The Grappler - Spring 2024

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Note from the Editors

Camille Pugliese, Liz Bazzoli, LeeAnne Nakamura, and Katherine Shuert

Pop Culture on the Japanese Stage

LeeAnne Nakamura

The Pro-Shot Problem

Katherine Shuert

Writer’s Block: Creating Something From Nothing

Isha Pati

Theatrical Model for an Ecological Future

Molly Sharfstein

TTS Production Coverage

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Liz Bazzoli

Ascension

Camille Pugliese

A NOTE FROM YOUR EDITORS

CAMILLE PUGLIESE, LIZ BAZZOLI, LEEANNE NAKAMURA, AND KATE SHUERT

Dearest Grapplers,

And just like that, the 2023-2024 academic school year comes to an end We hope that everyone has pushed through their final exams and assignments, and may we all now enjoy this respite from the DePaul quarter system grind.We would like to thank all of you for your support during this first year of

The Grappler in its new format We’ve been so glad to see the community engagement from current students and alumni on our social media, and it’s been a pleasure getting to work alongside the new and familiar faces among our team of writers. We even made our first-ever appearance at Wrights of Spring this year, with The Grappler hosting two events in Playwrights Central just last month When the two of us decided to take this leap with the publication last year, we did so in the hope that The Grappler would become more involved with the TTS community and better reflect the experiences of conservatory students. With hard work, perseverance, and community support, The Grappler has certainly proven itself this year As we both travel beyond the doors of DePaul, we have every reason to believe that the future will only continue to bring great things for this publication.

How can we speak with such confidence about the future of The Grappler? Well, because we’re leaving it in good hands Please welcome your 2024-2025 editors of The Grappler, LeeAnne Nakamura and Katherine Shuert!

LeeAnne: Hello, Grapplers! I’m so excited to be one of your Co-Editors next year! Since I joined The Grappler, I’ve had the pleasure of conducting interviews, writing articles, and reviewing productions I cannot wait to step into this role and work with everyone as we go through the pitching, writing, and editing process each quarter to create the articles you envisioned. Next year, I certainly will bring my fandom-loving, niche-enthusiast self to this role, and I hope to create an environment that encourages everyone to embrace this same energy in their work too!

Katherine: Hello, Grapplers! I am over the moon about coming on as one of the CoEditors for The Grappler next year. Writing for The Grappler has been quite the experience for me so far, and I’m eager to continue in this new role. Writing for The Grappler has been some of the most intimidating and most rewarding work I’ve done at TTS In the course of the last two years, writing for The Grappler has given me space to discover and develop my voice and confidence I cannot be more proud to take on the duty of continuing the integrity of this publication. In my forthcoming time as CoEditor, I hope to help many others in their writing journey develop their voice and their confidence in the way I know writing for The Grappler can

It’s quite fitting for us to discuss the future of The Grappler, because the future is precisely what we want to talk about in this final issue of the year! In the first two quarters of this year, we tasked writers with thinking about the now: what excites them about the work that they do and what that work looks like for them. In this Spring Quarter issue, however, we want to think about what’s on the horizon What does the future hold in store for us, and what are we looking forward to? With the arrival of summer, we are all entering new stages of our lives For some of us, this may just be a chance at a fresh start when Fall Quarter rolls around in September. For others, graduation is opening the doors to the sublime expanse of endless opportunity. In this publication, our writers share their anticipations with joy and anxiety, accordingly We also bring you reviews of this quarter’s mainstage productions, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and BFA Playwright Jeffery Luke Baker’s Ascension

Thank you once again to all of our Grapplers for your support this year and all years. It’s been quite the journey Enjoy your summer! The Grappler will await your return

“So, on your patience evermore attending, New joy wait on you! Here our play has ending.”

