The Grappler - Winter 2024

T H E G R A P P L E R

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A Note from the Editors

Camille Pugliese and Liz Bazzoli

Identifyingt the Dramaturg as an Artist

Katherine Shuert

Dramaturgy Can Bridge the Media Literacy Gap… I Know It!

Eva Strazek

Working Outside

Ember Sappington

Dramaturging the Mess

Liz Bazzoli

Season Selection Dialogues

Molly Sharfstein & Artemis Westover

2024-2025 Season Response

Multiple Contributors

TTS Production Coverage

Is God Is

Emily Townley

Killing of a Gentleman Defender

LeeAnne Nakamura

A NOTE FROM YOUR EDITORS

CAMILLE PUGLIESE AND LIZ BAZZOLI

Hello Grapplers,

And welcome back! We’re excited to return with this Winter 2024 edition of The Grappler, our second quarterly edition and third total publication of the year

Our writers and editors have been back to the grindstone this quarter! This was our second round of brainstorming and editing workshops, and we are incredibly proud of the work that our team has produced over the past three months Expanding on our Fall edition’s theme of what’s on the minds of young dramaturgs and theatre practitioners, this Winter Quarter edition is all about what we’re doing the practice at hand, and how that may look for each of us.

In these pages, our writers share glimpses into their dramaturgical practices, what they wish people understood about dramaturgy, and their visions of dramaturgy’s potential at The Theatre School and beyond. In this edition, Kate Shuert and Eva Strazek each reflect on the (often unrecognized) importance of dramaturgical thinking across mediums and how their respective dramaturg identities have changed the way they engage with works Artemis Westover and Molly Sharfstein, both members of TTS’ Season Selection Committee, shed light on the season selection process and their perspectives as dramaturgs. Liz Bazzoli sits down with Josie Moore and Joan Starkey to discuss how they married dramaturgy with comedy during this year’s Mess Fest. And finally, Ember Sappington shares her experience working as a dramaturg outside of The Theatre School, pointing towards a bright future outside of these conservatory doors

On top of this edition’s articles, we are of course returning with our production reviews. Dramaturgs Emily Townley and LeeAnne Nakamura bring you their thoughts on the Watts’ Is God Is and the Healy’s Killing of a Gentleman Defender, respectively

A new and exciting addition this quarter is our season response If you’ve followed The Grappler in the past, then you know it is an annual tradition of ours to release a group response to the season announcement. With the annual changes in the season announcement, it’s only fitting that we’ve also changed how we respond! We have therefore adjusted our typical response to include our team’s thoughts on the 20242025 season here, in our new publication format!

We thank our readers and contributors for their continued support of The Grappler. In the spirit of a community journal, we welcome any thoughts or discussion these pieces generate We hope you enjoy!

IDENTIFYING THE DRAMATURG AS AN ARTIST

BY KATHERINE SHUERT

I’m a dramaturg. What’s that?

…

I’m an artist.

I’ve come to accept that an essential part of my training as a dramaturg is explaining to people what dramaturgy is It shouldn’t be hard, but most of the time it’s to my doctor, or my mom’s friend, or some new person I’ve met at a party who wants to know what I’m studying. They’re not exactly strapping in for a five-minute answer and I don’t want to deliver one But all the quippy one-line answers, the short definitions I’ve heard, have never personally satisfied me

I want to tell them simply that I’m an artist, but I never do I’m insecure I know what I do is art– I just don’t know if everyone else does. It took me a long time to say that I’m an artist with confidence, but now I can swear that I am It’s frustrating because what I do isn’t so elusive as it seems, but I don’t know how to tell others that.

Not everyone has the bandwidth to listen to my monologuing in the same way as my best friend, and I don’t expect them to We suit each other well in terms of shared endurance for long, niche speeches on our relative interests So, when our recent visit to the MCA induced in me some deep introspection on my idea of the dramaturg as an artist, as my dramaturgy as art, she was more than willing to lend a listening ear as my revelations unfurled themselves

My best friend, who is a passionate fiber artist, requested this outing to see the Faith Ringgold exhibit We were both excited to see Ringgold’s famous story quilts - quilted blankets in which she blends her work with painting, text, photography, and textiles, generating beautiful and intimate narratives Her Change series latched onto me that day I can’t stop thinking about it

I came to Change: Faith Ringgold’s Over 100 lbs Weight Loss Performance Story Quilt (1986) about half way through the exhibit I stood in front of it for longer than any piece I had previously encountered I stared at the panels of handwritten text, the photographic collages, the fabric borders, and the neat stitching in which she had chronicled over 50 years of her relationship to her own body This first quilt became a series with the addition of two more quilts in 1988 and 1991, continuing her documentation and reflection Change 2, the second installation in this series, is my favorite

Change 2, with all of its vibrant patterned textiles, photographic portraits of Ringgold, and inscribed poetry, is more than just a quilt It is a performance In its original conception, Ringgold would sing and rap the songs delicately written on the quilt, blending the physical documentation the quilt provides with oral traditions Yet somehow, even without Ringgold there, the quilt performs on its own The quilt infuses the performance of Change 2 with Ringgold’s artistry: her imagery, her aesthetic, her history that the viewer doesn’t get from the songs alone It’s not just a pamphlet of facts and pictures handed out to an audience, it’s a piece of art in its own right It’s essential to the experience of Change 2

I think that’s what has always been lost for me in those one sentence versions of dramaturgy They lack the art of it, the creative generation involved, and the way it is infused into theatre, not just paired alongside it

Too often I feel reduced to a glorified fact checker, the designated googler with a fancy title, the one who watches and judges but never makes anything I feel so removed, so pushed away Unlike Faith Ringgold’s quilts, no one sees what I make My art is largely invisible to the audience

I’ve tried to come up with my own minidefinition for dramaturgy, one that I can relay with full satisfaction, one that says I am an artist, I do make things, I am invested One that says I’m inside the process Because I am, I am buried so deep inside this art you can’t even see me That is all to say, I haven’t gotten very far with my own quippy response The draft, however, is as follows:

DRAMATURGY IS THE ARTISTIC APPLICATION OF THE HOWS AND WHYS OF THEATRE.

I think it works broadly and specifically On any particular show I know I’ll be concerned with how we ’ re making this play and why we ’ re making it that way, why we ’ re doing it all

Ringgold answered a similar set of how’s and why’s with her quilts: how her body has changed and how she has felt about it, why she feels that way She almost certainly asked herself a series of how’s and why’s when choosing the medium How should I tell this story? Why should I tell it this way? When she asks and answers those questions in the process of creation, she is an artist, so I must be one too

I stated earlier that when I stood looking at her story quilts I saw dramaturgy I don’t mean to imply that I saw her work as some intricate version of an actor packet, or program note, or any other of the concrete materials we dramaturgs typically provide I saw what dramaturgy does for theatre I saw how meaning was infused into a performance I saw how the same things I do not only generated a magnificent work of art in the quilt, but also made the performance of Change 2 far more meaningful

I may not make quilts that chronicle the how’s and why’s of every show, but I make art for every play I work on I stitch history into scenes, I paint layers of meaning onto plots, and I scribble details and analysis along the borders of the play My dramaturgical quilt covers the entire production, it is the production It wraps around the audience’s shoulders and pulls them in My art is not as visible as others, but it is felt just as strongly

DRAMATURGY CAN BRIDGE THE MEDIA LITERACY GAP… I KNOW IT!

