UMW Theatre enjoyed extraordinary success in the 2016-17 season, playing to over 90% capacity for 42 performances of four productions in Klein Theatre. Building on that success, our students, faculty, and staff are already at work on the 2017-18 season.
The cast of our first production, Vanya, Sonia, Masha and Spike—Christopher Durang’s uproarious comedy on family relationships—returned to school in mid-August to begin rehearsals.
The cast for Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s ultimate sci-fi musical comedy thriller, Little Shop of Horrors, started music rehearsals this past weekend to prepare for its November opening. Little Shop is also the subject of our popular Backstage Pass where our patrons attend exclusive events and follow the students’ progress from start to finish. Student actors and stage managers rehearse six days a week to prepare for opening—a demanding and rewarding process that comes to fruition when an audience gathers in Klein Theatre to experience their work.
The Department of Theatre and Dance enjoys loyal and generous audience support from the university and greater Fredericksburg regional area. UMW Theatre is a much-loved cultural resource both on campus and well beyond.
Over 700 students participated in theatre productions in Klein Theatre last season by acting, building scenery, stitching costumes, working on lighting or sound, painting, building props, running the performances, or working in stage management, house management, ticketing, or the marketing and communications office.
While a great number of these students are theatre majors and musical theatre or arts administration minors, many are students who find their way to duPont Hall with an interest in theatre or significant experience with their high schools. Some students satisfy the experiential learning requirement of the general education through THEA 390: Theatre Practicum. This one-credit graded course allows students to learn a specific area of theatre by assuming a position of responsibility or by contributing to a collaborative team effort in support of a theatre production.
Downstairs in Studio 115, the 40-seat black box theatre, a committee of students programmed 26 performances of 15 different productions where dozens of students worked independently on theatre projects, including a First-Year Showcase that highlighted the talents of our newest students. The faculty entrusts students to produce theatre in this fully-outfitted laboratory theatre as a space in which students can put into practice what they learn in their classes.
Participating in theatre productions is an extraordinary opportunity for students to work side-by-side faculty and staff on all facets of bringing the dramatic literature to life. Students hone their time management, leadership, and collaboration skills while also earning proficiencies in the dozens of specialties that each production requires—electrics, carpentry, sewing, painting, theatre crafts, and the many aspects of stage management and arts administration. All of these contribute to students’ readiness to begin a career—whatever that may be—when they graduate from UMW.
The 2017-18 season continues next semester with Sarah Ruhl’s unexpected look at technology in our world, Dead Man’s Cell Phone (February 15-25), and closes with one of the literature’s darkest and powerful plays, Medea (April 12-22). For more information on these productions, visit FredTix.com.
Gregg Stull, Professor and Chair – Department of Theatre and Dance