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MARIA MELCHIORRE
Staff Writer
On the night of March 10, the back of Reed Library, towards the Japanese gardens, was transformed into a theater. Trees, leaves and other scene setters were projected onto a screen at house left. The library’s seats were arranged into rows, four deep, with an aisle in the middle, reminiscent of a church. Such a setup was fitting for a show that dealt much with the historical baptist South.
As students and community members entered the library that evening, the only indicator that a show was taking place were a couple of strategically placed signs directing audience members to the back of the library. Despite the singing, shouting, and gunshots throughout the piece, the sounds did not carry to the main part of the library. The cavernous building turns out to be a good setting for a small play.
The play, “Watching God,” was adapted by musical theatre BFA senior Anna Chicco from Zora Neale Hurston’s 1937 novel “Their Eyes Were Watching God.” The funding and catalyst for the adaptation and production came from the National Endowment for the Arts Big Read initiative. Through this program a community receives funding for various community events centered around themes and lessons from a single novel. Last year’s book was “The Great Gatsby.” A couple of actors from last year’s production, including director Janie Sharon, were also involved in Thursday night’s production of “Watching God.”
“It’s a really cool process where we bring the production to different schools in order to promote reading and theater,” said Nick Cahill, a veteran actor with The Big Read and Sharon’s Venture Productions company (which organized the piece). The play was performed on campus, as well as at local Fredonia and Dunkirk schools throughout the week.
The play, which was written by Chicco entirely in vernacular English, condensed the 219-page novel down to just 36 pages. This minimalist notion, paring down to the story’s essence, could also be seen in the costuming, acting and set design. The set consisted of a table, chairs and a screen for the scene setters. The costumes were simple and fit the period, being derived from the actors’ own wardrobes.
Nia Drummond, a senior vocal performance major, led the ensemble down the aisle singing Amazing Grace. She later led in the traditional gospel song “His Eye is on the Sparrow,” also the title of another one of Hurston’s novels.
“She has such a beautiful voice,” said Zoe Kiriazis, a senior theater and arts administration major. “When she sings, it just makes you feel things.” Drummond’s voice carried through the space and “really brought you back to the time period and the struggle they were playing,” continued Kiriazis of the essence of the traditional African American music.
“It’s important to put underrepresented characters not only in theater productions, but — historically, we don’t talk about these things,” said Kiriazis of the primarily black ensemble. “The last show we did here that had a majority black cast was The Piano Lesson back in 2012.”
The availability of roles for black actors is an issue addressed not only on our campus, but nationally and globally, as well as the diversity of theater-going audiences.
“Just recently I read an article about the Broadway production of ‘A Raisin in the Sun,’” said Kiriazis. “It discussed how with increasing amounts of black roles, more black people are coming to the theater.”
Theaters are seeing expanding audiences as they diversify their casts. This additionally begs the question of diversity in narratives that are not from the standpoint of the disenfranchised: A struggle from college campuses all the way to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.