BY EVA STRAZEK

As Professor Rachel Shteir let us know in our first-ever Dramaturgy I class: a play is not a coat– meaning no piece of media that one consumes will align with one ’ s personal values, likes, and preferences to an absolute T As dramaturgs, we are trained to check our biases at the door– we must always find something we like about the play, or at the very least, something we find important, urgent, or integral We don’t analyze text through the eyes of our world–we are trained to see the world of the play as separate from ours

Of course, we always take into account how any play functions under a 2024 lens, and how we can respect and support the script without creating harm– but, for the most part, we are taught to meet the characters where they are They are not part of our society– they are fully consumed by the world of the play and the playwright’s point of view

KATHERINE SHUERT (SHE/HER) IS A BFA 2 DRAMATURGY AND DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR FROM LOMBARD, ILLINOIS.

Lately, I’ve become aware of how my growing knowledge of dramaturgical analysis affects the way I consume media–and I think it’s had a rather positive impact In many ways, our generation is marked by popular culture and media consumption

We were the first generation to grow up with phones in our hands, with computers in our houses– even if it happened to be an ancient Dell set-up knocking on death’s door

Early and repeated exposure to the internet, in my opinion, has limited many of our critical thinking abilities surrounding media– especially media that contains complex characters, and themes Only half a century ago, there were few media critics– their reviews got around by writing, or word of mouth Now, folks can criticize anything and everything in five minutes or less by producing a strongly-worded tweet, post, or comment With this development, valid and productive media criticism has been overshadowed by critiques that lack nuance

In my opinion, most internet discourse around media creates problems, as opposed to solving them Though social media has become a powerful tool for communication and collaboration, heavy personalization of algorithms can create an echo chamber It becomes very easy for frequent social media users to fall into a trap of moralizing opinions that should be taken at face value

Even I am not exempt from this– the more often I use social media, the more often I find myself acting slightly judgemental towards those praising a book that left a bad taste in my mouth Too much time away from face-to-face conversation and collaboration can sap any humanity from discussions around media, and lead to incredibly black-and-white, “good” or “bad”, and slightly puritanical thinking

Off the top of my head, I think of the discourse surrounding the movie Ladybird as an example When the movie came out in 2017, it gained instant popularity, and valid criticism abounded Important conversations were had about the specific female experience Ladybird portrays– it zeros in on a specific version of womanhood– one that is undeniably white and working class Although I experienced my coming-of-age in a similar vein to Ladybird, I was still able to understand and empathize with the valid criticism– that this movie might not be as relatable to all demographics as it was to me

But a few years after the film’s release, the discourse about Ladybird started to veer off the course of healthy criticism Many took to Twitter and TikTok, expressing their disdain for the titular character and how she treats her parents, siblings, and friends, throughout the film Communities on the internet began condemning the film, implying that watching and endorsing the film was immoral, due to Ladybird being a problematic character I don’t deny that–Ladybird is incredibly problematic throughout the film But the condemnation of Ladybird made me realize something about internet discourse– much of what Gen Z labels as “critical thoughts” lack media literacy and nuance

Thus, I go back to Dramaturgy I, and I think about the world of the film That is the first mistake that social media critics make when condemning Ladybird– they fail to actualize the world of the play and meet the characters where they are The movie is a period piece and period pieces will, usually, depict outdated behaviors Ladybird is a lost, selfish, annoying, and problematic teenager She is certainly not supposed to be a model character for how all young women should act Greta Gerwig intended to depict a coming-of-age story from a specific point of view, as all filmmakers, playwrights, and artists do As a dramaturg, I know how to find and investigate that point of view immediately Social media creates an environment where that point of view is often not acknowledged

I think back to reading Glengarry Glen Ross for the first time, a mere few months ago, and encountering a slur against my ethnicity staring me dead in the face, among frequent rude, distasteful, and problematic remarks I’ll admit that, a few years ago, I would have had a slightly different reaction to the language used in the play

Now, as a budding dramaturg, I assessed the text critically and realized that the language used in Glengary is integral to building the world of the play. Much like Ladybird, the men in Glengary are not supposed to be good people– not at all They are men trapped by the system of capitalism, deluded into thinking the only way out is to get slimier and slimier Funnily enough– David Mamet, the play’s author, is now one of the slimiest of them all– nowadays, you can find him spouting right-wing rhetoric whenever he gets the chance.

Even though I don’t necessarily respect David Mamet as a person, I respect the play as a work– I can see that he wrote this play as a warming sign– warning society of a shift that he, himself was not immune to, as capitalism reaches it’s late stages

In any right– Mamet created these characters from a specific point of view He wanted the audience to witness the corrupt and hateful behavior of these men and, in turn, assess their own relationship with capitalism If characters don’t behave in conniving ways onstage, how is the message of the play ever going to get across? If we condemn Glengary as immoral, just because the characters behave terribly,are we not missing the point of the play entirely?

Instead of being concerned about flawed characters, characters with bad intentions, and characters that threaten our idea of social consciousness, we consumers of media– need to check our biases at the door This film is not a coat This book is not a coat This TV show? Not a coat It won’t appeal to everyone, but that does not mean it’s inherently sadistic and reprehensible

Along with checking our biases, we must accept nuance Media is meant to depict life, characters are meant to depict people, and people are full of nuances, complexities, and contradictions Criticism must come from a place of understanding–understanding the world of the art and the artist’s point of view–and must not come from a place of concern for one ’ s own personal likes and dislikes

Along with checking our biases, we must accept nuance Media is meant to depict life, characters are meant to depict people, and people are full of nuances, complexities, and contradictions Criticism must come from a place of understanding–understanding the world of the art and the artist’s point of view–and must not come from a place of concern for one ’ s own personal likes and dislikes

The way I consume media has been heavily impacted by my budding career as a dramaturg, and I think much of my generation could benefit from this type of education Of course, it’s impossible to put every Gen-Z social media user in a Dramaturgy class, but more education in media literacy could be integral to promoting healthy criticism, as opposed to meaningless, puritanical condemnations of anything that makes an audience slightly uncomfortable

EVA STRAZEK (SHE/HER) IS A BFA2 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR FROM LAKEWOOD, OHIO

WORKING OUTSIDE

BY EMBER SAPPINGTON

“Now, if we can just get this show to be half as entertaining as that dramaturgy presentation, then we’ll be good to go.”

These are words that I never thought I would hear in a TTS rehearsal room.

Which makes sense

Because I didn’t hear them in a TTS rehearsal room I heard them after my first ever professional dramaturgy presentation at a nonprofit theatre company.

