Students perform their finalized “welcome.” script.
“You are welcome here. You are enough.”
These are the words of co-director Joel Egger, as well as the message of Doane’s first performance piece of the season, “welcome.”, which ran Sept. 25-29. The devised showcase presented topics of loneliness, community and ultimately: what it’s like to feel (un)welcome.
The thirteen actors were not given character names, so as to allow audience members to put themselves in the shoes of the situation the cast was portraying. The show began with intense music and the cast walking around the central stage in a snaking pattern, joining one-by-one. The show was then split into multiple scenes, where each depicted characters either feeling ostracized or finding community with other characters.
One scene that stood out to the cast and crew was the “garden” or “flower” scene, representing different seasons or phases a person could go through.
“We used flowers and different parts of nature for each of our lines with different hidden meanings behind them,” freshman actress Isabel Mancinas said. “Mine was very personal about going through struggles and mental health issues, to then growing and having support of my family and friends and helping me get stronger and be the person that I am today.”
Most of the lead first-year students had never been in or participated in a devised performance before.
“I think [it was more rewarding] because we had to really be more creative and collaborate with each other, not having a script,” freshman actress Helina Cooper said. “We had to really do a lot of group mind activities and just trusting each other as the ensemble.”
The strangeness of walking into rehearsal without a script, however, wore off quickly.
“At the beginning, I hated it because it was just a lot of repeating it and doing the same thing,” freshman actor Byron Travis said, “but then once we actually got into the scenes and growing as a group, it was very fun and I got to get close with the people.”
The symbolism represented in the devised showcase impacted the cast as well as the crew.
“They wrote from their heart and they wrote what they believed in,” freshman assistant stage manager Daisa Smidt said. “I think it was really cool to see it come to life on stage.”
Devised showcase comes at one cost, that being itsit’s inability to be recreated.
“It’s just weird the fact that it’s not a show that you can repeat,” Cooper said. “No one will ever see it again.”
The next Doane theatre production will be “I’m Gonna Marry You Tobey Maguire,” on Nov. 13-15.