- Pericles Act V, Scene III

POP CULTURE ON THE JAPANESE STAGE

BY LEEANNE NAKAMURA

The way pop culture and theatre merge in Japan excites me because there appears to be an acceptance of these two forms coexisting together, that it is almost natural This merge between Japanese popular culture and theatre led to the creation of the 25D Musical Association, a company who specializes in adaptations of “Japanese manga, popular animations, and video games, ” according to their website Their work reflects a greater trend in Japan of adapting these types of source material, balancing “2D the realm of manga, animation and video games, and 3D the realm of the theater” Like adaptations aimed for Broadway or the West End, these productions often adapt the most popular stories However, from an outsider’s perspective, they rarely feel like a cashgrab

My growing interest in the 25 dimensional stage play led me to further explore Japan’s theatre scene and how it differs from American/Western theatre What I found was a theatre scene, with several hubs throughout the country, that offers a variety of programs and performance styles, honoring theatrical traditions from the past and innovating the form in the present

The National Noh Theatre in Tokyo and the National Bunraku Theatre in Osaka continue to perform traditional styles of Japanese theatre

The Shiki Theatre Company specializes in staging family-oriented musicals from Broadway and the West End, such as Cats and several Disney Theatrical productions And the company that first caught my attention, Toho Stage, who produce shows in a similar manner to regional theatres in America

Before learning about 25D Musical Association, it was Toho Stage that first caught my attention with its stage adaptations But why do these stage plays make me excited in a way that I rarely feel anymore towards the Broadway bound musical adaptation?

Is it because I am more familiar with the source material? Possibly, but that’s not always the case

Is it because of the content of the source material?

Well, with some adaptations, I would say yes since the content and genre of a story may push the boundary of what can be staged.

Is it because of their performance schedule? Yes!

Personally, the stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s Spirited Away perfectly encapsulates all the points of why these adaptations excite me

I had not watched the animated film before seeing the staged recording last year, and yet, I understood the enormity of the world Chihiro, the protagonist of Spirited Away, enters The adaptation’s use of puppets and practical effects (projections too in a few key moments) to answer the question of how to bring the audience into a spirit world, sitting at the end of a tunnel, hidden in the forest, blew me away The array of puppets and costumes that bring to life the supernatural characters of Spirited Away demonstrate how an ensemble of non-human, or human-sized, beings can be adapted to the stage without it feeling cheap or tacky

What I also admire about the stage adaptation of Spirited Away is the element of play, of acknowledgement that what happens on stage cannot be treated (or viewed) as a realistic representation of the world.

One of the side characters is literally a frog, there’s a giant baby, and the character known as No-Face is little more than a shadow in most scenes Adapting these characters to the stage could become jarring or laughable if trying to present a serious theatre production But it’s not, and the acceptance of showing the actors behind these effects purposefully breaks the illusion that what is happening on stage is not meant to represent the real world

Since I found this quality in other stage plays, I believe it is due to these theatre makers’ intent to create an adaptation worthy of fans' approval and honors the source material that allows them to lean into the more playful aspects of theatre

The performance structure most Japanese theatre companies utilize also interests me because it supports works in rotation, rather than only the most popular shows At least with Toho Stage, each show runs for a set time ranging from a few weeks to a few months And if there’s enough demand, a production may be restaged in the following years, oftentimes with the same cast One example of this is with Spirited Away, which originally premiered in 2022, and returned to the stage in summer 2023 and spring 2024 Toho Stage’s presentation of Moulin Rouge the Musical, which premiered last summer in Japan, will also receive this same treatment as it returns to the stage for a limited run this year With a handful of theatre hubs located throughout the country as opposed to a single theatre district, comparable to Broadway or the West End, the circulation of high quality shows interests me because popular shows receive multiple limited engagements instead of open-ended runs that may take space away from lesser known shows

Looking beyond Spirited Away, how each creative team tackles the impossible moments of their adaptation excites me Last year ’ s musical adaptation of the Spy x Family manga brought to life some of its fight sequences using an action double for one character, with lighting and props working together to hide the switches between the different actresses Using several previously discussed elements, action doubles, puppets, projections, and a fully-committed ensemble worked together in another manga stage adaptation, this time with Chainsaw Man, to create fight scenes that were unlike anything I can recall in American theatre In concept alone, a stage adaptation of the anime SK8 the Infinity intrigued me since its story revolves around an underground skating competition But using similar methods of projections and ensemble support, this adaptation’s balance of live skateboarding, actor safety, and the limitations of a proscenium stage made me admire how this creative team took that first step to try adapting something rarely seen on stage, even if it left me wanting more

Because of my growing interest in Japanese stage plays, the recent announcement that Attack on Titan: The Musical will make its international and US debut this fall at New York City Center immediately grabbed my attention I am curious what kind of reception this production will receive since the source material stands apart from the stories currently told on Broadway And because this production will be presented in Japanese with English subtitles, I wonder how audiences will react, given the relationship American audiences have with musicals performed in additional languages, such as K-POP (performed partially in Korean) or the 2009 revival of West Side Story (which opened with some lines translated into Spanish, before they were later changed back to English)