It was after I’d given a 40-minute spiel about Joan of Arc’s entire life story in the style of an episode of Drunk History I’d done so while sitting in an audience seat, reading notes from my computer, and calling out to the actors sprawled across the stage

The story of Joan’s life that I based the retelling on hours of digging through the accounts we have of her life I’d done the research mostly on my own; a series of meetings with my mentor scheduled by simple emails, with no one CC’d punctuated this period We’d talk through our progress and cross things off of the list that the directors had given us to look into

THE CAST OF JOAN AND THE FIRE MARCHES INTO BATTLE PHOTO BY TRAPDOOR THEATRE

What we compiled was just insight into the world of the play There was no tiptoeing around theoretical objections or critical essays There was no packet There was no three-part presentation to a room of designers who weren’t sure how to interact with us It felt like I was working for Brecht, but maybe a version of Brecht that also cared about the thoughts in my brain, not just his own vision for what the creatives needed to know

The director told me in our one and only meeting before the first day of rehearsal, “Yeah, the stuff on this list I put together, but you guys are the experts, so whatever you think would be helpful I’m sure we’ll need”

You guys are the experts You guys are the experts.

WHATEVER YOU THINK WOULD BE HELPFUL I’M SURE WE’LL NEED?!

What I would come to learn is that they weren’t kidding about needing us either Every day I came in they would say, “Oh good! Ember’s here! We’ve got questions!” And what’s more, I would answer the questions as they came up in the text The director and actors would work through a scene, and then when the question arose, they would give me the space to talk about history and catholicism and folklore And then listen to me talking And then respond to my talking

I’ve never been in a theatrical space where so much intent was put into every single movement and every single detailThe ensemble treated each and every line and each and every word within those lines like a case that needed to be cracked And I was always and without exception a central part of unlocking the world of the play as we created it

The information I provided became a toolbox of knowledge and facts that the actors used to craft their characters and make choices about how they fit into the world of the play and the specific story we were using the play to tell

When a dramaturg at The Theatre School finally gets to take their first dramaturgy class, they’ll read many pieces about what dramaturgy can look like but rarely does a TTS process ever come close to those readings We read about Brecht who valued his dramaturgs as an extension of himself, whom he gave pages-long lists of facts to find, events to research, and theories to explore

We read about Kenneth Tynan and his idea that a dramaturg, or in his words a “dramaturgist”, was “ a resident theatre critic concerned with the artistic evolution of actors, plays, and performance, and by the idea of refining the public’s dramatic tastes,” (Dramaturgy: a Revolution in Theatre) What I have found dramaturgy to be about at TTS is something quite different Often, it is about negotiating space, and your right as a dramaturg to take up said space

It starts in the design meetings, when you ’ re asked to do the impossible on the second day: present the actor packet This is where the institutional misunderstanding of what a dramaturg does and how exactly they do it begins to show up Naturally, given that production meetings usually commence quite close to the season announcement, and that dramaturgy packets only reach completion the week before the first rehearsal, there is never a presentation of the actor packet at this production meeting

Instead, I have found that this is the best time to explain who I am, why I’m there, and how my job works No other position has to do this, but I’ve found that if I don’t take the time to do this there is a general confusion about my presence in the room

And this is not any one person ’ s fault To start, there are always people in the room, especially designers, who know what dramaturgy is and are excited that we are there But the reality is, most of the time, most people don’t know And that’s ok It’s highly likely that they’ve never run into a dramaturg if this is their first mainstage production However, it does feel strange to need to educate my peers about what I do when I myself am still learning

There’s also the issue of the pace of all of this The likelihood of being able to talk with the director and each of the designers individually before production meetings start is slim to none In The Theatre School, everyone is busy all of the time giving feedback on designs or visions of the show once the machine that is the production schedule is in motion feels sacrilegious It is in this moment, unless you really want to put up a fight, which I have done before, when dramaturgy heads to the bottom of the list of priorities

This, I believe, is the main issue that dramaturgy students face: we ’ re not building a set, we ’ re not making clothes, we ’ re not composing sound; our work (if done well) should be undetectable But because it is invisible does that mean it is less important?

Many people would hesitate to say it out loud, but their actions communicate that their answer, or rather the answer that our institution’s culture forces them to give, is yes

As the wise Kristin Idaszak once said, “There are no dramaturgical emergencies” Or “dramaturgencies” if you will And that is true; if there is something wrong with a design choice that makes an element of the show discordant with the rest of the show, no one is going to die If an actor is making choices that don’t fit with the story of the show, no one is in mortal peril And yet

If there’s something theoretically unsound, shouldn’t the team know? If there’s some bit of history that was influencing the playwright, shouldn’t the actors be informed? If the theme is being a bit fumbled shouldn’t someone step in to gently ask questions about it in such a way as not to offend anyone but to also, at the same time, course-correct the show? My answer to that is yeah, I do think all of these issues are also important, but in a different way They are not keeping the show from being physically dangerous or unsafe, but they are the keys to unlocking its excellence

I’ve been working as a grant writer at Trap Door for a mere matter of weeks It’s very exciting, I’m doing the thing we all set out to do when we entered TTS: I’m starting my career making money by making art happen It’s a dream come true made possible by the insistence on excellence by Rachel Shteir, the head of our program, by professors like Matt Randle-Bent, Kristin Idaszak, and Neena Arndt, and by the trial by fire that is production practice for dramaturgs at this school But there is an eye-opening perspective on the business of making art happen that I’ve been given by working at Trap that I haven’t received anywhere else: “The goal is to thrive, not just to survive”

And that’s what it is When I’m out working at professional theatre companies like Trap Door, Invictus, or Gwydion, I’m there because these companies have made a commitment to chasing excellence They want their productions to be as close to perfect as possible Professional companies create art not from the crouched stance of survival, but instead from a posture of thriving They know that the art they make helps and enriches their communities, and they are devoted to creating not just what is possible or achievable or safe, but rather what is imaginative, inspiring, and challenging To bring a dramaturg into your space should be an invitation to be pushed to your limits and to be challenged

EMBER SAPPINGTON (SHE/HER) IS A BFA 4 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR FROM WEST BRANCH, MICHIGAN

DRAMATURGING THE MESS

Dramaturgy may have an image issue

Listening to the observations and frustrations of my dramaturg peers, many of which are elaborated upon in this publication, I see a trend of isolationism

Dramaturgs feel neither seen nor heard and they struggle to articulate their positions within the Theatre School’s production ecosystem

What is it that makes us feel alienated, and how can we ensure a future of dramaturgical incorporation? Compared to other disciplines, dramaturgy seems to possess an outsized burden of explanation There almost comes a point in the process where the dramaturg must define herself for the room

BY LIZ BAZZOLI

Yet, in lieu of this explaining, I fear that dramaturgy may become synonymous with a type of cold, creatively-removed intellectualism, hence the institutional isolation

The key to dramaturgical advocacy no doubt lies in cross-discipline collaboration What discipline could better dispel any kind of negative impressions of dramaturgy than Comedy Arts?

This past quarter, BFA4 Theatre Arts student Josie Moore (they/them) and BFA3 Dramaturgy student Joan Starkey (they/she) collaborated as dramaturgs for TTS’ annual comedy festival, Mess Fest I sat down with both of them to talk about the process

THE CAST OF JOAN AND THE FIRE MARCHES INTO BATTLE PHOTO BY TRAPDOOR THEATRE

What brought you to Mess Fest? Did you have any expectations going into it?

