Vol. 127, No. 97 Monday, February 19, 2018
SPORTS
NEWS
OPINION
HOLOCAUST AWARENESS WEEK
HELP PREVENT COLORADO DROUGHT
CSU FOOTBALL LOOKING FOR WALK-ONS
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From script to stage: CSU cast brings ‘Appropriate’ to life Senior theatre major, Sonny Walls, and junior theatre major, Keegan Bockhorst, rehearse the first act of “Appropriate” during the open dress rehearsal. The show opened Feb. 16 and runs until Feb. 25 with 7:30 p.m. shows and a 2 p.m. matinee. PHOTO BY MAYA SHOUP COLLEGIAN
By Claire Oliver @claire_oliver21
Lights up. The actors walk out on stage surrounded by the rising sound of cicadas and dim light. The scene goes well, each character connecting through dialogue and action. The performance is captivating. Just as the dialogue on stage advances, the action stops. The director calls to hold the action in order to adjust the sound design. Cicadas don’t sing in the morning. The movement on stage stops in an instant despite the dialogue starting to build and grow to the climax. Garrett Ayers, director of Colorado State University’s “Appropriate,” stops the action to correct a sound design flaw or a
light cue that does not work for the scene. “Alright,” Ayers says. “We’re good, let’s take that again, thank you.”
“APPROPRIATE” SHOWINGS ■The show opened Feb. 16 and
runs until Feb. 25 with Thursday, Friday and Saturday performances at 7:30 and Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
And with that, the dialogue picks back up where it left off as if nothing had interrupted to scene at all. For every show put on stage
there is an army of people working behind the scenes months in advance to create the finished product. The process for making a show involves a great deal of work and dedication from the cast and crew—each person working like a cog in a well-tuned clock, every piece fits together to produce the show that the audience will see. Casting For this season’s opening show at CSU, the department chose the contemporary family drama “Appropriate” by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins to be directed by Ayers. The show focuses on siblings Bo, Toni and Franz who, after the death of their father, have to deal with an old plantation estate sitting on a large piece of
land and mountains of debt. “I read the play and it went fast,” Ryan Volkert, a theatre and economics major at CSU who plays Franz, the youngest sibling. “I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t put it down, it flew by for me.” A unanimous feeling throughout the cast and crew is how amazing the show has been. Some even said the show is one of the best productions they have worked on, not only because of the shows content and writing but also because of Ayers’ direction. “So far it’s been the best thing I’ve done,” Volkert said. “I think that it’s beautifully written and just has amazing qualities to it that I’ve not been able to experience anywhere else.”
Makeup and costumes Makeup will also help to convey the age gap, using very specialized techniques to shade the skin tone of the actors. Clothing is another way to convey age. Bockhorst uses the costumes to his advantage, hiking up his pants before he sits down in a way that the older generation men might do. The script The script stands out among other plays from even just a few decades ago for the topics it discusses. American playwrights like Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams and Edward Albee did change the way emotion and deepset truth were portrayed on stage, but Jacobs-Jenkins combines see ‘Appropriate’ on page 12 >>