The Theatre Arts department at Gettysburg College consistently provides both art and entertainment. Granted, my bias is inherent; I’m a major, as well as being an employee of the office (and, likely, the reason why our candy jar is out of ice cream soda-flavored lollipops). Still, nobody can deny that we do a LOT, despite being a relatively small department. There’s a lot coming up in the next few weeks, so keep reading and get your calendars ready!
Scenes from The Seagull
If you and your friends have had even one 4AM existential conversation, there’s a good chance you might like the works of Anton Chekov. The Fundamentals of Directing class is putting up scenes from Anya Reiss’s translation of The Seagull, giving a beautiful and thought-provoking new means with which to view the play. Students with any–or no!–amount of experience were encouraged to audition; the hard work and dedication of each director is evident in each scene, as well as their individual creative decisions.
Seeing such a high amount of collaboration between students to achieve a fantastic, thought-provoking end will inspire any audience member. Says Erica LeFebvre, one of the directors and an all-around dynamite gal, “With a newer translation, although there are elements of the play that people familiar with the usual translation would miss, [the audience] will hopefully be able to get something fairly new out of it and relate to it a little more…the language can seem a little stilted, but that’s also a consequence of just translating from Chekhov in general.”
How do we fare? Discover for yourself on Sunday, December 6 at 1:00pm in the Stevens black box theatre!
The Oldest Profession
“Hush up, and don’t tell mama,” one of the included songs in this revue says. Well, our moms are aware of us being in The Oldest Profession, a show made of songs from a variety of musicals. The director, Nicole Powell, chose to center it around a small brothel in Texas, and the plot unfurls from there. An innovative and fun aspect of this production is that some of the seating is cabaret-style. If you do NOT like being interacted with as an audience member, I would advise taking seats in the normal rows, but for those who don’t mind, have at those smaller tables!
The revue will be presented at the Stevens black box theatre on December 10th and 11th at 7 PM. I’ll keep you posted if there are preview performances. In the meantime, we hope you can join us for both of these theatrical events and many more in the future!