Joan Starkey [JS]:

I've been, kind of, somehow adjacent to the comedy program since my freshman year I stage managed for some of their 408 stuff [and] some of their improv I always thought what they were doing was super cool I loved the freedom that their program gave them, and I liked the challenge of it I love their random frenetic energy and I wanted to see how dramaturgy could fit into that

Josie Moore [JM]:

I never really saw myself infiltrating the Comedy Arts sphere until very recently I became really good friends with Kenna Bartlett, who is also adjacent to the Comedy Arts program It was spring of last year and she shoots me a text and is like, ‘We're thinking of bringing some dramaturgs onto the student lead team to dramaturg the festival Would that be of interest to you?’ And I knew that I had an open fall quarter, and I was like, ‘Sure, yeah, maybe, like, I don't know’ Why not? I just started working as a dramaturg last year Cool I've done that What else can I do?

I understand that you had the opportunity to sit down with Josephine Clarke, the dramaturg for the first Mess Fest back in 2021. What advice did she give both of you?

[JM]: We were all on the Prague study abroad trip last summer One evening, Josephine briefed us on her do’s and don’ts what worked, what didn’t

[JS]: That initial notes document from Josephine became a kind of bible

[JM]: I think the biggest piece of insight was to let the comedians come to you. Give super concrete examples about what you can do and make yourself as available as possible, but ultimately give them the autonomy to decide how they want to work with you because otherwise you're gonna be doing so much work and getting no response if you're like putting yourselves upon them

[JS]: Instead of chasing people down, we got the wonderful experience of working with people who wanted to work with us

In a standard production practice there are production meetings and design meetings for what's going to be one complete show. But you were working on different sorts of short-form shows with their own individual needs and questions. Could you go more into how you activated the material? What was the approach to that?

[JM]: The system that we set up was oneon-one meetings [Comedians] would come to us and we would have a conversation about what they wanted to work on and the current state of their shows We used the initial meeting notes, documents, that we had for each show, and from that we were able to identify things for the dramaturgs to do And then we were able to check in on those things. So, for example, one of the comedians, Eli Carey, wrote a play called Boy Village

She was one of the early people who came to us being like, ‘I would love eyes on this’ So she sent us her script, we looked at it, we gave some notes, and then [we were] able to go to some later rehearsals and give them notes as well It was so nice that we were able to closely collaborate on a textual level and a rehearsal level with what these people were doing

It's so much more similar to what we would call a traditional theater process than I think we thought A lot of our work was convincing the comedians that what they do every day is dramaturgy, and that we have much more in common than we don't

But when it came to things like a sketch show, we got to be a lot more creative with the way that we collaborated There was a drag show, the Jules Astaire Variety Hour, where we went into their first rehearsal, gave a presentation about the history of drag and Chicago drag specifically, [giving] examples of the wide variety of what drag looks like and kind of workshop[ping] some characters with them on that first day

You're talking about reviewing scripts for performances and I'm curious because I feel like the sort of pressure of ‘it needs to be funny’ is an application of dramaturgy that I don't think we get a lot of experience with when doing straight plays. How did you work through the whole humor and comedy aspect of all of it?

[JS] An example I think of is a show, Big Joe's Stand Up Showcase, which was hosted by Joseph Walsdorf. He played this 1950s comedy club owner Very seedy, very anti-censorship And his whole concept was fighting the sanitation of comedy and putting up something that is kind of Dirty

Since he hosted the show, he didn't quite have a stand-up set, but he wanted us to be able to draw a thread through his hosting in between each act and, like, the story of the entire show. So we were able to help him with that, but we were also able to help him on a line level; he would be like, ‘Does this joke work?

He would read us a line and we would kind of workshop different ways to tell it and it was just a very collaborative way to throw ideas out So, it wasn't so much of like, we're marking ‘This isn't funny, this isn't funny, like fix, fix, fix’ It's more of like, ‘How can we really achieve the comedy goal that you're looking for in this moment?’ They have such poignant ideas of what their work will be Our job is just to get them there

[JM] I have a background in performance studies, and I took a class on performance of humor and why certain comedy works and so I think that background was helpful, but also so much of it is just like a gut feeling So much of it is like, ‘You reacted to this, why did you react that way?’

[JS] A lot of the work we did was affirmative So much of what we received was, like, so fully realized as it was, and so wonderfully funny already. And we just got to say, ‘You're doing a really good job’ We're, like, ‘This and these points are really fantastic in the way that you lay out this comedy.’ Affirming them was a real joy. I think that's, it's so important also as a dramaturg to not just tell everyone what they're doing wrong, but to tell everyone what they're doing right Especially in comedy, like we're, we're working to create a joyous festival.

Now, you've talked about this, but I'm curious, Josie, I know you're working on Hurricane Diane, and Joan, you have another year of dramaturgy production practices. I'm curious how you think this experience will inform or change your practice in the future.

[JM] I mean it's all about how you continue to communicate with people. How you continue to level with people Instead of being the one that's holding all of the knowledge, being, like, how are you finding out This, how are you finding out These Things together?

I spent a lot of time looking at just how we communicate with each other, even in the executive team, and I felt like a lot of my practice was also paying attention to those conversationsHow are we all talking to each other? And also, just embodying this, like, relaxed approach. [Dramaturgy] can be professional and have levity Like, you know, we're still here to work But we can also be here to play, too So much of Mess Fest is just like, reaching out to someone who you've never met before And being like, ‘let's talk about your show right now’ We've got 30 minutes, we're sitting on the floor of an acting lab, let's go

[JS] It was truly brilliant, and it makes me so excited that this is the work that young people are doing And it is so, like uninhibited, and unashamed, and WACKY Capital W, Wacky Their whole thing is about like, identifying the line, identifying the line of comedy, and then pushing right up against it

[JM] It totally like, transcends just the text analysis work that I think as a dramaturg you become so comfortable and familiar with And then it's like, okay, now you have no text You actually have no text and that's the point That is like the fundamental point of improv Um, make it work And we did. And it did. And it worked. And it was awesome.

LIZ BAZZOLI (HE/THEY) IS A BFA4 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM

MAJOR FROM CLEVELAND, OHIO

THE SEASON SELECTION DIALOGUES

BY ARTEMIS WESTOVER & MOLLY SHARFSTEIN

We are both students on the season selection committee Artemis, in their role as a Literary Manager for the Database of Equity and Inclusion, has sat on the committee for three years Molly is a first-time theatre studies representative on the committee We came together out of a shared frustration with the committee’s methods and a desire to see change.

Mission:

“The Theatre School trains students to the highest level of professional skill and artistry in an inclusive and diverse conservatory setting”

Vision: (Excerpt)

We will produce public programs and performances that challenge, entertain, and stimulate the imagination

We will foster cross-disciplinary collaboration to further student understanding and appreciation for every aspect of theatre work.

This is not an exposé Dramaturgs are connectors connecting context and story; story and ensemble; and context, story, ensemble, and audience Connectivity bleeds through all areas of a theatre, and season selection involves finding the stories that meld with the theatre’s connective tissue

Molly [M] Dramaturgs analyze text, but we also investigate connective breaks in processes and institutionally Dramaturgy is questioning to form a full picture After TTS’ season announcement, students often question why TTS chose certain plays As a dramaturg and the theatre studies student representative, I was curious about missed connections how the disjunction between student needs, the planned seasons, and season selection-based classes occurs What is disconnected, and how can everything click together?