Depending on the reception Attack on Titan: The Musical receives in New York, this could start a new tradition of bringing Japanese stage plays to the US or marking their English language debuts And with the growing adoption of anime and manga into America’s pop culture, these stage adaptations could potentially invite new audiences to the theatre As I continue looking into Japan’s theatre scene, what interests me the most if additional stage plays were to make their US debut is how their performance structure may adapt to or potentially challenge existing Western theatre traditions, including how long a show runs, what stories are told, and how tech and actors can work as one

LEEANNE NAKAMURA (SHE/HER) IS A BFA3 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR FROM LAGUNA NIGUEL, CA

THE PRO-SHOT PROBLEM

BY KATHERINE SHUERT

We spend so much time at this school talking about how theatre brings people together Not just emotionally, but physically It brings us into communion with each other It is a singular moment produced by the specific people sharing a particular place with the given circumstances of that time Theatre is human; it lives and breathes and changes every night It means something to be there So, in a world where nearly everything is available at our fingertips (forgive the cliche), the theatre is still something you must go to Or it was

But we cannot always be there for everything we would like to be Shows we would like to see sell out, open and close in two weeks, cost an arm and a leg, or happen an ocean away I couldn’t be at The National Theatre in London to see Andrew Scott’s one man Vanya and, if I was luckier, I might have snagged a ticket to see the recorded pro-shot of the performance at the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago later this month

It’s for moments like this I am glad that high quality recordings of live performances are becoming more widely available At least, I think I am There’s so much amazing theatre accessible to me in our city, and now even more amazing theatre available to me worldwide through the emergence of more and more proshots

For just one example (though I could provide many), I went to see a recording of the Dutch National Ballet’s Giselle with the amazing Olga Smirnova at my local movie theatre I never thought I’d have the opportunity to see her dance outside of low-quality youtube clips, but there I was, watching her perform the titular role in one the canon ’ s most beloved ballets, comfortably reclined in one of those big red movie-theatre chairs for the low price of $1599

I must concede, I know it will never replace the real thing The splendor of live performance can never be replicated through a screen, however large Yet, I cannot discount the benefits of these proshots They provide access to high quality theatre at a fraction of the cost and bring theatre into the homes of people who can’t make it to the brick-and-mortar structures, local or otherwise, for any number of health concerns It is truly a beautiful thing to be able to share theatre across continents with the touch of a button

Growing up, archival recordings were a rare commodity that only a few could even get their hands on Ten years ago, if I wanted to see a play, chances are I was racing to watch some grainy bootleg online before it got taken down for copyright infringement Ethically dubious as they were, that is what was available to me

Then more and more pro-shots started cropping up. First the big name musicalsNewsies, Shrek, Hamilton - these were more than just movie musical adaptations, they were real theatre (or as close as I could get to it) I remember when the Hamilton pro-shot was released on Disney+ Non theatre people, who had never shown any interest in seeing a play or musical, were inviting people over to watch together Speaking from personal experience, I have had much greater success with getting the non-theatre people in my life to have a night in on the couch, watching a play on my TV, than I ever have with getting them to really go out to the theatre At the risk of upsetting some people, the same is often true for the theatre people in my life.

Now there are full streaming services dedicated to providing high quality theatre content online - Broadway HD, National Theatre Collection, Digital Theatre, Marquee TV, and the traditional streaming sites we’ve become accustomed to With technology improving, more and more high profile companies and productions are taking advantage of the exposure that pro-shots provide, allowing shows to be seen long after close

So, while I have no shame in shelling out ten dollars here and there to rent something from the National Theatre’s Theatre at Home archive, I fear the implications of a theatre-as-Netflix culture on theatre as we know it With pro-shots gaining more and more traction as a legitimate form of theatre viewing, I question the legacy it will leave behind.

But theatre is special because it is live. So the future of theatre cannot be online, can it?

I see the cinematic sensibility infiltrating the pro-shot, inching further and further away from a faithful record of a theatrical performance More come closer to films now, just made on theater’s stage, rather than a sound stage Changing camera angles, close up shots, and other traditional features of film editing enhance the digital viewing experience of something that was never meant to be digital in the first place. Theatre has its own methods of directing the viewer’s attention These filmed enhancements disrupt the theatrical craft, overriding it with the methods of a different medium.

