Be they Niels Bohr, Ben Affleck, Demetrius and Helena, or vampire school girls, a wide cast of characters has entertained Tufts theater audiences this year.
Puppets and parody opened the 2005-2006 season as O-Shows "The Music of Avenue Q" and "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged" welcomed the Class of 2009 to campus. With impressive puppetry skills, the cast of "Avenue Q" used the Broadway hit's musical numbers to tell the endearing story of a recent college grad named Princeton and his neighbors. "The Complete Works," directed by junior Caitlin Johnson, managed to irreverently yet lovingly touch on each of the Bard's 37 plays, with a few moments of cross-dressing and a reverse retelling of "Hamlet" thrown in for good measure.
Bare Bodkin's fall installation of its semi-annual 24 Hour Theater Festival got Tufts thespians' juices flowing as three teams created skits that began with the line "One...two...three...four." Festival winner Team Bombay, comprising seniors Luke Brown and Gabriela Jirasek (who is also a staff writer for The Daily), junior Brendan Shea, and sophomore Dave Naden, took home the gold with their tale of 19th-century vampire girls.
Bodkin's fall season continued as the group, whose distinguishing feature is a focus on student-written pieces, took their mission statement one step further in a story that was also about students: "Untitled by Jack," written by Tufts PhD student Scott Malia.
Faculty production "A School for Scandal," directed by the Department of Drama and Dance's Sheriden Thomas, presented a theatrically spectacular interpretation of Richard Brinsley Sheridan's comedy of manners, complete with a large sign reading "SCANDAL" adorning the Balch Arena Theater stage.
The Pen, Paint, and Pretzels (3Ps) fall major, Edward Albee's Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Delicate Balance," explored the tenuous emotional state of a family and their close friends without ever leaving their living room.
"Wild Party," directed by senior Laura Espy, entertained audiences as Torn Ticket II's fall major. The show's costumes and choreography adeptly welcomed the 1920s to the Arena in a musical about two combative lovers who throw a party to revive their stormy relationship. As the musical's title suggests, the f??te gets out of hand as the couple and their guests explore a world of sex, drugs and piano accompaniment.
The fall semester also brought an array of minor productions to the Arena. Senior Greg Fujita directed the 3Ps' minor "Copenhagen," Michael Frayn's dialogue-driven tale that fictionally recreates a real-life conversation between nuclear scientists Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg.
A pairing of a much different variety bounded around the Arena in "Matt and Ben" as senior Jess Fisch and sophomore Katherine Round played the hapless screenwriting duo in their pre-"Good Will Hunting" days. Torn Ticket II once again peeked into the past - this time the group's own - in "The Chronicles," a musical revue that included songs plucked from Torn Ticket productions from the past 35 years.
A post-Vietnam tale with a strong ensemble cast, "Fifth of July" went up as the year's second faculty show soon after spring semester began, directed by Tufts faculty member Don Weingust.
Director Johnson brought the Bard back to Balch for an encore in 3Ps' spring major, "A Midsummer Night's Dream." Still not content with leaving the poor playwright alone, Johnson spiced up the production by cross-casting two of the show's leads, thus presenting Helena, played by junior Dave Adler, as a gay male and Lysander, played by senior Laura Semine, as a lesbian. Drama then unfolded as usual, with forest fairy Puck, played by sophomore Laur Fisher, rearranging and then reuniting the play's couples.
In a true highlight in Tufts' past four years of theater, director and faculty member Claire Conceison brought the English language debut of the Chinese play "Heads or Tails?" to Tufts as the final faculty production of the season. The avant-garde show impressed audiences with its experimental dialogue, its unique aesthetic style and its clever and flawlessly delivered choreography.
Conceison welcomed the show's Beijing-based playwright Meng Jinghui, famous and well-regarded in China for his work, to Tufts and held multiple discussions related to the show, its author and its literal and figurative translation to the Tufts stage.
Torn Ticket and 3Ps teamed up to present Stephen Sondheim's romance-driven "Passion," and Torn Ticket rounded out their year with four sellout performances of free-love-driven "Hair." The show, directed by Fisch, brought the audience close with an energetic pit orchestra, a large, raucous cast, and the advent of "groupie seats" - pillows and blankets positioned in the Arena's first row in lieu of the usual chairs.
Senior Aristotle Kousakis rounded out 3Ps' year with his direction of AR Gurney's "The Dining Room," a series of scenes exploring WASP culture that all take place around a dining room table.
Performances this year weren't limited only to these productions - or even limited to the confines of a stage. In March, Theater Blitz '06 marked the Tufts theater community's celebration of World Theater Day with guerilla performances of songs and scenes around campus.
Highlights included the "Romeo and Juliet" balcony scene, performed on Dewick's balcony for a surprised lunch crowd, and a rendition of the title song of "Hair" for an unsuspecting audience of tour-goers outside Bendetson Hall.
Specialty performance groups including Cheap Sox (improv comedy), Major: Undecided (sketch comedy), HYPE! (mime), Traveling Treasure Trunk (children's theater) and Tufts Opera Ensemble welcomed excited audiences and new members this year. Cheap Sox started their 2005 season on a particularly exciting note with a twentieth-anniversary celebration during Homecoming Weekend that welcomed Sox past and present to Tufts to socialize and inter-generationally perform together.
Actresses in "The Vagina Monologues" graced the stage of Cohen Auditorium in February with a powerful and lively annual performance directed by seniors Shannon Crudup and Betsy Goldman.
Also in the spring semester, the Black Theater Company hosted a one-man performance by Charles Holt of "Black Boy," a dramatic adaptation of Richard Wright's autobiography.
Creating excitement at the year's end, Tufts grad student Abigail Al-Doory brought a national spotlight to campus with "Tonya and Nancy," which doubled as her master's thesis and as a newsmaker for her and for Tufts. The production, which included assistant direction from Fisch and the vocal talent and technical support of many Tufts students, was rehearsed in Aidekman and performed at the Zero Arrow Theatre in Cambridge.
Unlike the skating career of Tonya Harding, the future looks bright for Tufts' theater community and its fans.
"The community's getting bigger, and it's expanding and becoming more of a presence on campus," said Adler, an actor and Cheap sox troupe member. "There are more and more new faces in the Arena."
But as theater groups say goodbye to their current familiar faces, they will welcome new Jumbos during next year's orientation with "Zombie Prom" and Steve Martin's "Picasso at the Lapin Agile."
