In the Aud: Recent Episodes
In the Aud
Hosted by Abbie Tykocki & Bri Kubiak
The Department of Theatre has over EIGHT different performance venues on campus; a black box, a proscenium, a thrust, multiple studios, a concert auditorium, and even an outdoor courtyard used for our Summer Circle Theatre productions. Most of these spaces, along with classrooms and design labs, are housed in the historic Michigan State University Auditorium building. A crazy amount of creativity and experiential learning has occurred within the walls of the Auditorium’s Gothic-inspired arches, oak paneling, and marble floors... but as is often the case in the performing arts, the audiences only see the finished product.
This podcast serves to shine a light on how the faculty and staff of the MSU Department of Theatre are training future practitioners of the performing arts to challenge and redefine traditional theater as an artistic response to an ever-changing world. A look at what happens… In the Aud.
MFA Acting Candidates Sharon Combs, Abbie Cathcart, Eloy Gomez-Orfila, and Darah Donaher discuss how they devised and produced four original works based on current newspaper headlines. Final performances have been recorded and released for viewing is the form of a Buzzfeed-style news website, which can be found at www.untoldstoriesmsu.com
Members of the Second Stage organization discuss playwriting festival that was organized, written, performed, and produced entirely by Michigan State University’s very own aspiring playwrights. Watch the performances at theatre.msu.edu/spaces
A group of Michigan State University students virtually came together throughout fall 2020 to create a series of 5 new audio plays, each connected to the themes of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). As a starting point, we all brought in poetry to share. We read and discussed dozens of poems from diverse artists and used those as a jumping off point. The poetry evoked frank and honest conversations about race, gender, and sexuality, and every member of the ensemble shared deeply moving personal experiences about how these impact the way they move through the world today. We then created scenarios and improvised scenes until the basic structure for each play began to take place. Individuals and groups of students took on the challenge of weaving these experiences into cohesive audio dramas.
In this episode we speak with Director Sarah Hendrickson and four members of the Department of Theatre Freshman Class about their experiences with starting college online during a pandemic and the amazing creativity that came out of that experience.
Student guests include Queenmakeeda Taylor, Henry Clise, Tessa Kresch, and Sebastian Barnett.
In Pandemic'd!,MSU Department of Theatre Freshmen are followed by a fictitious camera crew as they explore their first year in college. Using humor and satire, our actors delve into the uniqueness of their experience in a university and society that have been impacted by a pandemic. It’s “Parks & Rec” meets “Glee” meets “Waiting for Guffman” meets “The Office”. It’s Pandemic’d!
Pandemic'd! A Mockumentary Comedy will premiere its first two episodes on Friday, February 12, 2021. See both episodes at https://www.youtube.com/theatre_msu. Subscribe to be notified when new episodes are released! For more information visit theatre.msu.edu/pandemic
Designer, educator and Department of Theatre Alum G Max Maxin IV returned to Michigan State to review and critique the portfolios of our BFA and MFA Design Students. In this episode we hear from Max, along with students Alaina Guttierrez, Rose Legge, Zech Saenz, Grace Foiles, Nick Casella, and Mona Jahani about their portfolio review experience and why they all chose MSU.
To learn more about these designers, you can visit their websites:
https://www.ivmaxin.com
https://www.monajahani.com
https://zechsaenz.weebly.com
https://www.nicklascaselladesign.com
https://gracefoiles.weebly.com
https://leggedesigns.weebly.com/
MSU Assistant Professor of Acting and Movement and certified intimacy director, Alexis Black, MSU Academic Specialist and AEA Stage Manager Tina Newhauser, and stage manager and Department of Theatre Alumnus Chris Badia discuss the creation of Stage Managing Intimacy, a workshop that Alexis and Tina are leading for Intimacy Directors & Coordinators. The course covers best practices and protocols that allow stage managers to support the creation and performance of consensual intimacy choreography. This workshop has been a national collaboration of theatre professionals and has evolved from the work Tina and Alexis did right here with MSU Stage Management students, like Chris, to write a stage management handbook that includes these best practices.
In her project, VOTE YOUR VOICE, Rose Legge, an MFA Design candidate, will use a technique called projection mapping to cast graphic art images on to the side of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum (MSU Broad). The presentation will empower citizens to vote by bringing attention to important information, like how to apply for a mail-in ballot or locate the East Lansing City Clerk’s office. In the transitions between the informational content, the artist has inserted visuals of timely social justice and human rights issues. The projections will be viewable from the street to passing vehicles and pedestrians alike. The content will span 20 minutes and loop for the two-hour duration. This MSU Department of Theatre special project is presented in partnership with the MSU Broad.
Theatre senior Marshall Ross discusses a film he produced over the summer of 2020. The project, entitled 'SOLO' was selected as one of 12 to receive a $500 CREATE! Micro-Grant Program from the Michigan State College of Arts & Letters Dean's Art Advisory Council. Winners were asked to utilize a variety of expressive mediums to respond critically and imaginatively to events occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ross' film follows a man alone in isolation during the lock-down order, highlighting the effects of anxiety/depression.
“I don’t necessarily have some grand world changing message I need to put out into the world right now, but I am living in this time, I see what’s going on, I am affected by it, and I wish to capture myself and my experience during this trying time,” Ross said. “Maybe it can give some perspective on the state of the world, maybe it can create a bigger clearer picture of the state of humanity.”
Subscribe to Marshall's YouTube channel to be notified when the film is available for viewing.