If pro-shots become the dominantly accessible form of theatre, what image of theatre are they portraying? What image are they leaving behind?

Like any good dramaturg, I care about the archives And like any good theatre person, I love that magical ephemeral quality that separates theatre from film. Pro-shots can never and will never replace the experience of live theatre, but I still want theatre to be recorded. It may be antithetical to want to preserve a piece of art that in its nature can never be replicated, but I still think it is important. We need high quality recordings in the archives and we need archival quality recordings more accessible to the public

Recordings of theatre, not films of it.

Pro-shots should still look and feel like a play, even (and perhaps especially) if that means simplifying the cinematography There is no cinematography on a play’s stage No one gets to change seats for the ideal perspective scene by scene There is no playing to the camera When an actor performs on stage, they need to balance playing to the whole audience, so we cannot reduce the entire audience to a singular camera lens that receives the privilege of being the only one in the room Theatre is rarely done for an audience of one.

Pro-shots recorded in front of a live audience curb some of these cinematic tendencies. It retains some sense of community, some sense of a collective and shared moment The preservation of the audience within these recordings is a reminder that theatre does not happen on a screen The gasps and laughs of an audience remind you that this is simply a recording, not its intended final form.

KATHERINE SHUERT (SHE/HER) IS A BFA2 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR FROM LOMBARD, IL

WRITER’S BLOCK: CREATING SOMETHING FROM NOTHING

BY ISHA PATI

I’ve always known I wanted to be a writer I don’t think anyone has always known they wanted to be a comedian

I learned fairly recently that the majority of my Comedy Arts classmates call themselves performers first, which surprised me because to me performance has always been the part of comedy you have to do until you make it big enough for your jokes to be performed by other people

It’s often said that there are two kinds of comedians What these groups are called depends on who you ’ re talking to head players vs heart players, structure people vs vibes people Basically what I think it boils down to is writers vs performers It’s a spectrum, of course, but most people have a tendency towards one or the other To me, comedy is a series of algorithmic decisions that lead you to the Funniest Possible Thing Other people seem to be able to just find the premise and follow the laughs once they get it in their body In order to succeed, you have to be able to do both

I think part of what makes writing so awful is that once you call it done it’s permanent There is none of the freedom and forgiveness that audiences grant you with an ephemeral thing like live performance The seconds pass the way the seconds do and the audience must take it in as it comes A reader can examine, scrutinize, process more deeply with the control they have over the way they consume the piece In an improv show, the act of material generation is itself the feat You can get away with a little plot mistake or a notquite-right rhyme because holy shit, you just came up with that? Wow, and you ’ re still going

But something that can be poured over must be poured over in its creation

The best sentences are four sentences all condensed into one To write one page you have to fill five When a blank screen is staring you in the face it feels like you ’ re already thousands of words in debt What do you do when the task is just to create?

The most daunting thing can be not knowing where to begin, partly because inspiration seems to be something over which we humans have very little control I once had a friend tell me she feels like there’s a creative tap in her mind, and that someone comes by every once in a while to just turn it off

The answer seems simple, right? Dig deeper inside your head If you cut and cut and hack and hack and scrape up your arms while you use all your strength to claw your way through to that nugget of idea you just know is hiding in there, then eventually you’ll strike gold, because you ’ re sure that somewhere in the vast black void where your ideas usually live is a whole story that just needs to tell you how to write it

Problem is if you ’ re searching through nothing I can give you a pretty good guess of what you ’ re going to find

Writing as an art form offers none of the forgiveness that the ephemerality of live performance seems to provide.

A survey of TTS students revealed a wide variety of experiences with writer’s block and strategies to not let the blank page win The main commonality between answers was that it’s not something that can be forced away or powered through Writer’s block is an all-encompassing, allconsuming affliction that lives in the deepest parts of your brain the parts you have to chop through walls of vines with a machete to access and even then are hidden behind brambles that only grow back when cut But it doesn’t last forever We asked you all for your tips on how to accelerate that process Here’s what you said

1. GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD.

Stop digging. For a story at least. Think about anything at all that exists outside the confines of your skull You’re never creating something out of nothing, you’re just finding a way to fit together all the pieces that have already been there

2. GET INTO YOUR BODY.

Exercise, go on a walk, take some breaths Do something completely mindless or try writing by hand. Your body knows you better than your mind does, and the best writing comes from feelings, not thoughts Feel the space you occupy and see what comes out

3. JOURNAL.

Say what you want about creativity, originality, ideas, sparks the truth is you’re never creating something out of nothing because you’re creating something from you You’ll find parts of yourself in your writing even if you didn’t mean to put them there.

