I seriously thought I had updated this site more recently and had originally entitle this post “A Year in Review” before realizing that it has been about 6 months more than that. Ah well it is worth the wait for some of you I hope (or you are keeping up with me via Facebook for shorter interval updates).
Since our online production of She Kills Monsters in the Fall of 2020 the Gettysburg College Theatre Department has by gradations returned to in-person shows with a full, unmasked audience. We started with Antigone Now (Melissa Cooper) inviting a limited audience to watch 7 masked performers who never came within 6 feet of each other. I actually did the scenic design for the show so that one of our students could do the costume designs as her capstone. We then moved of to Love and Information (Caryl Churchill) again with a spaced audience and masked performers. The show did feature a cast of 30 but there were never more than 3 actors on stage at a time. Starting off the 2021-2022 season we mounted a full blown version of Into the Woods (Sondheim/Lapine) on the much bigger Majestic Stage. The full audience was still required to be masked and vaccinated but the fully vaccinated cast was permitted to sing their hearts out mask-free. In the winter slot I took on both the roll of costume designer and scenic designer for Twelfth Night (Shakespeare). The experience did not end up being as fun as I had hoped due to some artistic differences with some of the visiting staff but the cast was great and made it all worth the hassle. The performers were again mask-free with a masked audience. Lastly we finished up the season with the powerful play Pipeline by Dominique Morrisseau. The show which requires 5 of the 6 actors be black as part of the plot of the play was an effort by the department not only to tell Morrisseau’s amazing story but to get more students of color involved with the theatre program. Performances were unmasked and mask optional for the audience. It all felt very normal and was a heartening way to end the semester.
Now summer is here and I am working on a myriad of projects including a quilt backdrop for the Gettysburg Juneteenth Festival, the second installment of my Absalon book Trilogy, and hopefully some painting.
