Winter is one of my favorite times of the year. When most of us are hunkering down, sipping cider, and lamenting the lack of sunlight the actors, designers, and technicians at Williston are revving their engines for a marathon of theatre-making. The list of things going on is even too long for a blog post so here are a few highlights:

CHRIS PERRY VISITS WILLISTON

Former Pixar animator and Hampshire College professor Chris Perry will be on campus this Monday to discuss how to make an animated T.V. series. He will be talking about his latest project which features voice work by Williston seniors Calvin Ticknor-Swanson and Leeanna Albanese. Those two will be on-hand with Mr. Perry who may give us a sneak peak into what’s next for the project. Williston Theatre students will be attending the event but it is open to all Williston students, families, and faculty. Join us at 6:30 in the Williston Theatre on Monday December 14th.

IN THE HEIGHTS AUDITIONS

We have spent the last two night auditioning for our spring musical, In the Heights. We had forty-four students show up to auditions– about ten percent of the student body! That nearly beats our record of 54 for Pippin auditions in 2009. On Tuesday students learned about the show and read scenes for the production team. Debra Vega’s choreography, which students learned and presented last night,  was meant to give our dancers a run for their money. The piece required students to demonstrate skills in hip-hop, salsa, and traditional Broadway moves. It kept everyone on their toes (literally and figuratively).  Ms. Vega and I were both impressed by the energy and zest the crowd brought to their dance auditions! Tonight they will learn music from the show and present sixteen bars to Joshua Harper (our wonderful Director of Choirs and Music Director of In the Heights). While there certainly will be some disappointed students when the cast list goes up Monday (there are only 21 or so roles in the play) it’s good to know our campus is overflowing with talent.

THEATRE LAB IS UP AND RUNNING

Williston’s Theatre Lab program, where students are at the helm of a one-act festival that performs at the end of February, launched in November. A strong cohort of middle and upper school students have officially taken over the Williston Theatre (under the watchful eye of Technical Director Charles Raffetto). Described by Mr. Raffetto as energetic, collaborative, inspiring, and supportive, working with the theme Fish Out Of Water, this year’s Theatre Lab is certain to be both entertaining and thought-provoking.

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These are just a few of the amazing things going on at Williston as we launch the second trimester.  Check back soon to hear about the “tinydance project” visiting the Williston Scholars performing arts class and our trip to A.R.T in Boston to see  Obie-Award-winning Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812, an immersive theatre experience.

Students in Williston’s Acting and Theatre I class have been hard at work since day one mastering the elements of acting. Using techniques developed by the great Stella Adler and Uta Hagen, students learned about the imaginary circumstances, character objectives, and the other building blocks of creating a role. They applied these skills to a monologue…now they have the chance to work on those techniques with a partner.

One of the objectives of Acting and Theatre I is to examine the connection between plays and the time in which they were written. Each scene was chosen with that idea in mind. Some students are doing scenes from post-modern plays (The Laramie Project by Moisés Kaufman and Members of Tectonic Theater Project) others from American Realism (Arthur Miller’s A View from the Bridge). Through these plays we get a glimpse of the time in which the pieces were written and gain a deeper understanding of history. Students are learning that playwrights often take stories that are invisible to mainstream America and make them visible to society for the first time. In order to do that effectively, as the father of modern acting Stanislavsky discovered, actors must endow their characters with as much truth as they can. This is where acting technique comes into play.

Students were excited to start these scenes- all trimester they’ve been waiting for the moment when they can play off each other and unearth that invisible truth. So how does one do this exactly? The secret is…listening. We’re working on a few ways to build what I like to call the “listening muscle.” Using exercises devised by two legends of acting, Sanford Meisner and Michael Chekhov, students practice listening to their scene partners and responding truthfully (as opposed to responding with something clever or an idea they planned ahead of time on their own). It takes more work than one would imagine, Meisner’s repetition exercise asks actors to repeat the last line their scene partner just said before responding with their own,  but it’s well worth it. The results of this hard work will be evident in the final presentation of scenes during assessment week and I can hardly wait.

