In the crowded Harold Acting Studio on Williamson Avenue, 11 senior acting majors take their places for rehearsal. On the fringes of this cluttered scene of make-believe, Luke Gunn sits in a corner, practicing his lines, while Jennifer Roberts, Molly Dougherty and Mallory Marcus joke with one another, holding back laughter and whispering in a manner similar to the characters they portray once they cross over the imaginary threshold to take center stage. Dylan Moon, director of “Columbinus” breaks down the script of the opening scene line by line.
Across campus in the Black Box Theatre in Elon’s Center for the Arts, six actresses, directed by senior Lyndsay Burch, spread themselves out across a roughly imaginable apartment set for a rehearsal of “Beautiful Bodies.”
This fall, Elon University’s 16 senior BFA acting students are taking what they have learned and practiced during the last three years as they prepare for their upcoming thesis productions of “Columbinus” by Stephen Karam and P.J. Paparelli, and “Beautiful Bodies” by Laura Shaine Cunningham.
The senior thesis requirement for BFA acting majors has been in place for 19 years, but the additional requirement for seniors to stage full productions has only been in place for roughly a decade. Previously, BFA acting majors were required to stage one production in the fall and one in the spring. In recent years, though, the Department of Performing Arts revised its policy to dictate that there be two shows in the fall, sharing the same set and production teams. The funds necessary for mounting two full-length productions are entirely self-generated, a practice that seniors Claire Manship and Lauren Bambino, playing the respective roles of Martha and Nina in “Beautiful Bodies,” found can be quite demanding on both the mind and wallet.
“Even though all majors have a senior thesis requirement, our thesis requires hundreds more hours than other majors and we all have to be in the same place at the same time,” Manship said. “Normally when seniors write a thesis, it may take the same amount of time and work and effort and thought, but you do it on your own. Ours is entirely collaborative.”
And being in charge of everything takes its toll on the students. Both casts agreed the time constraints placed upon them, in addition to balancing classwork and their personal lives, creates a less than ideal time commitment.
“We only have a month to rehearse and produce two full shows, which means rehearsal seven days a week on top of all of our classes,” Dougherty said. “It puts a lot of pressure on us to get off-book as soon as possible in order to have time to explore and develop our roles.”
In addition to funding the costs of sets, costumes and performance rights, additional money is raised to help bring in agents to help assist the actors in obtaining their first jobs, a cost of roughly $2,000 per person, according to Bambino. But this need for substantial fundraising is beneficial to actors in the long run and helps clarify their expectations of working after college.
“Self-generated projects like these are, a lot of times, how you get to work when you first get out of school,” Bambino said.
From the page to the stage
When it came to the selection process of their thesis productions, choosing a play was just as much a reflection of the actors’ personal values as it was a desire to demonstrate their skills.
The selection process itself was fostered by a combination of group discussion and a simple majority voting system.
“All the seniors brought forward plays that they thought should be considered,” Moon said. “We would read the shows and then talk about if we liked them or not. If it seemed like enough people liked it, we put it on a list and then when it got closer to the show selection date, we would have votes and eliminate some plays.”
Senior Sean Liang, playing the role of Freak in “Columbinus,” said having differing opinions in the selection process required sacrifices to be made in order to reach a consensus.
“The show selection was difficult,” Liang said. “We had a lot of opinions about the shows we were considering, and we had to be sensitive to each other and we also had to make sacrifices.”
Liang also noted the validity and message of the shows was of paramount importance. Settling for easier material was not an option.
“Something that I told our class as we were discussing this is that it is our chance to do whatever show we want,” he said. “I didn’t want us to settle for something because it was easy.”
Bowling for Columbinus
“Columbinus” was written by playwrights Stephen Karam and P.J. Paparelli of the United States Theatre Project. Based on interviews and official documents as well as diaries, email correspondence, Internet posts and homemade videos left behind by the Columbine shooters, “Columbinus” is a profanity-laden brutally realistic glimpse into the thoughts of the misunderstood teenage mind. It strives to highlight how the actions of the infamous Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are by no means an isolated incident, but sparked by a combination of repressive social stereotypes and customs common in American high schools.
The play opens with a cacophony of voices, each lending to a typical idea running through a student’s mind as they wake up in the morning. Where they are, what they need, what they want but don’t have. “One more cig, one more kiss, a little more time for taking a piss.” Set in a stereotypical, fictionalized American high school, “Columbinus” follows the lives and struggles of eight common teenage archetypes, who are not given names but labels, such as Jock, Prep, Faith and Perfect.
[quote]I think one of the greatest things theater can do is hold the mirror up to society and show us things that we are potentially overlooking. -- Dylan Moon, senior[/quote]
Through analysis of other historically violent or misunderstood individuals, like the biblical figure Cain or the murderous 1920s duo Leopold and Loeb, “Columbinus” strives to offer a glimpse into the minds of those who use violence out of a desire to be noticed and severe hatred of being judged. The characters embodying Klebold (“Loner”) and Harris (“Freak”) speak to the audience in a ghostly metaphor on their rationale and their thoughts on what they did, whilst their parents lament the loss of their sons and the horror they have wrought on the community and on the world.
Moon said “Columbinus,” while a painful reminder of the events of that tragic day, speaks volumes about the manner in which society polarizes itself.
“Marginalization can have very serious consequences,” Moon said. “We cannot afford to write off anybody just because we do not agree with them or because they are different.”
Moon also mentioned his hope for “Columbinus” is to act as a stepping stone toward proactive discussion.
“It would be really awesome if after seeing it, people had an open conversation about it,” Moon said. “I think one of the greatest things theater can do is hold the mirror up to society and show us things that we are potentially overlooking.”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
Although the title of the play suggests a focus on the physicality of women’s bodies and the ever-present dilemma of what is beautiful, “Beautiful Bodies” instead focuses on the emotional dynamic of female relationships.
This comedic play doesn’t stray far from modern female performances such as those in “Sex and the City,” but it encourages women to recognize and keep close relationships in their lives. Manship noted the propriety of the show’s thematic resemblance to the famous HBO series.
“This show is based on the ‘Sex and the City’ generation, and we were of an age to be watching shows like that and wishing that was our life,” Manship said. “You get excited about the prospect of getting to play in the ‘worlds’ that you imagined but didn’t know really existed.”
“Beautiful Bodies” doesn’t seek to solve all of women’s problems at a time, nor does it thrive on solving a profound or existential conflict. It simply shows a few women in their mid-30s with struggles, anxieties and joys and, above all, one another to help figure things out.
“The message of ‘Beautiful Bodies,’ if I had to sum it up, would be that everyone undergoes changes in life and hits many obstacles, but all of that becomes more bearable when you have people around you that love you,” Manship said. “All change is beautiful, just as all bodies are beautiful in their own way.”
The rest of the cast agreed, with Manship adding another personalized theme to consider. “One of the permeating messages of this play is to love who you are, and if you can own up to who you are, other people will accept you for it,” she said.
Spreading the message
Senior Rebekah Carmichael said the whole process is about dedicating oneself to the material.
“It’s one thing to just do a show, it’s another to do a show you truly care about,” she said. “I feel like for both of these shows, we picked material that we really cared about and want to spread.”
Each actor had differing expectations of how their respective shows will be received, but as Bambino stated, the minimum goal is to entertain.
“Everyone’s experience is going to be different,” Bambino said. “And honestly, I will be happy if people walk out of the theater and just say, ‘That was fun. I enjoyed the last two hours.’ Because that’s what we do, we’re here to entertain.”