COURTNEE CESTA
Special to The Leader
The scenic design of a staged production can only bring an audience so far into the production’s world. However, when the production is placed into the site in which it is set, an audience becomes even more immersed into the world of the characters.
This use of a “site specific production” will be featured in the Performing Arts Company’s upcoming production of The Spoon River Project. The Spoon River Project will be presented in the Forest Hill Cemetery this weekend.
The production was adapted from Edgar Lee Masters’s collection of poems, The Spoon River Anthology, by Tom Andolora. Each of the characters in the production are deceased and tell the stories of their lives through a series of monologues. The play was written with the intention of being performed in a cemetery.
“It’s also in the cemetery to embark the feeling of the fact that these are past spirits, that they’re coming back, and they’re telling their story through our actors who are portraying them as these other people,” explained director Anna-Beth Wheaton, senior theatre arts major with a minor in communication.
“When we were there yesterday for the first time it was really cool because we walked onto where we were performing we just got this feeling that you couldn’t really perform it anywhere else,” said Stefan Uveges, freshman theatre arts major and actor in the production.
As the performers will perform very closely alongside the actual tomb stones at the Forest Hill Cemetery, Wheaton has faced challenges in ensuring that the production is respectful to those who have been laid to rest in the cemetery.
“We don’t want to be disrespectful but, at the same time, we want to be correct with the script,” Wheaton said. “So what we’re doing as a cast, and what will be asked of the audience when they do come, is that we take a moment to pay respects for the people who are buried there and to thank them for allowing us to kind of be there. We do that before our rehearsals at the cemetery, and we do it when we leave the cemetery.” The cast will ask the audience to take a moment of silence for the inhabitants of the cemetery.
“We basically invited any sort of spirit or life-form that may be around to come and watch the show and to enjoy it and not just emote hatred towards us even though it’s a non-entity for some people,” Wheaton said. “Other people do feel these presences that are around. So we just invite them to the show; we want them to enjoy it as much as we do.”
Being performed outside, the cast also faces challenges in performing in the brisk fall weather; however, the cast is taking advantage of the benefits of performing in a natural environment. As the cemetery is an open environment, tree branches and tombstones will serve as “hiding places,” much in the way that the wings of a theater serve to shield the actors from the audience.
Despite these benefits, some theatrical elements will be added to the cemetery. As the production will take place at night, some theatrical lighting will be used to light the actors and tombstones, as well as guide the audience members safely to the space.
The Spoon River Project is a “play with music,” as opposed to a musical. In a musical, the music of the show is erupted as a result of an action or emotion onstage.