MAGGIE GILROY
Staff Writer
As the week drew to a close Thursday evening, members of the Performing Arts Company were hard
at work in President Horvath’s house: rearranging her furniture, eating her food and admiring her extensive teapot collection. What at first sight may have appeared to be a bizarre student takeover were actually the preparations for this past weekend’s production of the House of Yes.
Directed by senior theatre arts major Marisa
Caruso, the production took place in two sitting rooms in the President’s house giving the audience a unique theatre experience.
With a lack of space to hold the performance on campus, Caruso was inspired to stage the show in a house after having heard of modern productions staged in houses in New York City. After performing with The Riveters for an open-house held by Dr. Horvath, Caruso came up with the idea to hold the performance in the President’s house.
“She’s so nice, so open … she was gung-ho from
the start,” said Caruso.The play revolves around an upper-class family in Washington D.C. with a fear of and disdain for the bourgeois. Their desperate attempt to shut out the outside world accumulates in a series of secrets revolving around mental illness, murder and incest.Upon entering the house, audience members were required to take off their shoes and hang up their jackets as though they lived in the house as well. Along with cast members Jenna Vezina, Shane Zimmerman, Kristina Miranovic, Jake Bradley and Lindsay Zimmerman, the house served somewhat as a sixth character in the play, adding a history that was crucial to the show.
“This house has been here since 1855, so what secrets are in these walls?” Horvath wondered. “I
really think that all families have secrets, maybe not like this … but there are all kinds of secrets that have been part of this house since 1855.”
“And you can’t really get that sense from a set,” Horvath continued. “Even if you build a really
elaborate set, actually being in this space already sets the mood, you know; ‘I wonder what happened here.’”
“Because the show takes place in a rich upper-class home, and it’s all these secrets being revealed to the audience one-by-one, kind of slowly, having the play actually take place in a house really gives the audience the feeling of looking in on a family’s deepest darkest secrets,” said Caruso. “This voyeuristic sensation. It creates that atmosphere of what’s behind the closed doors, what you can’t see behind the ‘house of yes’.”
“It’s a really different theatrical experience from sitting in the dark, and the people on the stage, and you’re safely away from what they’re doing, no one who comes to this performance is going to be safely removed from anything,” explained Horvath. “So, the uncomfortable moments from that play are inescapable. I think that will be interesting.”
As the result of the play taking place in two rooms of the house, the living room and the guest bedroom, audience members were required to move from two separate rooms on the ground floor of Horvath’s house. The actors inhabited the room prior to the audience’s arrival, giving the illusion of intruding on the lives of the family.
“And if we’re going to have a house, why not make it even more realistic?” said Caruso. “Rather
than changing the set in one room … they’re already entering this home, and we’re trying to make it as
complete an emersion into this home interior as possible. So, we’re having them walk between rooms, they’re forced to spy. They’re forced to look for the drama.”
“This is a highly immersive show for the audience and for the actors,” said Vezina, who plays Jackie O.
“It’s a whole new experience, I’ve never done anything like this before,” said Miranovic who plays
Mrs. Pascal, the matriarch of the family. “I’ve never actually been in an area that could potentially be where these characters are living … but to be able to just see the house and realize that, as we’re these
characters, it is our house.”
Although Horvath has only lived in the house since August, she has made the house her own. When looking beyond the action of the play, audience members will notice Horvath’s extensive teapot collection, which is featured throughout the entirety of the house.
Horvath is the owner of over 200 teapots. It all started with a dark blue teapot that was made in East
Liverpool, Ohio, where she took her first teaching job. Upon learning about the job, Horvath’s mother
gave her the teapot, which was a gift she had given her dad when she was nine and the first thing she
bought with her own money.
She received two other teapots as gifts that same week.
“So, if you have three of something,” Horvath explained, “you have a collection.” Horvath began to
build on to her collection but was never able to display them until she moved into the house in August. She took advantage of the many shelves throughout the house and expanded her collection, including teapots from countries such as Mexico and China, as well as a vintage teapot from the 1940s.
The cast and crew were humbled by the president’s hospitality. Prior to the performance Horvath gave the company a tour of the house, letting them in on the house’s own quirks and secrets.
When they arrived for a dress rehearsal Thursday evening, each of the fireplaces were roaring, creating a homey ambiance. Members of the cast and crew were greeted by three pots of soup on the stove and a loaf of bread all made by Horvath herself. She also laid out grapes, crackers and cookies, allowing the cast to make themselves at home.
Horvath appeared just as excited about the production as the cast and crew members, taking pictures and exchanging entertaining jokes and stories with students she chose not to watch the run-through, so
as to receive the full experience on opening night.
“I thought they did a great job,” Horvath said prior to the opening night performance. “It was really fun to see what they did in this space. And it did seem right. It seemed like a set, but I know it’s real.”
“For us to get up and move made it interesting, too, because you wonder what’s going on in the other
room,” Horvath continued. “Especially when we knew there were weird things going on in each place, you wonder what’s going on over there that we can walk in on.”
When asked about her teapots; “It was their first show,” she explained jokingly. While she claimed they were nervous, they didn’t let it show.
In a time when college controversies are constantly making headlines, it is reassuring to witness the
president of a university who is active in supporting the creativity and success of her students. Having
written her dissertation on medieval drama, Horvath is an avid theatre fan herself.
“I really like experimental theatre,” said Horvath. Even if it doesn’t work, if they try something different, I think it adds an element of surprise to the audience.”