It’s always bittersweet to say goodbye to a show. Strike, the process of taking down the set and restoring the space to neutral, gives the cast and crew that opportunity. Arriving early on a chilly Tuesday morning, the folks who worked on The Trojan Women picked up power tools, crow bars, ladders, and mops and started this old theatre tradition.

We had a pretty fun time of it- although those relegated to dumpster duty (carrying loads of trash to the dumpster) might say otherwise. (We reuse everything we can but some pieces of wood were just too broken down to keep!).  Here are a few shots of the morning. By the end of the day the stage was clean enough for the marley (dance floor) which will be used in Untamed, the upcoming dance concert.

The Trojan Women opened last weekend and it was amazing to finally share our work with audiences. It didn’t surprise us that reactions to the play were strong. Each night the theatre was filled with silence when the final blackout came. It took the audience a few seconds to start their applause.

In our talk-backs audience members said they couldn’t applaud because they were processing all they had seen- it was so emotional that they needed a few seconds to come back into the real world. Greek Tragedy does this to audiences. It was created with the singular purpose to make audiences experience catharsis- an intense purging of emotions that the playwrights hoped would keep the audience from making the same mistakes the characters made. With The Trojan Women, Euripides made his voice heard: we must end the violence. While our audiences were quiet at first, they opened up in the talk-backs following the show. They were struck by how real the show felt, and were moved to draw connections to the current refugee crisis. In our own small corner of the world, catharsis worked and Euripides’ message was heard loud and clear.

Tonight we perform for the entire ninth grade class. They have studied Homer’s The Odyssey (the journey that Cassandra predicts during the play) and will, no doubt, bring their expertise to our post-show talk back.

There are still three more opportunities to catch the show this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. To learn more or order tickets visit our website.

Opening night for The Trojan Women is tomorrow! We’ve spent the last few days putting all of the pieces into place. Here are a few behind-the-scenes shots of what we’ve been up to.

CUE TO CUE

On Sunday while most of you were enjoying a brilliant fall day, the cast and crew of The Trojan Women was in Cue to Cue, a rehearsal that is exactly how it sounds. Moving from one light or sound cue to the next, our stage manager sets his stand-by lines and practices the timing for calling those cues.  While this might not sound that complicated, imagine how different a scene would be if a light cue were called a few seconds earlier or later. Sometimes we have to run cues five or six times to get it all right. Luckily, our assistant stage manager Caleb Stern kept the cast focused. Senior Khanh Pham and board operators Francois Kaeppelin and Long Nguyen did an incredible job setting the tone for the show, so much that the next few rehearsals ran almost without flaws…highly unusual for a tech. week!

COSTUMES AND MAKEUP

We’ve had lots of fun getting to play with the dirt we bought for this show. It really works!

PHOTO CALL

On Sunday afternoon we welcomed photographer Joanna Chattman to take pictures of the show. Check out  her amazing photographs on our flickr site.

The Trojan Women performs October 15-17 and 22-24 at 7:30.

Click here for more information and to order tickets.

The cast and crew are almost ready to start tech week, that magical and stressful time when lights, costumes, makeup, and props all come into the mix. The show is in great shape. What amazes me at every rehearsal is how real the play feels. It was written thousands of years ago, but the characters feel like the people we hear from in the news today who are fleeing war-torn countries.

We hope that our production, and the talkbacks that follow, will encourage our community to learn more about the current refugee crisis and what we can do, thousands of miles away, to help. Our actors have written short paragraphs about different parts of the crisis, and the connection to Euripides original intentions, that will be included in the program. I’ve included them here, along with sources to learn more about the crisis and how to help, for those of you who want to read ahead.