Artemis [A]: My opinion is that we are dealing with an institutional problem at the highest level The disconnection comes from our inability to adjust our process to better fit the ever-changing needs of the student body; the support beams of the tts system actively prohibit this adjustment To be clear I do not think that this is the fault of any member of the staff or the faculty past or present No one person's actions led to this problem Similarly, no one person's actions can fix this problem, no one committee, and no one Dean Dean Martine is without question the best thing that has happened to the theatre school at least in my 4 years It is because of her leadership that I believe that this institution will have a shot at making positive change

Context: The Beforetimes

[M]: Before the 2021-2022 school year, three people selected the season including John Culbert (the previous dean), Lisa Portes, and Damon Kiely

MFA directors’ pitches interspersed the season, and the graduating MFA actors had a show specifically written for them MFA directors publicly pitched their plays, and students gathered for a spectacular announcement in the lobby Season announcement was a community event with limited initial perspectives; now, the dean sends an email with plays chosen via committee TTS mirrored a larger recent movement in theatres, where committees, teams, and taskforces replaced small groups and individuals

Department chairs, Playworks AD, and selfnominated/faculty-selected student reps from each department, and managers from the Litereary Database of Equity and Inclusion make up oue committee This year, we did not have a DT student rep, and present performance faculty shifted

[A]: This made consistent progress difficult We rarely have all the necessary pieces to make any decisions Someone is always not there, doesn't know the answer, or needs confirmation from someone outside of the committee We are trusted with the task of creating the season but there is a pervading sense that we cannot decide anything on our own

The Season Selection Experience

[M]: Both this season and the ‘25-26 season discussion started with, “What if we used TTS spaces in different ways? In the old building, people were making theatre everywhere”

Early discussions feel explosive, passionately exploring what our theme means and what we can make We will do what students want, we will break out of restrictive and antiquated structures to create the most theatrical and most creative season We will do a show in the yellow stairs We will make a play with dramaturgy-playwright collaboration We will use our theme (in next years ’ case, who were we/who are we becoming, Radically Weird in the following) to break boundaries

Every committee member is supposed to read a play a week and come in ready to discuss (which happens at the beginning of the process), and we initially started with a notes document that fell out of use after the first batch of plays After reading, we meet and break down plot, what we like, and issues As weeks progress, conversation devolves We discuss plays that disappear despite viability and then reappear later (either shirking previous discussion about their problems or suddenly having new issues), people throw new titles in lastminute and argue against plays they have not read, faculty are unclear about student needs, students are unclear about other departments and their capabilities, and focus narrows We are given a deadline for selection, but nobody facilitates to make sure we meet the deadline This is not what dramaturgs learn in Civic Dramaturgy

[A]: The logistical chaos of the meetings is frustrating In three years of using this committee model, we have not been able to figure out how best to work together This is in large part due to the pace of the season We have no time to really figure out what system we want to build because we must pick scripts because it takes months to acquire the rights (if we even get them) and designers have deadlines months in advance, before dramaturgs, assistant directors, or actors are chosen

It might be a less frustrating experience if I felt that these logistical issues were the main roadblock to making real progress in how we produce theatre at the theatre school But after three years I can say with certainty that there are much larger barriers involved, barriers that are much harder to see and as such much harder to remove

How does an idea move through the committee?

[M]: There are no plays by women of color in our mainstage season next year, though ESPs are technically included with mainstage plays Issues stem from season selection’s sysiphisean structure that’s some dramaturgy In one of the meetings after our initial rights acquisition, a play by a Korean woman was in the “who are we now” ESP slot As student rep, part of my job is checking in with my peers about their interests and needs The theatre studies students I talked to were thrilled about the possibility of a supported show by a Korean woman playwright

The committee pointed out that it did not have enough parts for our acting pool instead of referring to the mission and looking for a different play by a woman of color (which I repeatedly advocated for in the realm of my position, I said that students should be represented not only onstage but in the people writing stories.) They quickly moved to replace it with a play by a white male faculty member instead The most recent ESP2 (rights pending) came from conversations with students working at LDEI about the season’s lack of diversity and an adamant email to the dean/committee that we cannot have a season without any plays by women of color

This conversation happened because season selection does not check the mission and specific student needs when deliberating, instead focusing on actor demographics (which are not equivalent to needs learning goals and interests for productions are primarily discussed for D/T and theatre studies, while performance highlights racial/gender makeup)

We are trained for this:

[A] : When we talk about the theoretical process of season selection in multiple classes it is often in the context of what it would mean to do a certain play here and now, whether in TTS, Chicago, or just in the present moment Often these conversations largely concern the themes of the plays and their cultural/political/ social relevance to the time and place we are focusing on When I joined the season selection committee in 2021, I knew there would be other factors to contend with in the conversations I was no longer in a theoretical setting and things like budget and schedules had to play a much larger role

[M]: In Civic Dramaturgy, dramaturgs learn about season programming We discuss mission- and specific community-aligned season selection, and that institutional dramaturgs analyze productions based on their service to each

We saw plays, analyzed them against their theatre’s mission, location, and stated demographics, and then pitched a play for production at the theatre that actually aligns with all of them We also discussed community’s role in season selection civically-engaged theatre connects with specific groups of people and addresses their needs (for example, theatres for adults with families should have accessible childcare; plays produced in theatre-less communities can be conversational and provide resources for making theatre)

When I applied to the theatre studies student representative position, I believed this was the work I would be doing reading scripts (that everyone else on the committee would also read), collaboratively evaluating them against TTS’s mission, and assessing their viability and relevancy for students in all departments

What comes next?

[M]: Season Selection’s connectivity degenerates because it is not grounded in the Civic Dramaturgical structure Rather than being a collective process towards a mission- and needs-oriented goal, it is an individual process towards an unclear end Season selection loses its radical spark the further they stray into personal taste, faculty privilege, and logistical bureaucracy, away from the theme, mission, and student suggestions

[A]: One of the best things that I have gotten out of my time on this committee is that I have been able to see a side of running this building that most students do not get to see And because of that, I know a fair amount of roadblocks we encounter stem from our relationship with greater DePaul The budget is absolutely an issue DePaul clearly doesn't value the arts and humanities as much as it values lining the pocketbooks of its board members But this cannot be a reason for us to throw up our hands and continue doing as we ’ ve always done, meanwhile, our season and our curriculum dwindles

There is something we are bumping up against that is preventing our conversations from becoming actualized People have good ideas, we are given good scripts, people generally get along And yet we continue to hit a wall

How can TTS institutionally support imagination? To me, that is the issue Every member of the season selection committee is a wonderful artist with so many amazing ideas At all levels there is a true desire to do things differently To make stranger, bigger, more diverse, and more inclusive theatre

What boggles me is how getting all these big wonderful imaginations in the room results in having the same back-and-forth argument for weeks in a row How many amazing titles have been pushed aside because of the grueling pre-production process, or how after 10 years in the new building no one has figured out how to do a performance on the yellow stairs despite that the possibility of that as a performance space has been a major talking point on admission tours

Truly the idea of staging something on those stairs played a major role in my decision to attend TTS I am trying not to feel bitter at the fact that I never got the chance to