People often think writing and storytelling is about escaping this world and getting yourself into the headspace of a character that isn’t you Frequently the solution to exploring another reality is to understand your own. Being mindful, present, and introspective allows you to fully take stock of all that is around and inside of you All you need is one thing to latch on to and your instincts can handle a lot of the rest

4. READ SOMETHING COMPLETELY RANDOM.

A niche essay, a gossip magazine, literally a cookbook anything that’s not the genre you’re trying to write. Destress, get away from the thing that’s causing you problems right now, and let concept find you

5. STOP WAITING. WRITE ANYTHING. It doesn’t matter what you ’ re thinking right now If you write it down, you ’ ve written something Over 50% of student respondents said they experienced writer’s block weekly or more Sometimes all you can do is push through You’re a writer Just keep doing it It’s impressive enough to create anything at all

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My advice for anyone who’s experiencing their weekly-on-average bout of writer’s block right now is to stop writing Get as far away from the page as possible and perform your piece, to a friend or to yourself in a mirror, to the best of your ability The things you forget are natural edits. You’ll be able to feel all the possibilities once the material is in your body and the creation is happening now

I came into college all but knowing I would never set foot on a stage once I graduated. Over the past three years my mind has changed There’s a feeling you get from testing material in front of a live audience, or performing it with a group of people, a kind of sureness about your words that I’ve never got by writing “the perfect thing” Words are meant to be heard and felt and human beings cannot always feel the way they show up in a piece until it hits other people’s ears. It’s why we so often don’t realize a friend’s situation applies to us until we’re explaining it to someone else Other real, physical people allow us to examine ourselves in a way words alone cannot And in order to succeed, you have to be able to do both

The great thing about theatre is the human connection I am one hundred percent sure that this can begin before the rehearsal process

ISHA PATI (SHE/HER) IS A BFA 3 COMEDY ARTS MAJOR, FROM WOODSIDE, CA

A THEATRICAL MODEL FOR AN ECOLOGICAL FUTURE

BY MOLLY SHARFSTEIN

Introduction:

If you have talked to me you have probably heard me discuss this before As a Northern Californian and SCUBA diver, I grew up sandwiched between redwood forests and a rich kelp forest ecosystem Because that was the only place I had lived until Chicago, I focused more on internalities in theatre After coming to Chicago, I feel the lack of nature like a lack of oxygen I wondered how I could combine my love of nature (especially the ocean) with my love for creating theatre While this mainly came from taking a puppetry class and realizing most puppets move like sea creatures, combined with reading Adrienne Maree Brown’s Emergent Strategy (which uses nature as a model for community organizing), I have since formulated a more concrete vision:

Hypothesis:

Theatre and science are both efforts to understand the world They take a question, experiment with it, get results, formulate new questions, and continue to experiment We get our hands dirty to comprehend and interpret existence Using theatre to communicate science (sponsored message: which I am exploring in the Studio for Creative Practice class) illuminates scientific concepts through embodiment creating learning opportunities for different learners, encompassing the experience of being deep in real environments, and connecting nature with our social structures In contrast, placing human stories outside in ecoscenographic, outdoor site-specific performances grounds humans in our world Placing both in conversation paints a full picture of our relationships to the world we live in for participants and audiences

MOLLY SHARSTEIN’S DIVE PHOTO

Materials:

Puppetry - Puppetry connects people and objects, building relationships between the human and inhuman Puppets represent living things without requiring a human to embody them They allow for stylized but accurate artistic representations of the natural world, and avoid the “ person in an animal costume” style productions (which also bind concepts to a specific person and de-universalizes them; puppetry expresses experiences from all of that animal or phenomena, using specificity to tell universal and non-psychological stories)

Movement - There are phenomena that our constructed language cannot encompass or accessibly portray, which pushes science communication over the general public Movement is its own language that communicates relationships and patterns integrating movement (combined with puppetry) shares information using visual language

Using the same movement across science and human pieces creates a shared language, which can bridge our social structures, human relationships with nature, and the natural science itself through embodiment alone

