THE
IRON BLADE
Vol. 60, No. 4
In This Issue:
Empty Bowls Event Page 2
School record 10 goals Page 3
Winkles hits for cycle Page 3
Tennis update Page 3
Students Speak Page 4
SINCE 1955
60 Years of Ferrum College News
March , 2016
Little Women the Musical by Patrick Duggan After two and a half months of preparation by the theater department, Louisa May Alcott’s timeless classic "Little Women" came alive on the Sale Theater stage March 17-20. Despite delays in receiving scripts and pressure to premier the show before Easter Break, freshman Fox Yates, who played the leading role of Jo, was proud of the final product. “It went really, really well,” Fox said. “Some people from Averett University came and watched the show, and they were really Photo Courtesy of TaJon Olmo impressed. Other than Marmee is speaking with her four little women about their fathers escapades. a couple line mess-ups, got to this school I wanted to be a Ritorto said. “The way musicals are there was really nothing wrong with manager for the baseball team. One written for the Broadway theater, the show, and the energy was really of the people who got in the way of they put a lot of money into the scene good. I was surprised to see how that was a person who checked my changes and how scenes flow from well it all come together in the end, facebook and said it was unladylike one another. Most modern musicals because for a little while there I was for a woman to curse as much as I have mechanical sets; sets change in pretty scared.” do. Women are expected to be well the middle of songs. With our limited "Little Women," first published kept.” budget and with the structure of the in 1868, is a fictionalized account of Aside from the feminist mes- story it was a challenge to keep that Alcott’s own life and considered a sage, Yates shares many things in energy while doing it on a much key work of 19th century feminism. common with Jo, both in personality smaller scale. Sometimes the audi“At the time the book was pub- and circumstance. Specifically, Yates ence can be dazzled with the beauty lished, it was really something new,” used her own experiences with death of the set changes. In this show, it’s said Sue Spataro, who directed the to channel the emotion Jo feels when all about the story, not the spectacle.” show’s music. “It broke all kinds of she loses her sister. Despite the challenge, Spataro traditions, like the traditional female “I’m really good at all of the was pleased with the end-result and role of being wife and mother.” Di- anger and sadness,” Yates said. “One proud of the progress she saw in rector Guiseppie Ritorto felt it was a of our first lessons in theater was to the cast members leading up to the poignant story that could find reso- pull emotions from actual events premier. nance in the theater department’s that have happened in our lives. I “I’m very happy with the way mostly-female student body. connect with the song 'Fire Within it turned out,” Spataro said. “All the “We have a lot more women We,' which is about the death of Jo’s performances were excellent and we in our musical theater program, so I sister. I lost a really dear friend of got really good feedback. I saw all wanted to find a vehicle that could mine to suicide when I was twelve, of the actors make incredible growth use them all,” Ritorto said. “Louis and I was the first person who found throughout the process, and all of Alcott was one of the first feminists, him, so I pulled the memories that I them stood out in their own way.” and in her writing she pretty much have of him and his mother talking Now that the nightly rehearsals says 'F.U.' to the stereotypical idea to me after his death, and it really got and constant preparation have come of what a woman should be. It’s in me into the state of mind that Jo was to an end, Yates is sad to be distanced the story. I haven’t shied away from in when she lost her sister.” from the friends she grew close to that at all.” Director Guiseppie Ritorto fol- during the process, but exciting to Yates found both the story and lowed the blueprint from the Broad- continue her work as an actress next her character highly relatable to her way production of "Little Women," semester. own struggles as a young woman on which first premiered in 2005. Mim“I was honestly considering the verge of adulthood, and says she icking the structure of the musical transferring my first semester,” Yates saw familiarity in Jo’s struggle with without the budget required to create said. “But I’m so glad that I stayed female gender-identity. visual spectacle proved difficult for in here and met all these fantastic “Like Jo, I’m pretty tom-boyish Ritorto and the rest of the cast, and people that I was working with. We as it is,” Yates said. “I don’t like forced them to focus on developing were all crying the last day of the things other girls like. I’ve played substance rather than style. play. I don’t know what to do with baseball all my life, and when I “This is a modern musical,” myself now that it’s over.”