Emily Kennedy, a junior from Portland, Oregon, wasn\u2019t planning on being a stage manager this semester. \u00a0She had already stage managed three shows at Swarthmore thus far, and as a Political Science Major with Environmental Studies and Math minors who is also pre-med and going abroad next semester, she had plenty of reason to take a break this spring and focus on academics and other extracurricular pursuits.<\/p>\n
But when senior honors Theater major Wesley Han asked her to run their upcoming production of\u00a0The Tempest<\/em>, she found herself unable to turn down the \u201ccrazy\u201d opportunity. \u00a0Kennedy knew Han from previous plays, in which at least one of them was acting, and had also seen their work as the director of last fall\u2019s Senior Company production of HIR. \u00a0She describes Han as \u201csuch an incredible artist\u201d and the chance to work with them as a stage-manager\/director team on a show this ambitious she felt was not one to be missed.<\/p>\n A major part of what sets Han\u2019s\u00a0Tempest<\/em>\u00a0apart from Swarthmore\u2019s usual theater offerings is that dance and music play an integral role throughout. \u00a0This makes sense considering their background as a cellist and pianist, whose drama experience during high school consisted almost exclusively of acting, singing, and dancing in musicals. \u00a0It\u2019s true that here at Swarthmore, Han \u201cgot used to doing straight theater\u201d and even learned to appreciate \u201chow much more room for substance there is when you\u2019re not stopping every five minutes to spontaneously burst into song.\u201d \u00a0But after a very substantial and emotionally charged directing capstone last semester in the form of HIR, which involved just four actors and explored family politics with a queer twist, Han is returning to a much more dance- and sound-oriented production this spring with\u00a0The Tempest<\/em>.<\/p>\n The whole idea of doing this show originated in large part in the desire to incorporate dance into Han\u2019s theater work, and Shakespeare provided a natural starting point. \u201cSo much of [a Shakespeare story] needs to be told nonverbally,\u201d Han says, since \u201ca lot of the language isn\u2019t accessible today.\u201d \u00a0And when dance minor Jenny Gao \u201918 planted the seed of potentially collaborating, they immediately thought that her background and movement style would make her a good fit for the role of Ariel in\u00a0The Tempest<\/em>; in this production, Ariel isn\u2019t just \u201csome dude in a costume covered in feathers who just moves around like a person,\u201d but rather a fully embodied spirit, with a cadre of lesser spirits to do her bidding.<\/p>\n In charge of choreographing most of the movement for that spirit ensemble is Louisa Carman \u201921. \u00a0Carman, a prospective Political Science major with minors in Spanish and Dance, brings to this project a wealth of dance experience applied in new ways. \u00a0In high school, she studied ballet, jazz, tap, and hip-hop, and performed with Chicago\u2019s Evanston Dance Ensemble in several of their large story-based productions, such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Alice in Wonderland. \u00a0Through Evanston, she also gained some experience creating her own work, but hadn\u2019t yet combined the two skills\u2014choreographing and storytelling\u2014in a deliberate way until\u00a0The Tempest<\/em>. \u00a0This combination proved initially difficult, as Carman says \u201cit was a challenge for me to choreograph with the mindset that every element\u2026has a role in advancing the story and adding to the overall atmosphere of the scene.\u201d \u00a0She has had throughout the process to balance the worth of her movement for its own sake with how well it contributes to the overall theatrical production.<\/p>\n Sound designer Oliver Lipton \u201918 has found himself adjusting to that balance, as well. \u00a0Lipton composed most of the show\u2019s soundtrack as an honors thesis for his major in Theater, and while he had previously produced a radioplay called\u00a0What We Fear\u00a0<\/em>as an independent study, this is his first experience creating sound for live theater or dance. \u00a0There\u2019s a lot to explore, as not only is he providing the precise cues referred to or suggested by the script, but also the more extensive and rhythmically structured music for dance. Since Ariel in this production doesn\u2019t speak onstage, he\u2019s also responsible for manipulating recordings of Ariel\u2019s voice to stand in for live lines. \u00a0All of these have to fit into a coherent soundscape that suggests the particular atmosphere and dynamics of one island, which Lipton decided was a mix of electronic and acoustic sound (dancer Gabriela Brown and Han play flute and cello, respectively, in several of his compositions). \u00a0He says that within that general auditory framework, \u201cdesigning sounds in such a way that they work for the rest of the elements at play has been very interesting.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the challenges and compromises inherent in crafting all the factors involved in a production of this scope into a harmonious whole, having so many minds in the mix is ultimately quite rewarding. \u00a0Carman, for one, says her favorite part of choreographing for the show has been \u201cworking with other creative people,\u201d and that she has \u201clearned so much about the decisions that happen behind the scenes for a production like this one.\u201d \u00a0Stage manager Kennedy, who gets to follow the whole arc of the project from before auditions to closing night, definitely agrees. \u00a0She loves facilitating and watching as \u201ca bunch of people come together to make something cool.\u201d And\u00a0The Tempest<\/em>\u00a0is shaping up to be something cool, indeed.<\/p>\n The Tempest<\/em>\u00a0will be showing in the LPAC Frear Ensemble Theater Friday, March 30th at 8pm, Saturday, March 31st at 2pm and 8pm, and Sunday, April 1st at 2pm.<\/p>\n \n Lydia Roe\u00a0’20<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Emily Kennedy, a junior from Portland, Oregon, wasn\u2019t planning on being a stage manager this semester. \u00a0She had already stage managed three shows at Swarthmore thus far, and as a Political Science Major with Environmental Studies and Math minors who is also pre-med and going abroad next semester, she had plenty of reason to take […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":7426,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7425"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7427,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7425\/revisions\/7427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.swarthmore.edu\/academics\/music-and-dance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}