Dramaturgy - Understanding complex scientific concepts and our relationships to them requires robust dramaturgy Effectively communicating with researchers; digesting their information; communicating it clearly, accurately, and beautifully to both the team and audiences; and expanding with audiences is a dramaturg’s job Dramaturgs can bind the human and inhuman stories, as we find threads in all aspects of our lives In this process, everyone must consciously be a dramaturg

Methods:

Outside-Inside:

Science museums, aquariums, and state parks communicate scientific information to visitors, crafting nature’s narrative However, nature education mainly focuses on science alone and what visitors can see If science institutions incorporate theatre, they can widen their range of interpretation and understanding Because theatre is embodied, it connects seemingly disparate natural scientific processes with ourselves Theatre shows long spans of time, speeds up eternity, zooms in on microscopic and macroscopic organisms, and turns understanding into a physical and emotional experience I am interested in a theatrical model that (beautifully, sustainably, collaboratively, and interactively) portrays our world A process that uses theatrical tools, such as puppetry and movement, to tell nature’s story

In this model, artists collaborate with scientists to portray their research Using scientific journals and information directly from scientists, the ensemble constructs a piece that physicalizes the scientific concept Scientists can check to make sure it is accurate The science institution then integrates the piece as public programming Artists perform inside the institution’s space, either in a designated performance area or among the exhibits (which I support) Productions are nonpsychological and non-human, focusing on communicating the phenomena itself rather than applying human moralizations or including messages about scientists

Inside-Outside:

Science theatre means bringing the outside indoors, but it discards humancentered and “internal” theatre On the other side of this theatrical model, humanbased theatrical works rehearse and perform in outdoor spaces directly connected to their story Human experiences are also part of nature creating site-specific and nature-based performances environmentally grounds “internal” stories Outdoor, site-specific works would be in conversation with the indoor, scientific works Members of both creative teams would intertwine, learning about each to connect them Productions would also be paired with discussions, expert panels, and public programming (such as nature walks) I am always working with a civic dramaturgical practice, so productions would be created by and about the communities they are based in If a production is in a forest, productions should center people’s specific relationship to the forest in some way; local artists/audiences (especially Indigenous community members) would contribute their experiences and relationships

Walkthrough:

Scientists and artists collaborate to create a production about wildfires’ impact on forest-dwelling bugs It is interactive and targeted towards adults, but whimsical and puppet-based Audiences go to the local natural history museum, where they sit in a circle inside the exhibits and watch bug puppets respond to a gestural flashing fire After the show, audiences discuss what they’ve learned.

Meanwhile, an ensemble of local artists (possibly some of the same people as the bug play) goes to the nearby forest and devises a play about how recent and historic wildfires affected their communities. It is entirely outdoors and site-specific It mirrors the bug play Audiences come to the forest and sit in a circle outside, watching performers move between the real trees with the same gestural flashing fire They share the same dirt, smelling the real redwood trees and remembering smoke in the air during fire season They might recognize their own stories or their grandparent’s stories maybe this is a verbatim piece.

OR

An aquarium does a production about octopus mothers and how they do not eat while they protect their eggs They die shortly after their eggs hatch Audiences watch near the octopus tank Meanwhile, actors perform a production of Celine Song’s Endlings on the beach Endlings explores haenyeo (Korean diving women), immigrant mother-daughter relationships, the White American Theatre, and imminent death in the ocean

Conclusion:

Inside/Outside theatre can bring new collaborators and audiences into both science and theatre, because it breaks down boundaries for both It expands scientific understandings for adults, bridges people and nature, and illuminates new facets of the world we live in I do not entirely know how it could change our comprehension, but both fields constantly grow and change combining them is my effort to understand my world As I find my way back to the trees and water that nourished me, I strive to combine my worlds to nourish everyone

MOLLY SHARFSTEIN (ANY PRONOUNS) IS A BFA 3 THEATRE ARTS MAJOR, WITH A CONCENTRATION IN DIRECTING, FROM SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA

THEATRE SCHOOL PRODUCTION COVERAGE

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM: HE’S JUST NOT THAT INTO YOU

