ELENA FITZGERALD
Special to The Leader
The Robert W. Marvel Theater staged a musical last month called “Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812.” Audience members walked in to see dazzling lights, multiple stages and tables for people to sit and watch the show. It was unlike any production Fredonia has seen before.
Directed by Jessica Hillman-McCord, and produced by the Department of Theater and Dance, the production ran from Oct. 20, through Family and Friends Weekend, until Oct. 28, with multiple evening shows and a matinee.
“Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812” follows Natasha as she waits in Moscow for her fiance Andrey to return from war. She lives with her cousin, Sonya, and godmother, Marya, who help her around Moscow.
The show also follows Pierre, a man in a bad marriage just trying to get through his life. He misses his best friend Andrey, Natasha’s fiance.
The plot of the show is based on a small portion of the novel “War and Peace,” written by Russian author Leo Tolstoy in 1865.
The design process for the production began in the spring, and resulted in multiple performing stages within the audience and a large staircase on the stage that was utilized throughout the show. This is what made Great Comet an interactive experience with the audience.
“A lot of thought was put into the front end of the process. Actors and audience members both had to give consent [to sit in audience participation seats], as actors would kiss audience members on the hand and give them props and have conversations,” said Olivia Kaye, a junior theater production and design major. Kaye was the stage manager of the production.
“It became a point of conversation as well when we were talking about where to place the pit band. The conductor, Dr. Paula Holcomb, had to be somewhere where the pit band and the actors in the house and on the stage could see her,” she explained. “We ended up placing her pretty much center-stage, and we placed monitors throughout the house … so that everyone had a clear vantage point.”
The process of adding stages also added extra rehearsal time for the cast in the Marvel Theater. Hillman-McCord said, “We couldn’t fit that entire layout in a rehearsal room, necessitating more time to space the staging in the actual theatre ahead of tech.”
During the show, audience members had conversations with actors, had items handed to them and sometimes even added to the plot of the show. “I think it really helped keep the audience engaged throughout the show, making it a little more active,” said Connor Raposa, a junior acting major with a minor in dance. Raposa played Pierre in the production.
“Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812” not only had a spectacular stage, but complex songs with cast and pit band integration. With the pit band already being on the stage instead of underneath it, certain members of the band would walk downstage to play their parts while the cast members performed. Cast members would also play instruments on stage during songs throughout the performance.
Raposa spoke about the integration of the pit band and the cast, as he played the piano and learned accordion for his role. He mentioned how it was not learning the instruments that was difficult, but incorporating the instruments into the storyline of his character.
“I had to come up with ways to justify why this guy happens to be playing piano or accordion in some of these songs,” he said. “I was presented with lots of challenges like the rest of the cast, and I think all of us rose to the challenge.”
Since Great Comet was a production featuring almost entirely students, it was a learning opportunity for many of them. With so many people involved in the production, and with the amount of rehearsals put into the production, the students involved worked hard to make the production as close to perfection as it could be.
“We had three days of extra time on the stage to restage the entire show so it could fit in the space it was made for, instead of the dance studio,” Kaye explained.
Hillman-McCord reflected on the fact that, “It was a particularly hardworking cast, production team and crew, all dedicated to getting this unique and very challenging work of art on its feet.”“Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812” was only able to be produced because of the hardworking team of students that brought an incredible amount of expertise to their roles, both on the stage and behind it.