Hello Grapplers!
Welcome to our Season Response! We are so excited to share our thoughts about the 2021/22 season with you all. As always, this response was written by a collective of TTS students and is meant to reflect our initial thoughts on the season. We are aware that no artistic decisions have been made yet, and we look forward to continuing these discussions throughout next year.
Here at The Grappler, we love to - you guessed it! - grapple with the questions that arise when a play is proposed. This year, thanks to the incredible work of the TTS Season Selection Committee, we found ourselves excited by the diversity of stories and potential energy of this season. Thank you so much to the committee and all of its members; we are so grateful for your work.
Without further ado, we present The Grappler's 2021-2022 Season Response!
Peerless - Emily Townley
This November, the cast and crew of Peerless will bring an intimate black box show to the Merle Reskin mainstage. Peerless, by Jiehae Park, is a modern adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Set in a contemporary high school, the story centers on two sisters, L and M, who are both trying to get into “The College” and will stop at nothing, even murder. The play begins as a high school dramedy a la ‘Saved by the Bell,’ but soon turns into a murder fest a la…well, Macbeth. One of the key themes of Peerless is its focus on the racism that Asian-Americans experience, especially when it comes to the “model minority” myth. The play centers the current conversation on affirmative action by taking a timeless story of ambition and complicating the stakes. After all, L and M are doing what they have been told is the “right thing” by everyone in their lives.
The Theatre School’s vision states that it is “making anti-racism a cornerstone of TTS faculty and staff training by scheduling consistent and continuous opportunities to share best practices, learn from experts, examine syllabi, and develop anti-racist strategies”. By casting Asian-American actors and working closely with 4A (Asian Artists of America Alliance), I hope that The Theatre School adheres to its vision.
Peerless is the second play in the 2021-22 that is Shakespeare-inspired. This play will be a perfect opportunity for actors to showcase their comedic as well as dramatic chops and give Shakespeare a new life for modern times.
Everybody - Ember Sappington
If there is one thing about the pandemic that has made me miss theatre the most, it has been the fact that its liveness and immediacy has been taken away from us. MFA1 Christine Freije has picked up on the longing for closeness and yearning intimacy in her choice for Healy 1. Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins is an adaptation of the medieval morality play Everyman, with a twist. Five roles in the show are cast each night by lottery, with 125 different possibilities for cast variations.
Freije chose this show because it amplifies the possibility of live theatre. I think it’s brilliant, especially in contrast with the virtual theatre productions that thespians worldwide have all been subjected to for the past year now. Everybody is a play that makes the audience feel like anything could happen at any moment. I think it’s safe to say that we all need some surprises and twists to break us from the monotony of quarantine life, and this play can supply that not only for the audience but also for the team creating it.
One might question whether it is the right time to produce a play about death and dying, but Everybody is filled with joy in surprising ways. There's nothing more necessary at this moment than a reason to laugh. Everybody balances its dark moments with humor, and it ends with a message that love will always be with us.
The character of Everybody loses friendship, family, material possessions, their senses, beauty, strength, and mind, and through the course of the play learns to move on and let go. I don’t think a single person who has lived through the past year hasn’t lost parts of all of these things somewhere along the way. This play unites us all in Everybody and takes us on the journey of processing these losses. Whenever a character speaks to the protagonist, they also speak to us. This poignant play is necessary at this moment; it is the perfect piece for who we are and where we are as a community, as an industry, and as individuals.
Freak Show Comedy Festival - Carlie C. Goodlett
The production filling the Watts 1 slot in the 2021-2022 TTS Season is the first annual Freak Show Comedy Festival. Directed by Liz Joynt Sandberg, Head of Comedy Arts, the festival will feature different performance styles including improv, stand up, drag, roasts, and pranks. Liz described Freak Show as an opportunity to let artists express the weirdest parts of themselves, exercise creative freedom, and show their truest selves to the world. Freak Show is centered on a simple mantra: “Let your freak flag fly!”
Liz’s concept of practicing comedy as both world-building and homemaking is one that struck me. While quarantining with Comedy Arts majors, I see a full world being created every week with each new sketch they write. However, this showcase is not just open to Comedy Arts majors. Any TTS student can be involved. Very rarely in TTS do I get to see actors, directors, dramaturgs, lighting designers, etc. work together, and this festival provides the opportunity for multi-department collaboration not just behind the scenes, but also on stage.
The turnaround time in the Comedy Arts curriculum is quick. Through having her students write a new sketch, revise it, perform it, and forget about it every week, Liz brings the fast-paced nature of comedy into each of her classes. I suspect this might also be the case with Freak Show. If my suspicions are correct, I can sense some conflict arising from other majors who are used to a longer rehearsal process.
That being said, Freak Show is a fun and exciting way to open our season for next year. With all the craziness in the world and all the harsh realities of a pandemic, having a laugh for an hour or two is the perfect way to release this stress. As Liz pointed out, comedy delights the brain, and bringing in the new school year with a moment of comedy will set a positive tone for our TTS community.
Detroit ‘67 - Claire Hayes
In Winter 2022, TTS will showcase Emil Thomas’s production of Dominique Morrisseau’s Detroit ‘67. The play follows two siblings who transform their basement into an after-hours joint just as their city erupts in the 1967 race riots. From Emil’s description of the play as “a Motown family drama about community and evolution”, I predict that this production will be composed of strong bonds and legendary beats. While Lisa Portes was presenting Emil’s pitch on his behalf, it was easy to spot the physical responses of excitement that rippled across the Zoom boxes. This reaction reminded me of the dedication and admiration that the TTS community brings to our art.