BY LIZ BAZZOLI

“Let anyone feel the urge to transform himself and to speak out of other bodies and souls, and he will be a dramatist” Such is the description Friedrich Nietzsche gives in his Birth of Tragedy for the root impulse of the theatre Actors enter the stage not as themselves in settings not their own The audience, through suspension of disbelief, similarly maintains the illusion What was once sheer cloth or painted wood becomes the palace of Corinth or the mountains of Thebes, and it’s this shared capacity for imagination that gives theatre its historic might. “Magic transformation,” Nietzsche writes, “is the presupposition of all dramatic art”

Magic transformation is certainly both the figurative and literal task at hand for William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as TTS students found out for themselves during the school’s recent production this past May

Uniquely beloved among Shakespeare’s comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream has a special place in many hearts and even more annual Shakespeare-in-the-park lineups. But the play’s ubiquity is not without reason Next to Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of the more accessible works in Shakespeare’s repertoire, possessing a whimsy that can charm even the most determined Shakespeare critic in its audience After all, what is Midsummer but a classic example of the romantic comedy? Young Athenian Hermia, balking at her father’s demand to marry Demetrius, escapes into the woods of Athens to elope with her lover, Lysander A spurned Demetrius pursues her, only to be similarly hunted after by his own admirer and childhood friend of Hermia, Helena Deep in the woods of Athens, beyond the purview of men, our four young lovers become entwined in the fairy kingdom’s nuptial spat By the hand of one mischievous Robin Goodfellow, lovers turn into traitors, friends to rivals, and men to asses

And of course, amidst this chaos, seemingly right where they belong, a theatre troupe is in rehearsal Rivalry, miscommunication, and sexual tension These are the essential plot elements that lend the play its comedy The primary task of any Midsummer production is indeed to be funny, but this is often easier said than done when working with a text over five hundred years old Shakespeare’s occasional long-windedness and love for elaboration has a way of dulling even his funniest punchlines, at least by today’s comedic conventions But this was one of the great benefits of the recent production of Midsummer here at The Theatre School: it didn’t use Shakespeare’s original text Rather, this production utilized Don Fleming’s Plays for New Audiences script which, while cutting no scenes entirely, greatly abbreviates the original to a tight 60-minute run time, an incredible feat of transformation in and of itself

Though I was initially skeptical of such a drastic carving out of the text, I found that this adaptation maintained all the natural comedy of Shakespeare’s original, only now with a style of delivery that feels a bit more familiar and accessible I’ve said in the past that I tend to avoid shows for young audiences at TTS because I simply don’t feel like the target demographic for them, but this production was the first I’ve seen that felt truly for all ages I was fortunate enough to see it twice one matinee performance for Chicago high schoolers and prospective DePaul students, and the final Sunday performance filled with current TTS students and alumni In both cases, despite differences in age and familiarity with the content, the audience was roaring with laughter and egging the characters on in their messiest of pursuits

While this Fleming adaptation has all the basic components of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I do think that it feels noticeably empty in any scene that is not purely comedic Scenes with the most obvious humor, like those between Nick Bottom and the Mechanicals, are presented almost in their original entirety and for this reason are among the best in the play Scenes that are comparatively less funny, like the early exchanges establishing the nature of Hermia and Lysander’s relationship, suffer more extensive cuts This comes at the expense of our love quadrangle, whom I think lack the depth that a less abbreviated text may have granted them Furthermore, I don’t think these characters are helped by the decision to give them strangely adolescent designs not befitting their respective situations Even in moments of shock and betrayal, like Helena’s famous “Lo, she is one of this confederacy” monologue, the physical comedy happening between background characters diminishes or entirely distracts from any tenderness or hurt between them I would even venture to say this adaptation has a lack of Puck, the locus of whimsy in this play So, while noticeably Midsummer, this adaptation nonetheless feels at times like only the essence of Midsummer, comparatively less fleshed-out than its full antecedent

Whatever the text sacrifices, though, the design of this show restores In the spirit of magical transformation, designers have created a wonderfully charming wood in the Watts that’s full of the mystery and aura our characters espouse I mentioned that I disliked the designs of the main couples, but I say this because the design of every other character is absolutely stunning by comparison Oberon especially looked like a Bacchant right out of a painting by Rubens

The gentle musical orchestrations, paths of twinkling lights along the stage’s thrust, and watercolor-like delicacy of the projection design beautifully enhanced the transitions, transforming these crucial elements of a play into their own storytelling moments rather than purely practical pauses in action I must also say that with this show, Killing of a Gentleman Defender, Is God Is, and Mole Hill Stories, this has been quite the year for projection design, and I hope to see this trend of visual elevation continue in shows to come

