Southeastern to host 24-hour ‘Menagerie’ Theater Festival
Contact: Rene Abadie
3/8/12
HAMMOND Southeastern Louisiana University students will join with area community participants
to stage a 24-hour theater festival March 24 in honor of the 26th annual Tennessee
Williams Festival.
Called “7 Shards of Glass” and inspired by Williams’ autobiographical play “The
Glass Menagerie,” the event will be under the artistic direction of James Winter,
Southeastern assistant professor of theater, and Taylor McLellan of the Louisiana
Center for Theatrical Arts, an area non-profit organization that offers theatrical
productions, classes and workshops.
The festival is sponsored by Alpha Psi Omega, the university theatre honor society,
and will begin at 8 p.m. in the Vonnie Borden Theatre in D Vickers Hall. Tickets are
$7 for adults and $5 for students with university identification from any area institutions
and go on sale March 19-22 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Vonnie Borden box office.
The box office will also sell tickets at 7 p.m. prior to the show. Advance reservations
can be made by calling 985-549-2115.
The 24-hour format allows students and community members to take part in a fully
staged play within the length of one day. More than 25 participants will be involved
in the event, including current Southeastern students and alumni. Participants enter
into the festival by selecting a role as director, playwright, designer or actor.
The night before the festival, each of the playwrights will be assigned one of
the seven scenes from “The Glass Menagerie” and will reinterpret each scene while
staying true to Williams’ original work. Once the playwrights have completed their
scripts, the directors and actors will be assigned to their scene and rehearse until
performance time. After a day of rehearsal, each scene will be performed in sequence
before the audience.
“I think the audience has the opportunity to witness a pretty wild experiment
here,” said Winter. “Taking a piece of classic literature and having 30 or so artists
re-invent it in less than 24 hours is ambitious to say the least.”
According to Winter, one scene from the play will be completely choreographed
by Southeastern student Crystal Schayot.
“We chose to have a choreographer interpret one of the scenes because our plan
is to combine as many of the arts as possible in our re-imagining of the play,” Winter
added.
“This event will be an evening of entertainment through a unique flow of theatrical
storytelling,” said McClellan. “It will stretch the boundaries of plastic theater
in seven directions, while giving the audience a truly original performance inspired
by one of Williams’ most iconic works. This is not a production of ‘The Glass Menagerie,’
but rather seven individual pieces shards of glass so to speak that build on top of
each other, displaying what happens when you take this beautiful prism of a script,
look at all its angles and refractions, and then let your imagination run wild.”
“This is the biggest theatrical production offered by our chapter of Alpha Psi
Omega in nearly four years,” said Winter, who serves as the organization’s faculty
adviser.
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