Detroit ‘67 is well suited to the 2021-22 season. From the many surveys and community conversations implemented by the Season Selection Committee, there is a school-wide interest in diverse narratives. The play also discusses families as they strive to create generational wealth and break the poverty cycle. Detroit ‘67 will be a fresh choice for our conservatory. I am curious about the questions that will arise from this production among the creative team and the general TTS community.
As TTS performs this play what do we hope to say about our future, one that hopefully faces these issues head-on? I may not have answers to these questions for another year, yet I am confident the community will proudly shout their responses. I look forward to the build to the opening night of Emil’s production of Detroit ‘67.
Fefu and Her Friends - Artemis Westover
María Irene Fornés’ Fefu and Her Friends, directed by Mallory Metoxen, will be the reintroduction to the human connection that we all need right now. In this play, Fornes embraces the kind of complex relationships that we, after a year of isolation, have lost. Her depictions of radically human love are an essential part of our season.
This show will play to the strengths of the TTS casting pool, as it depicts an ensemble of women given ample time to develop and expose their true characters. To say that these women have depth would be putting it lightly and Metoxen and her cast will have their work cut out for them.
Additionally, this play takes place in five locations, and the audience travels through the house to view the action in four individual rooms. This prospect raises all sorts of exciting questions for designers. How will the rooms be separated? How will the audience move through space, and what will those pathways look like? Fefu & Her Friends presents the best kind of challenge an artist can get; it gives those that step up to the plate the opportunity to try something new and unexpected.
After a cursory exploration of Fornés’ life, it is clear that to understand the women in the story, one must understand the woman who created them, and I am looking forward to learning more about Fornés. Fefu & Her Friends is a play that nourishes. It is exactly the kind of theatre that so many of us have been craving. Like a good meal, each element of this story needs time and respect to properly develop, and like a good meal, the result will be a filling set of love stories and friendships.
Squirrel Girl - Camille Pugliese
The world is introduced to a new kind of superhero in Squirrel Girl Goes to College. This zany play by Karen Zacarías will be filling the winter quarter Playworks slot next year, showing us all what heroes are made of. The play is based on a comic book of the same name and I am very interested to see the ways that director Michelle Lopez-Rios combines the mediums of comics and theatre. This unique combination also creates opportunities for designers to stretch their imaginations beyond realism and into the world of funny pages and wild powers.
Doreen, our Squirrel Girl, is the fierce, fun, and feminist superhero who will be rescuing us from our quarantine. After the challenges of last year, young people have been growing up faster than ever before. They have had to become their own heroes. My wish for this play is that students from all backgrounds will see themselves represented on stage. As the opening of the Playworks season, this play will also welcome Chicago’s best audience, the students who attend weekday matinees, back to the Merle Reskin. Squirrel Girl Goes to College tackles the challenges of growing up, while holding on to a uniquely playful element sure to delight any audience regardless of age.
Much Ado About Nothing - Ross Milstead
Nostos, a theme in Ancient Greek literature most famously realized in the story of Odysseus, translates to ‘return.’ With TTS intending to resume live performance after a long and perilous absence, it seems we’ll have our own nostos next fall. Yet we don’t have any plans to restore the status quo. Our absence, in which the pandemic has upended life as we knew it, has also seen the revitalization of a conversation on systemic racism, capitalism, and white supremacy. The renewed scrutiny of these American norms and ideologies has touched all of its cultural pillars, theatre included.
The shows in the 2021-22 season are radical, new, bold, and socially conscious. But if you ask me, the show with the most potential just might be the classical and slightly problematic one on the list; the Healy 3 production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
Now, hear me out! The classics provide opportunities for subversion and examination of our values. And not only do I feel that the best work I’ve seen at TTS has been stagings of classical texts, but I also trust that Rebecca Willingham, who is directing the show, will create a Much Ado that’s brilliantly self-reflective and subversive of the patriarchal values in its text.
The world she envisions for Much Ado is a contemporary staging where high school gossip and internet slut-shaming give a form to the action in Shakespeare’s play and provide a much-needed critique of the harmful misogyny that starts for girls in high schools and continues long after. This concept seems like it has the potential to be what only the greatest contemporary classical stagings can; a springboard for revitalized discourse on topics that need to be discussed, a potential engine for change. I can’t wait to see it.
Tall Enough - Liz Bazzoli
The simultaneous unpredictability and tedium of pandemic life are maddening and exhausting. Quarantine has been especially excruciating for children, particularly those already braving the waves of adolescence. Middle school is a difficult stage of growing up, and middle schoolers today are facing a whole new set of challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This is exactly why Tall Enough, written by Gloria Bond Clunie and set to make its world premiere in the Reskin next spring, is a relevant and important addition to the 2021-22 season. Tall Enough follows a group of middle school physicists who, with the powers of teamwork and science, learn to believe in themselves and overcome their fears. The world post-COVID feels bigger and scarier than ever before, and Tall Enough is a reminder that kids are strong and can face whatever the world might throw at them.
For students who have been learning remotely for the past year, Tall Enough is also a reminder of the power of collaboration and friendship. It’s also important that the play features BIPOC characters and tackles serious issues like poverty and inequity. As director Chris Anthony said in the season announcement, “young people know a lot about the world.”
Kids have lived through the grief, anxiety, and hardship of the past year. This is especially true for BIPOC children and children struggling with poverty, who have been hit hardest by the pandemic. Tall Enough will show children that they have agency over their own lives in a moment where they might feel powerless. Even in a post-quarantine world, many kids will still be struggling, and it is imperative that they know that they are loved and that they are enough. And there might be robots! What could be more exciting than that?
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