The joy of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is that it reminds us of the inherent magic of theatremaking From the outright mystical capabilities of Puck to the charming amateurish attempts at effects by the Mechanicals, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is its own self-reflexive celebration of imagination and the transformative potentials of the theatre In watching this specific production, I was reminded of both the great successes and limitations of this transformation Though at times in disagreement with the show and its choices, I appreciate its ambition Ultimately, to have been affected to laugh at all in times such as these is a worthwhile transformation, even if only momentarily

LIZ BAZZOLI (HE/THEY) IS A BFA4

DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM

MAJOR FROM CLEVELAND, OHIO

PLAYWRIGHTS ASCENDING

BY CAMILLE PUGLIESE

Each year since 2004, a graduating playwright’s work is chosen to receive a world premiere production at The Theatre School This turned into the New Play Series, produced every following year along with the traditional Wrights of Spring Festival This is my favorite part of the TTS school year Working on NPS last year, Helaina Cogg’s unaccompanied, was a profound artistic experience for me. What makes this process so special is that we get to work on our peers ’ work It's collaboration to the max

This is the first time The Grappler is publishing production coverage of a play written by a current student It puts our colleague criticism to the test It’s exciting to work on your friend’s play, but daunting to critique it. Still, this is what makes me most passionate about being a theatre student during NPS We are in the unique position to engage in critical conversations at such a high level in an educational setting

This year, Ascension by Jeffrey Luke Baker received its NPS debut and world premiere The play follows Matthew, a recent high school graduate in Orange County, California, struggling to find his place in the world After a near death experience, he reconnects with an old friend Felix Like a sheep being brought back to the flock by a shepherd, Felix begins bringing Matthew back into the Ascensionist Church

At the same time, Anya, Felix’s wife, prepares to put on a play as part of a big celebration at the church The play isn’t your average Christmans pageant, though It’s a retelling of the biblical Abraham and Isaac with a twist– Abraham disobeys God

As the play progresses, Matthew becomes more involved with the Church It transforms him entirely. Spiritually, mentally, and of course physically (though that is aided by going to the gym and steroids lots of stages) Felix undergoes his own crisis of faith, perhaps a result of years of suppressing his sexuality, and getting married the day of graduation Yet, Matthew, his convert-Ascensionist girlfriend Samantha, and Anya’s faith only gets stronger throughout the play

What’s frightening is that these teens are so committed to being perfect for the church, they lose a sense of reality They lose parts of themselves in the full commitment to not only God, but Ascensionism There were moments of Ascension that were utterly ridiculous– jabs at the ‘woke left’ and homerotic work out scenes to name a few In the audience, I felt like the actors knew what they were saying was ridiculous I could point and laugh at them, because it felt like they were pointing and laughing at themselves For this play to work, it demands a total sense of severity in its most absurd moments It was hard to decipher if these were caricatures– especially the play’s women, Anya and Samantha, or real people

I couldn’t imagine why anyone would join the Ascensionist church until Act II The character only referred to as Pastor, delivered the most sincere dialogue of the play House lights came up, and suddenly I was seated in the Ascenionist church He preached about our lack of connection to each other, the evils of instant gratification, and the feeling of being called to so much more

I’m not a very religious person, BFA3 Eric Jacobson was so convincing, I could understand why Why religion, to these select few, felt so good It offers community, answers, and even hope This all crumbles down at the end of the play as religion(and possibly steroid) induced psychosis causes Matthew to murder his own father for his lack of faith in God

I am grateful for NPS because it allows this kind of work to be possible I haven’t seen a show that has this much edge while I’ve been at TTS It’s bold for a Catholic school to criticize religion in this way I want to see more work like Ascension on our stages–work that is bold in its beliefs, that isn’t afraid of criticism

This is just the beginning for Ascension It is the final play in Gwydion, a Chicagobased theatre company in its sophomore season, 2024-2025 season I am excited to see where this play goes

CAMILLE PUGLIESE (SHE/HER) IS A BFA 4 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR FROM MONMOUTH COUNTY, NEW JERSEY

Special thanks to:

LeeAnne Nakamura & Katherine Shuert, Associate Editors

Rachel Shteir, Supervising Editor

Martine Kei Green-Rogers, Dean of The Theatre School