The Student Led Theater Collective is a new student organization on campus that just put on their performance of “Stellar Woman’s Boyfriend,” a student-written play, in Quinn Hall’s Auditorium on Monday evening.
Third-year David Weber, is a theater and physics major at URI and wrote “Stellar Woman’s Boyfriend” two summers ago before bringing it to the SLTC. Weber is the Vice President of the organization and second-year Theo Fantozzi is the President.
The student organization started earlier this semester when they performed “Hamlet,” a notably lengthy play by Shakespeare.
“[Hamlet] was a huge drain and took a chunk of time,” Weber said. “I think that there are benefits from having these workshops [like “Stellar Woman’s Boyfriend”]. Doing smaller plays allows us to give more students opportunities to get their work on a stage.”
“Stellar Woman’s Boyfriend” features ‘Stellar Woman’ Marty Kennings and her boyfriend, Connor Grayling, living in Convales City, struggling to rekindle their strained relationship. Kennings’ superpowers, such as super strength and hearing, overwhelm Grayling’s ability to feel masculine in their relationship dynamic.
The cast in “Stellar Woman’s Boyfriend” included third-year EJ Caraveo, as Marty Kennings (Stellar Woman), second-year Christian Owen, as Kennings’ boyfriend Conner Grayling, third-year Alex Linn as the Postman, Stan-Lee, Charybdis the supervillain, and second-year Justin Peters as the narrator and the weatherman.
“We want to give as many kids the chance to perform and do theater as we can,” Peters said.
“Stellar Woman’s Boyfriend” was Owen’s first performance and stage read with SLTC. As a leading role, Owen read lines full of desperation and sadness, such as “being in a relationship with you makes me feel like less of a man,” as his character was going through episodes of feeling invalidated as a man in his relationship.
Caraveo delivered their own monologue, with Kennings reaching a pivotal point of rage as her self-absorbed partner refused to pay interest to her dangerous responsibilities as a superhero.
Linn performed as Stan-Lee and gave a humorous monologue depicting the “true” rise of Marvel with “99% Jack Kirby” and “1% Stan Lee”.
The SLTC hopes to include more students that are interested in theater regardless of major, according to Weber and second-year Alora McCarroll. McCarroll is a writing major and is involved in the organization and with their public relations. Featured in the stageread, Linn is a pharmacy major and Peters and Owen are both film majors. Weber is a dual-major in theater and physics.
“A lot more students wanted the opportunity to be doing more theater and putting on student shows,” writer David Weber said. “The opportunities for student-written works and directing opportunities are a little bit limited within the theater department at URI.”
In future plays, Weber says the SLTC looks forward to performing smaller stage reads, such as “Stellar Woman’s Boyfriend,” in order to get more people involved. McCarroll stresses the importance of being able to have the opportunity of being active in theater through the SLTC as a busy student with a non-theater major.
“We’re super grateful to have this opportunity ourselves,” Peters said. “We’re a really tight-knit team and we have each others’ backs.”
The play also offered Weber a chance to get feedback from the audience through a QR code offered at the end of the performance. Weber said he hopes the audience judges the work and picks it apart so he can edit the play to make it better.
The SLTC can be reached through their Instagram account, @URIstudentledtheatre.