I'm trying quite hard not to make this article just a place for me to complain I want to offer something I want to shout from the top of the yellow stairs “Free your creativity from the shackles of policy!” I haven't done that But I have heard offers made in these meetings by students and faculty I have made offers I’ll say it again, this group of people genuinely desires change and to create a school environment that allows students to explore and create with wild abandon

These issues are shared by theatres throught the country TTS shifted to the committee model in 2020, when the theatre world attempted to reconcile with hierarchical power structures

ARTEMIS WESTOVER (THEY/THEM) IS A BFA 4 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR

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

THE 2024-2025 SEASON

Last year, we called on The Theatre School to do better Students noticed a crucial lack of diversity in the playwrights selected for the current season After our ‘23-’24 Season Response was published, we were delighted to see that Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is took our WT2 slot There is notably more diversity in this season Still, there are no plays written by women of color We echo the sentiment from last year that every Theatre School student deserves to have their identity reflected by the playwrights and stories we feature on our stages

The 2024-2025 season is different For the first time, our season is tied together with a theme It is “Who we were Who we are Where we are going” Each quarter is one segmement of this idea-- plays that reflect TTS’s past (Fall), present (Winter), and future (Spring) The new form of season planning is exciting!

The Season Announcement also features ESP titles which include Lysistrata, an unofficial ESP 2, and a Climate Change Festival for ESP 3 We’re very interested in seeing how a festival will come together in one of our ESP rooms

These are exciting times!

WT 1

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

BY CAMILLE PUGLIESE

In my last four years at The Theatre School, I’ve seen Shakespeare presented in a variety of ways. My first year there was As You Like It, filmed outside as a result of Covid restrictions My second year was a feminist, Gen-Z take on Much Ado About Nothing, which was followed by an inventive, devised take on the Henry IV pt I in my third year This year, I’m eager to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream which has been adapted into a 90-minute Theatre for Young Audiences cut That brings me to the first production in The Watt’s for the 2024-2025 season; William Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well

Aside from Shakespeare being what ties the first four plays together, each of the previous plays has a very specific vision– we essentially knew what they would possibly look like before they ever landed on stage

Gone are the days where we’d find directors discussing their vision for the play, which makes me wonder how All's Well That Ends Well will manifest itself on the Watts stage next year I’m craving a vision, or at least an explanation

All’s Well That Ends Well has a lot of plot In the most simple summary, we meet Helena who comes from a less than noble upbringing, as she pines for Bertram who wants nothing to do with her He says he will only marry her if she is pregnant with his child– which would cause quite a ruckus in Elizabethan times After a clever ruse and some well-meaning deception, Helana does become pregnant with his child In the end, like in classic Shakespearean comedy style, we end with the wedding of Bertram and Helena!

It’s morally dubious, to put it lightly This will certainly be an exciting dramaturgical inquiry about how we stage Shakespeare today I’m not of the camp who thinks we should pack away work that could potentially be problematic, so I am eager to see what treatment this play gets

P 1 LITTLE WOMEN ADAPTED BY MARISHA CHAMBERLAIN

One of the last spoken lines in Marisha Chamberlain’s 1996 adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women is given to us by a man The grandfather of a freshly rejected Laurie gives us his verdict on Jo March, “I thought she’d accept him Girls are a mystery” While the playwright allows Father to give a response, “Who can say? She knows her own mind,” I still don’t appreciate what ending on this note does to the text

The one act version of this story cuts off after the Father of the March family returns from war Before this point, the play, which has been segmented into 5 scenes within its only 48 page length has taken us on a careening tour of Little Women’s greatest hits: Christmas without father, Amy throws Jo’s manuscript in the fire, Beth dies, Meg gets engaged while Jo rejects Laurie, and father returns in time for Christmas

While Chamberlain is trying to make sure her version tells the audience what happened, her writing misses why we still care 155 years after Alcott published the tale Little Women is a story about sisterhood and blossoming into womanhood, whether one wants to or not

Will it attempt to solve any 17th century problems, or will we see it brought to life for a 2024 audience?

BY EMBER SAPPINGTON

The version of the story that has been chosen for next season leaves the sisters married to discussing plot driving talking points rather than having any meaningful conversations about their sisterly bonds and how they feel about becoming adult women It also functions to make the struggles that the girls face with this transitional moment in their lives trivial and quickly dismissed The character most deeply wounded by this fact is Jo

Famously, Jo is challenged by the loss of her direct family unit and the expectations of being a lady Because she isn’t a lady, she asserts, and she doesn’t want to be married In her own words, she’s happy as she is and she loves her liberty too well To Chamberlain's credit many lines in which Jo expresses her unwillingness to conform remain

MEG: Now that you ’ re tall, Jo, now that you ’ re tall and turn up your hair, you must remember that you are a lady

Jo: I’m not! And if turning up my hair makes me one there! (shakes out hair) In the beginning you ’ re just a young creature and you hardly know you ’ re a girl and you ’ re so busy learning to walk and run And suddenly they tell you, not that you ’ re grown, but that you ’ re a lady and you’d best be still so someone will pick out out and claim you, like a doll from a toy shop shelf

These lines fall victim to the brutal pace of the play These expressions that have so endeared Jo to her readers, especially young queer readers experiencing a similar discomfort, play as naive and are seemingly dismissed by her loved ones

W 2 LOTTERY DAY

BY

IKE

HOLTER

Ultraviolence is a word I have tattooed on my left wrist It is a word that reminds me of the circular nature extreme violence lives through. Without violence, there is no concept of peace Without violence, there would be no life, for the act of birth is a violent process; without violence there would be no growth; without violence, countries and cities and life as we know it would not be; without violence, what is theatre? But as we know, violence is also death and pain and darkness In our ultraviolent world, and more specifically, our ultraviolent city of red stars and silver and brick buildings, how do we come to accept the inevitability of suffering?

Lottery Day is a play of ultraviolence, but not with blood It is a play that exhibits the violence of change

The epitome of this issue can be found in the closing lines Jo’s vision for her life and her place in a family seem like a symptom of childish immaturity rather than an authentic choice This adaptation leaves me wishing that even just a few of the hallmark scenes of Louisa May Alcott’s novel had been cut leaving room for a more in depth thematic exploration of what it means to be a sister and what it means to leave your girlhood behind

Is this haberdashery of classic Little Women vignettes really the version of this story we want to introduce young viewers to for the first time?