EURIPIDES AND THE HORRORS OF WAR

“In the end it comes to this: a wise man will never go to war.” – Cassandra, The Trojan Women, Euripides

Euripides was a visionary who helped define classic characteristics of Greek tragedy– his use of humanity itself as a tragic hero can still be seen in all forms of media today. He often wrote women protagonists into his stories, criticized the gods, and debated popular Greek political actions. This, in turn, inspired many critical reviews of his works and ultimately lead to his exile. His tendency towards political activism is especially evident in The Trojan Women, which he wrote as a direct, intentional attack on the Athenian government’s actions in Melos during the Peloponnesian War. The Peloponnesian War was a dispute between the powerful city-states of Athens and Sparta. Athens invaded Melos when they refused to help their war effort. The Athenians brutally murdered the men of Melos and took the women and children as slaves. Euripides was disgusted by the actions of his city-state and protested in the way he knew best, playwriting. Thus The Trojan Women, acutely capturing the casualties and horrors of war, was written. This play has stood the test of time, as sadly, the tragedies that occurred in Melos have continued to appear throughout history. -Leeanna Albanese, Emma Demerath, and Neha Nascimento

REFUGEES VS MIGRANTS

“A refugee is a person who “owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country …’”– The 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees

There are more than 13 million UNHCR-designated refugees as of mid-2014. These 13 million people have fled from their home countries in search of a refugee status that guarantees them citizenship and other inalienable rights in other countries around the world. These rights include free speech, and access to good medical care, local schools and work almost anywhere. But in order for refugees to attain these rights, they must first get out of their home country and into a ‘safe state’ that upholds UNHCR regulations. The journey can be very difficult. Many UN countries, against UNHCR regulations, refuse to accept refugees or only accept refugees from a certain religion or ethnicity. These countries fear these refugees hurt European economies, or that they may bring with them terrorism. These claims are unfounded, but a continuing fear of immigrants lingers even now. This affect is made bigger by the fact that local governments are the ones to decide whether someone is a refugee or not or rather whether they are given these protections or could be booted straight back to the country they fled from. Despite this, many still make the dangerous journey to Europe. -Teddy Wolfe and Henning Fischel

WHY THE EUROPEAN UNION

“In Europe, I can get treatment for my polio, educate my children, have shelter and live an honorable life,” -Batal, UN office Beirut, The Washington Post

Millions of Syrian refugees have fled Syria and so far, about 100,000 of them have risked their lives in attempts to flee to Europe. Although other Middle Eastern countries are more practical for them to immigrate to, they no longer want to remain in the region. It is becoming apparent that Syria’s neighboring countries are no longer an option, since refugees have proven to be an economic burden in the already unstable countries, and are unwelcome by the public. Especially in Turkey, which is where the largest displaced community of Syrian refugees live, many feel hopeless “If we go to Syria we die. If we stay here [in Turkey] we die. Homeless, no money. Everything we have is to go to Europe.” Unlike Middle Eastern Nations, the EU has the financial means to withstand the economic burden the refugees pose. Refugees are able to receive social welfare and benefits from countries in the EU. This means that they can find work, a home, and education so they can continue on with their lives. -Alara Akisik and Eric Chen

WOMEN AND CHILDREN AS REFUGEES

“My role as a woman has completely changed…I was independent and strong in Syria. I was free. When I got here my life went down to below zero.”-Anonymous Syrian Refugee, The Guardian

Refugee women and children face the harsh challenges that are presented to all refugees as well as additional struggles due to their gender and age. Refugee families are torn apart; children watch their mothers die. Children have their childhoods ripped from them, one little girl screams: “Please don’t kill my mother! Kill me instead!” as she watches her mother get crushed by the feet of thousands of flighty, scared refugees. Most of the three million Syrian refugees are women and children. 145,000 refugee families that have fled Syria are solely supported by widows. Women are frequently left to fend for themselves and their children, having been separated from their husbands. Navigating unfamiliar territory, women must provide for their families under hostile conditions. The lack of food, housing, work, and security is coupled with detachment from society. Children are often forced to search for work alongside their mothers in order to afford basic necessities. This keeps refugee children out of school, establishing an enormous educational barrier. Children are unable to adopt the language of their country of refuge, preventing them from assimilating into society. Their mothers are subject to sexual harassment, isolation, and humiliation in their countries of refuge. In addition to the abysmal conditions that women and children are subject to, they are also faced with the shame of losing everything. – AK Hafez, Anna Wilinsky, and Trixie Willems

For more information visit United Nations Refugee Agency

For stories about refugees from the Middle East visit the Humans of New York website.

To make a monetary donation to help refugees visit Mercy Corps

Reserve tickets for The Trojan Women.