CAST & MANAGEMENT
Lucy Gallagher Maid Sophomore Drama
Isabel Williams Cook Freshman Psychology
Allison Peterman Masha Sophomore Drama/Philosophy
Thomas “TAD” Wilson Semyon Medvedenko Freshman Undeclared
Chloe Shearer Production Stage Manager Junior Psychology
Ben Thomas Konstantin Treplev Junior Drama
Emily Philips Assistant Stage Manager Junior Philosophy/History
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