BY LAURA RODRIGUEZ SIERRA

TTS alumn Ike Holter’s Lottery Day will be produced at The Theatre School at DePaul University in the 2024-25 season The play was commissioned by The Goodman Theatre in 2017 and continued revisions into 2019 making its World Premiere during the Spring Season

Officially set in 2019 in Rightlynd, a fictional sector of Chicago, Mallory, the matriarch of the neighborhood and main character of the play invites ten “New Friends Old Family Followers and leaders and sisters and brothers and homies and haters and frenemies and fakers,” to her large house for a September cookout celebration

Four-hundred dollars worth of meat, five pies, three chocolate cakes, two shopping carts of liquor, mixers, and fireworks, along with epic mixtapes, a pink statue/bong, borrowed fancy spoons, one shining gun, and one fat wad of cash make up this grand Chicago barbecue The play throws you into a whirl of the tail end of summertime, where booze flows freely, odd, old, new, and acquainted relationships are suspended to embrace the chaos of conversations, senseless jokes, freeing screams, booming music, and room is made for the reality of immense loss and the ghosts of lives and lost dreams

Mallory decides to plan a celebration, the purpose of the celebration remains unknown to the audience for the majority of the play, yet there are hints planted to suggest that immense pain lurks around this super summer bash Mallory, upon her throne in the backyard, holds a gun It becomes a statement of power and control The gun is not used to harm bodies, but its known threat to kill and destroy life paints the passing moments with violent tension Voices speak over each other, prose and poetry collide, there is music and ad lib verse, snarky comments, inside jokes, storytelling and unspoken pasts Conversational heft and textual rhythm saturate the undiagnosed reason of stress that adds to the underbelly of the plot's ultimate climax

This play is an immense undertaking that requires a great deal of care for ensemble work and detailed set design For The Theatre School, artists will be challenged to create a space of coexistence between the intimacy a backyard party allows and the vastness that Lottery Day covers regarding textual content, moving bodies, and the abundance of physical elements Each character is a representation of Chicagoan community members Much of the characters’ stories are left to the imagination of the ensemble and audience; however, whatever is revealed of the people are clear signifiers of people we have passed while crossing the many streets of Chicago; perhaps for some, a few characters may be people we know, once knew, once were, will become, or currently are

Lottery Day is truly a Chicago family story that tackles the complicated nature of gentrification Where there is growth there is simultaneous death; where homes were once filled with families, new buildings sprout, and where the characters once lived and recall many firsts, they now find themselves removed from a past they loved and also hold accountable for their wounds I hope that creators in The Theatre school’s production of Lottery Day will take advantage of Ike Holter’s summertime play! It is fun, heavy, beautifully violent, dramatically rich, musical, and proudly Chicago

HD 2 RIDE THE CYCLONE

BY

Two years after the Phantom of the Auditorium graced the Merle Reskin Theater with his ferocious, month-and-halflong haunt– another beloved cult musical has made its way onto a Theater School stage

Ride The Cyclone tells the story of the St Cassian Chamber Choir, a group of six teens held captive in purgatory after being killed suddenly in a roller-coaster accident A defunct fortune-telling machine invites them all to play a devious game, with the winner being given the chance to live again The choir is swept into a whirlwind of a competition– each teen is given one shot to illustrate their deepest desires, genuine dreams, and everything they wished to achieve before their untimely deaths

In only an hour and a half, this absurd, dark comedy manages to comment on life, death, individuality, adolescence, and so much more Each song in the show falls into a different musical genre and requires a wildly different style of performance Ride the Cyclone is not your typical musical–not in the slightest

JACOB RICHMAND AND BROOKE MAXELL P 3

BY EVA STRAZEK

In the year-and-a-half I’ve been here, I’ve learned that The Theater School lends itself to surrealist fun pretty well This project will be no easy undertaking, but the unmistakable awe and beauty of this show, when executed strongly– presents itself as an enticing reward

Ride the Cyclone has undergone many script alterations since its first-ever prototype performance in 2008– but, through it all, always manages to maintain its witty and sarcastic charm Though the premise is gruesome, the absurd, comedic moments within the script create a perfect balance between dark and light With a unique cast of ensemble characters, it offers up multiple perspectives on life and death– and when the curtain falls, encourages you to contemplate your own

Next winter, the Cyclone takes off in the Healy As a long-time fan of this hilarious, beautiful piece of theater– I am certainly ready to ride!

CHRONICLES OF THE KALEIDOSCOPE VISITORS

BY OMER ABBAS SALEM

BY LIZ BAZZOLI

This is an interesting one! A product of the 2021 Cunningham Commission for Youth Theatre, The Chronicles of the Kaleidoscope Visitors will finally make its mainstage debut this 20242025 season

The play, which comes from local playwright and actor Omer Abbas Salem, takes place on the mystical remote island of Kaleidoscope Cold and unforgiving, Kaleidoscope houses only one family at a time whose term on the island only ends after the successful harvest of 100 fields of crops This is where we find protagonist Sister Fibonacci and her family at the play’s start, desperately trying to eke out their term in the desolate landscape But, when the arrival of two strange creatures with inexplicable powers disrupts the family’s standard operations, Kaleidoscope becomes a little less desolate

There is something charmingly bizarre about this play, so much so that I am a bit confuddled with how exactly to describe it or rate my anticipation for it At times poignant, at other times high-handed, it’s a little hard to read on a cursory glance A 2021 statement from Broadway World claims that Salem took inspiration for the play from a narrative podcast in which two children travel back in time to 12th-century England, challenged with the question of whether or not to assimilate to their new setting This same dynamic manifests in The Chronicles of the Kaleidoscope Visitors only with an arctic village replacing a 12thcentury Woolpit and two green creatures with magical powers substituting the children

These titular Kaleidoscope visitors must also grapple with the pressure of assimilation, as the island’s inhabitants initially welcome neither their appearance nor their seemingly supernatural qualities There is a clear allegory at work here–likely more there than just one–but I find myself wondering if such an eccentric, otherworldly conceit is necessary to convey a message that I think might rather benefit from humanization

That being said, I am excited to see another Cunningham Commission work come to the Merle Reskin stage Not only is it a gesture of DePaul’s relationship with Chicago’s greater theatre community, but I also think that this play presents a lot of opportunities for exploration and experimentation for students across disciplines Directing and dramaturgy have rich material to explore further Actors have the opportunity to experiment with a new type of character altogether Designers will need to envision a world out-of-place and out-of-time which– if productions like Las Wavys or A Wrinkle in Time are any proof–should yield beautiful results

IS GOD IS

“God don’t want nothin’ but blood”

A chilling statement uttered by Racine, the bolder, more vengeful twin, after she commits the first murder: with blood dripping from the white sock in her hand, she stands over the dead body Anaia, the meeker, quieter twin, stares at the corpse in disbelief The girls, having traveled cross country to commit patricide on behalf of their dying mother, whom they refer to as “God,” come to a crossroads: do they continue their vengeful quest or cease killing? They enter their father’s house, choosing the former At the Watts Theatre, Aleshea Harris’s Is God Is, reminiscent of a Greek tragedy, examines what it means to confront an ugly past

The design elements caught my eye Pink and green were ever-present Whether through the lights, the projections, or the costumes, the designers ensured that these two hues stayed on stage I eventually began associating the colors with the twins’ parents When she was not on stage, “God’s” silhouette appeared projected on a green screen Later in the play, the father walks out in a bright pink costume, making his grand entrance after a long build-up

Physically or not, the parents are always there The scars on Racine and Anaia’s bodies remind them that their father almost killed them The parents' actions (or lack thereof), words, and presence follow the girls, almost like ghosts

BY EMILY TOWNLEY

What is absent in this story is the sisters growing from that past It manifests itself in violent ways And yet, while this isn’t a criticism of this specific production, if this is a play about black womanhood, I can’t help but wonder why it chooses to depict the trauma or violence that may come with being a black woman, but omits the joy or love

If anything, Is God Is a horror story. Tropes found in famous movies pop up here; the creepy twins (a la The Shining) or the “Final Girl” (think Halloween or Alien), for example. Of course, there are no spirits or demons that the girls are trying to escape The horror is more subtle; is it possible to escape the legacy of our forefathers? Especially if that legacy is steeped in trauma and pain, like Racine’s and Anaia’s After all, what fate is more terrifying than becoming your parents?