Theatre seniors Nate Davis & Jason Dernay discuss their new podcast The Art of Adaptation. The project was selected as one of 12 to receive a $500 CREATE! Micro-Grant Program from the Michigan State College of Arts & Letters Dean's Art Advisory Council. Winners were asked to utilize a variety of expressive mediums to respond critically and imaginatively to events occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The pair created a 10-episode podcast where they interviewed multiple artists and discuss how the pandemic has affected them and the art industry.
“By interviewing professional artists, from musicians to photographers to comedians, we want to highlight adapting collaborative art to social distancing, the individualized and market impacts of the pandemic, how they have persevered in their art, and their future as an artist,” Dernay and Davis said.
To listen to all ten episodes at The Art of Adaptation.
Michigan State University's Head of Acting and Directing in the Department of Theatre, Rob Roznowski, previews his new book The Introverted Actor: Practical Approaches. The book offers first-hand accounts, methods, and tested techniques that will enable directors and educators to create balance between introverts and extroverts in rehearsal spaces and classrooms.
Alexis Black is one of only 30 intimacy directors for theater in the United States, certified by Intimacy Directors International(IDI) and Intimacy Directors and Coordinators (IDC). She is one of only 10 certified intimacy directors employed full-time by a university and one of the two in the Midwest region. Black also works frequently with Redtwist Theatre, the only theatre company in Chicago to hire an intimacy director for a full year-in-residence. She places Michigan State University on the cutting-edge of this emerging field in the theater and entertainment industries.
In this episode, we here from Alexis Black and three MSU Theatre Spartans who have directly worked with and benefitted from intimacy direction.
In this episode, Michigan State Department of Theatre faculty member Tina M. Newhauser discusses the creation of the BFA in Stage Management. And we celebrate the first Spartans ever to receive this degree... Shelby Eppich and Troy Gährs!
This episode of In the Aud was recorded on February 28, 2020 in anticipation of promoting the upcoming production of Bonnets: How Ladies of Good Breeding Are Induced to Murder by Jen Silverman, scheduled to open on Friday, March 13.
Due to the COVID-19 (novel coronavirus) outbreak, MSU suspended face-to-face instruction on Wednesday, March 11, 2020. That afternoon Department of Theatre Faculty, Staff and Students learned all rehearsals and performances for the remainder of the 2019/2020 season would be postponed or canceled. What follows is a tribute from director Dr. Ann Folino White, Ph.D. to the audience of Bonnets.
"On Tuesday, March 10, 2020, I concluded rehearsal as I always do, with “notes”; that’s theatre jargon meaning the comments given by the director about acting or staging. That night was our second full dress rehearsal, three days before our scheduled opening. My notes were almost entirely complimentary; I had few requests for even minor tweaks. I finished by saying, “Our job is done. All we need is an audience.” Claire Wilcher, cast member and MFA candidate, jokingly asked, “So . . . we get to take tomorrow night off?”
That was Tuesday.
On Wednesday …well… you know what happened.
If we had opened the show, if you had been in the audience, you would have experienced the classic 3Ms of Theatre: Merriment, Murder, and Motorboating (the naughty kind). Ok, 3Ms isn’t a real thing; I made it up a while ago because the production did include all the aforementioned elements, and what more could anyone want in a play?!
In all truth, had you been able to join us in the Studio 60 Theatre, you surely would have been surprised by punk pieces bursting through the constricting clothing of Puritan Salem, 1800s England, and 1700s Paris. You would have awed at how three doors set in a painted wall managed to capture the whole history of women’s artistic expression as a means to fight oppression. The lighting and sound designs would have transported you to these times and places in ways not merely atmospheric, but evocative of the emotional lives of the characters. You would have seen eleven women inspirit male and female characters with abandon: You would have swooned at Laurent, and fallen in love with Claire just as he did. You would have envied Valerie’s candor and confidence. Your heart would have broken at Georgette’s loneliness for a friend. You would have hoped against hope that the maid, Webster, would get the girl – yes, sweet insecure Georgette. You would have empathized with the “unpleasant” Mrs. Wolcott in spite of yourself. You would have raged at Daniel’s humiliation of Prudence, but also scoffed at his stupidity and marveled at her resolve. As Mistress Stone faced an unjust death with dignity, you would have found yourself doubting, like Fortitude, that gender equity will ever come. (Did I mention it’s a comedy?) And, like God herself, you would have wanted to both dance in the terrible beauty of it all and blow up the whole damn thing.
You see, we got to make a whole world together. We got to make it just the way we wanted it. Our work was joyful, and it was done.
I truly wish you were there. I am mourning the fact that we could not share it, not as much for us – the designers, stage managers, assistant directors, dramaturg, technicians, crew, and cast – as for you. I’m sorry you missed it."
Freshman Showcase director and Second City Alum Sarah Hendrickson, along with students Maris Keller and Mark Zummallen, discuss using short-form improvisational comedy to help acclimate freshmen to their new lives as Michigan State Spartans and the things that are expected of them as newly minted adults!
“If music be the food of love, play on.” ― William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night Guest Director Gus Kaikkonen, actor Isa Rodriguez, and Michigan State University College of Music Composition student Trevor Smith discuss incorporating new music into a classic script and falling in love with Shakespeare.
Who will redefine gender norms as an artistic response to a changing world? #SpartansWill Frankenstein director Ryan Welsh and actor Abbie Cathcart discuss how casting Frankenstein's Creature as female completely altered their perception of this gothic horror classic.