URI’s student-led production of “Into The Woods” opens on Thursday, April 20 and tickets are available on the URI Theatre website. PHOTO CREDIT: Dylan Hubbard | Contributing Reporter
The University of Rhode Island’s theatre production will showcase a student-led performance of “Into The Woods” starting on Thursday, April 20 in the Fine Arts Center.
As for why “Into The Woods” was chosen specifically, much more goes into it than the director deciding which play he or she wants to put on.
“We, department wide, do a rigorous season selection,” Tracy Liz Miller, assistant teaching professor and director, said. “Anyone in the department, faculty and students, are allowed to submit proposals for plays and musicals. It’s a several week process, months I would say. One of the students submitted ‘Into The Woods’ and it was a resounding favorite.”
That sort of passion for the material was evident even before rehearsal started, as the eighteen student performers chatted amongst each other and stretched and let out a series of vocal warmups all across the stage. And once rehearsal officially began, the enthusiasm became impossible to ignore.
Even without a music director, each song was sung with confidence and charm. Professionalism seems to be something the entire theatre department and each performer values above all else. There may not have been elaborately dressed sets or costumes, but that did not stop the performers from acting as if there was a packed audience and this was opening night.
Included in this professionalism are not only the verbal performances, but the physical ones as well, such as how to best hold the prop of the hen that lays the golden egg and how to best appear witch-like through hunching over and contorting one’s body. The cast offered suggestions that were just as valuable to the scenes as the director did. It is clear that the atmosphere of this production values ideas from everyone involved. There were also numerous improvised bits of physical comedy that got a laugh out of Miller as she watched over the stage.
“The expectations, because this was produced in 2004 at URI and Paula McGlasson directed it and she’s still full professor faculty here in stage management,” Miller said. “David Howard is also a full time professor and serving as our current chair and he was in it, as the baker, so there are some big shoes to fill. So, knowing that, I just wanted to do it justice and give as many students the opportunities available to them.”
The rehearsal also focused on some of the underrated aspects of a stage play. In particular the blocking, making sure everyone is spaced out in a visually interesting way and no groups of people are clumped together. This production offers much more to the eye than a stage that actors walk on from left to right and back again. There are staircases and second story platforms and performers are always ascending and descending one floor to the next as they speak.
“It’s really important for shaping the audience’s view of the show and how they feel about the show,” Set Designer Renee Surprenant Fitzgerald said. “It tells them a lot of information right away about the mood.”
Fitzgerald, who designed the set for URI’s stage, worked with a technical director, an associate technical director, a few carpenters and a workforce of theatre students to bring them to life.
“We’re trying to have a place that is kind of born out of the books but it conveys all these other places and textures and the ability to get lost in the woods,” Fitzgerald said.
Performers also had to keep multiple aspects of their performances at the forefront of their minds at all times. Not only the lines themselves, but how Miller wanted them to be delivered, how she wanted the performers to take and command the stage.
They also had to keep in mind how the choreographer wanted specific musical numbers to look and feel, any notes the assistant director had and in some cases, how to handle props in order to effectively bring them to life. It is quite the balancing act and it is one that every performer pulled off a bit more successfully each time they were given notes.
Miller has many moving pieces that she has to keep her eyes on and many hopes for this production. She hopes the work done by the entire cast and crew will be appreciated by the audience.
“I want them to feel joy, of course, after going on the journey with us,” Miller said.
She also hopes people will leave with an absolute love of theatre and storytelling, as well as the ability to take complex issues, explore them and empathize.
“As much empathy as possible,” Miller stated. URI’s student-led production of “Into The Woods” opens on Thursday, April 20 and tickets are available on the URI Theatre website.