Share

A Look Back: Five Productions, One Exceptional Spring Term

Posted on October 04, 2017 by Milena Zuccotti

  • Inspired by immersive theatre traditions, 'Away This Night' linked three distinct scenes from Shakespeare to examine issues of gender, race, and sexuality. Photo Rob Strong.

  • Elise Wien '17 used the ceremonies of a traditional Passover Seder to tell the story of a Jewish family living in the American South just after the Civil War in her 'Third Night'.

  • Directed by Virginia Ogden '18, 'What Every Girl Should Know' focused on young women coming of age in a Manhattan Catholic Reform school at the turn of the last century. Photo Rob Strong.

Over the course of a single extraordinary 2017 spring term, the Theater Department was privileged to support the production of five distinct student-driven theatrical pieces: works conceived, written, directed, designed, and/or performed by Dartmouth undergraduate women. Dartmouth students Olivia Powell '17 and Christian Williams '19 were commisioned to document the Spring Term's productions, and have produced the trailer below:

 

The Spring 2017 Term's productions included:

  • Away This Night, a senior thesis project conceived, designed, and co-directed by Julie Solomon '17. Julie's work immersed audieces in three seemingly discrete moments from Shakespeare's As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and The Merchant of Venice, scenes linked together by the central presence of female characters disguised as men. The piece focused on issues of gender identity, gender presentation, race, sexuality, and ability in physical space.
     
  • Third Night, a staged reading of an original play written by two-time Dodd Playwriting Contest winner Elise Wien '17. Third Night used the rituals of a traditional Passover Seder as the centerpiece of an interactive theatrical experience that told the story of the Cohens, a Jewish family living in South Carolina during the Reconstruction.
     
  • Feminist Shakespeare, or, Unsex Me Here, an exploration of women's monologues from throughout the Shakespearean canon conceived and directed by  psychology and film major Kelly Gaudet '17. Weaving together excerpts of women's voices from many different works, this staged reading focused on issues of gender, domestic abuse, sexual violence, and women's resiliency.
     
  • What Every Girl Should Know, a fully-produced play directed by theater major Virginia Ogden '18. Set in a Catholic reform school, What Every Girl Should Know was a hilarious and deeply moving coming-of-age story of friendship, religion, fantasy, and emerging womanhood at the turn of the last century.
     
  • Crickets Ate the Moon, a staged reading of an original play written by theater major Charli Fool Bear-Vetter '15 and directed by Laura Calderon '19. Crickets Ate the Moon told the powerful story of a young, deeply resilient Native American woman developing her artistic voice while supporting her family through mental illness, grief, and loss.
     

The Dartmouth featured the work of these five remarkable women, along with their casts and creative teams; the feature article can be found HERE.