Drew Students Dissect Campus Cultures in an Original Performance
Site-specific Theater Performance Hits Campus March 3-5
MADISON--On March 3, 4 and 5, thirteen Drew students will be taking advice from Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Hamlet famously said that the purpose of theatre is to “hold/as ‘t were, the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her/ feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and/body of the time his form and pressure.” In other words, Drew students are going to take a good hard look at the face of the student body and point out the virtuous and not so virtuous reality of multicultural campus life.
Their original performance, D*$@!! VERSITY, is the culmination of work from a course entitled "Theatre in the Community" taught by Lisa Brenner of the theatre arts department. All of the material is from the students’ own experiences on and off the Drew campus, as well as interviews they conducted with fellow students, faculty, and staff members. Issues range from race, sexuality, religion, and stereotyping. After two weeks in intensive all day workshops over their January break, these 13 students have created a cohesive ensemble and have explored the diversity that Drew now embodies.
As first-year student Geneva Lewis put it, D*$@!! VERSITY tries to “tear down the stereotypes…we wanted to get beyond that, to reach people on a more personal level because that is what diversity is really about, when you can step into the other person’s shoes and relate beyond surface levels.” In addition, D*$@!! VERSITY, attempts to show perspectives of those whose day to day work makes the campus run. In interviewing public safety officials, for instance, sophomore Sherrell Johnson found that “a lot of the issues we bring up in class, it’s the same issues they have as well.”
In order to bring theatre to the community, D*$@!! VERSITY will be performed on site at the University Center lounge on March 3 at 8:00 p.m. and March 4 at 9:00 p.m., followed by a performance on March 5 at 8:00 p.m. in the Kean Black Box Theatre. All of the performances are free of charge. Since the goal of the project is to create a productive dialogue about diversity at Drew, every performance will be followed by discussions facilitated by the performers along with Drew faculty members.
This kind of theatre is something theatre major and junior Chris Metzger feels particularly excited about: “It’s nice to use what I want to do with the rest of my life to attempt to make a difference, to do my own little part to make Drew a better place for everybody.” In addition to the facilitated discussions, the entire university is encouraged to debate these issues on a special Moodle site that will be available to students, faculty, staff, and the administration.
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Posted: February 18, 2009