The end of some horror stories, in all the blood, chaos, and tragedy, yields a semblance of hope Anaia stands alone Her mother, father, and sister are all dead, and each perished at each other’s hands On paper this sounds tragic For the “Final Girl”, Anaia, her family’s complete annihilation allows her to come to terms with her family’s past, but also gives her a chance to be the parent to her unborn child that her parents weren’t to her

A bloody, bittersweet ending for a bloody, violent, but mesmerizing show

EMILY TOWNLEY (SHE/HER) IS A BFA4 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR FROM THE DC AREA.

KILLING OF A GENTLEMAN DEFENENDER

BY LEEANNE NAKAMURA

Documentary or metaphorical Past or present Martin or Martín Killing of a Gentleman Defender, written and directed by Carlos Murillo, presents the audience with these, this, or that, A or B, options But as these characters face situations sharing a striking resemblance to ones in our world, Killing of a Gentleman Defender demonstrates the inadequacies of such binary choices

The plot is complicated Martin, a Chicagobased, Colombian playwright, receives a commission from Holly, a Chicago theatre employee, to work with a group of teens from the South and West sides of Chicago His task: create a play addressing the issues these teens face daily Acknowledging the privileges he enjoys as a white-passing man living on the North side, Martin hesitates about his ability to work with these teens When thinking of his own children, and how the compensation would cover their private school tuition, the idea of keeping them safe from the potential dangers they’d face at public schools, motivates Martin to accept the offer

Following this idea of thematic binaries, the play’s events also exist in a binary style, as half of the play takes place in a Chicago Parks District Gym-turned-rehearsal space, while the other half takes place in Martin’s mind Through reflections and a dream sequence weaving its way throughout the second act, the audience learns why Martin decides to write for his commission a play about Colombian soccer player, Andrés Escobar, and Colombia’s participation in the 1994 FIFA World Cup

Martin’s exploration of his two selves, Martin (Mar-tin) and Martín (Mahr-teen), fascinated me When the audience watches Martin meet the six teens he will work with for the first time, he introduces himself as Martín while Holly introduces him as Martin Ricardo, one of the teens, quickly questions him “You Martin or Martín?”

This led me to wonder which half, or self, accepted Holly’s offer and which half will direct these teens? Is it the same Martin/Martín and what, if any, differences exist between the two? A person ’ s name holds power, and for some, pronunciation may connect them to their family history Martin tells Holly of his Colombian heritage in the second act, but Martin refers to himself as “Martín” earlier Based on the few pieces of background information the audience receives, code-switching seems like a regular part of Martin’s life I wondered if Martin does not care how others pronounce his name because “Martin” became the normalized pronunciation

By contrast, I wondered if the reason lies in his past, specifically in his desire to distance himself from the time he spent in Colombia during his childhood Murillo never gives a clear answer But, pulling on this thread of where he referred to himself as Martin/Martín and under what circumstances kept me invested in Martin’s self-discoveries over the rehearsal process

The six actors who brought the teen characters to life captured the awkwardness and over-enthusiasm of teens attempting to act for the first time These actors incorporated into their performances the quirks and innocent inexperience of teens implementing their understanding of acting into practice, with little moments of personal flair or encouragement between characters

Outside of rehearsals, the six performers captured the resistant nature of these teens as they attempt to exist within their own identity in a system built against them Killing of a Gentleman Defender’s use of a play within a play structure allows the actors to explore how their character connects with the topics addressed in Martin’s play and perhaps their desire to create a performance that will convey the parallels of Andrés Escobar’s life and violence in Chicago

However, when transitions between rehearsals and the moments that inspired a scene blurred, the lack of a clear delineation between an actor playing their teen character and their historical roles confused me Towards the beginning of the play, Andrés talks with his fiancé, Pamela, over the phone She comforts him by sending a hug and a kiss, which establishes a sense of intimacy even though thousands of miles separate them Later in the play, you could argue I am watching the teenagers as they embrace their roles with the skills they developed

But, twenty minutes into the play, after just hearing Ricardo monotonously recite his lines or Sandra emphasizing each line with an exaggerated gesture, I feel like I am watching actors deliver this tender scene rather than their characters

When I could not identify the framing of a scene, it would take me out of the play's story since I became distracted by trying to figure out the stakes

After the death of their lead actor, Ricardo, Martin discusses with the teens how they want to proceed with their upcoming performance They decide to take turns talking about what Ricky meant to them

Martin comments how “Definitely no metaphors” found their way into this piece because the “Thing about metaphors? Do they really shine a light on reality? Or is reality just fine shining a light on itself”

It’s an interesting question to pose after the last two and half hours concentrated on such a metaphor With a topic as sensitive and complex as gun violence, I cannot say if stories tackling this topic should use a documentary or metaphorical approach I understood the metaphor between violence in Chicago and the death of Andrés Escobar I would also argue it worked because the examples from the teens’ play carry the weight and the reality of the world around them

On the other hand, I can understand the argument for literal depictions of violence since the audience cannot deny such an event as only happening in the play’s world The aftermath of such a tragedy should linger beyond the end of the play, or rather, audience members should take the story and those feelings with them as they leave Killing of a Gentleman Defender attempts this, but still I left dissatisfied

Initially, Martin and the teens oppose the idea of literal depictions of violence because “If you live on a block where shooting is an everyday occurrence – would you want to see a play about kids getting shot?” The metaphor this group attempted to create broke though the moment they lost one of their members However, with such a quick turnaround between Ricky’s death, the decision about what they will perform, and the end of the play, the switch to present a documentary style play feels forced

Throughout the play, Martin includes the audience while he introspects on events in the rehearsal room Therefore, the absence of hearing Martin work through his thoughts during this scene likely contributed to why this switch felt so abrupt to me I could reasonably infer Martin’s feelings during this moment, but every person responds to grief in a different way I wish Martin let the audience into his mind again as he processes Ricky’s death and the decision to move from a metaphorical play to a documentary one

Killing of a Gentleman Defender switches stances too late in its story, making me question why I then watched almost an entire play demonstrating how metaphors can tackle these issues with urgency and directness If I am supposed to understand reality does a better job of addressing reality than metaphor, show me But perhaps, I should not force this play to exist on one side of a binary Documentary, metaphorical, or something in between, Killing of a Gentleman Defender makes its point by capturing the heartbreak of learning another teenager, with a future of possibilities in their hands, and one the audience perhaps became close to, lost their life to gun violence

LEEANNE NAKAMURA (SHE/HER) IS A BFA 3 DRAMATURGY & DRAMATIC CRITICISM MAJOR FROM LAGUNA NIGUEL, CALIFORNIA

Special thanks to:

LeeAnne Nakamura & Katherine Shuert, Associate Editors

Rachel Shteir, Supervising Editor

Martine Kei Green-Rogers, Dean of The Theatre School