Dramaturgical Note-

You might be wondering how someone could take a 16th romantic prose text and combine it with music from an 80s girl group and create a musical. Jeff Whitty read Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney in college and felt that it would be a wonderful story to put onstage. It is also no surprise that someone would use the Go-Go’s catalog to create a musical. Whitty took these two elements and transported them into a fully queer story that became more inclusive as it headed to Broadway. The show added the nonbinary character of Pythio leading to the first time a transgender woman originated a role. Our director, Brayden James, took it even a step further with placing the show in an 80s gay bar, focusing on queer BIPOC joy through the vessels of drag and ballroom. When connecting that vision to the music, you notice that the Go-Go’s upbeat songs contain lyrics with weight to them. A line that sticks out is “Can I live in your world? We can make it our world.” At the beginning of the show, the Haus of Arcadia is so focused on doing all that they can to preserve their “Beat,” but by the end, it becomes clear that the more important “Beat” is to strive for inclusivity and celebration, which is right in line with the purpose of ballroom during the 70s and 80s. We hope to weave this focus into this production to create a show that “is an insurgent act of joy that reminds us that futures other than the ones we’ve been prescribed are possible and we already possess the tools to make them real.” (Benji Hart and Michael Roberson, Time)

If you are interested in seeing more dramaturgical work, please feel free to contact me!

04/2021

The Diviners

I worked as the dramaturg and an assistant stage manager for Florida Southern College's production of The Diviners. For this show, I gave a research presentation to the performers and wrote a dramaturgical note.

Dramaturgical Note-

Some might read or watch this play and say that it is anti-religion. That (Spoiler Alert) religion is what kills Buddy Layman. But I would say that is a rather shallow interpretation of the show. Instead, I would pose that this is a play about expectations. There is an overall expectation from most of the characters about what religion and spirituality should look like. We see the church ladies expect C.C. Showers to be the saving grace of the town. Showers expected that he would turn out to be a great preacher like his father. The only character in the show who does not hold any expectations is Buddy Layman. Instead, we see this young man with a refreshing curiosity not just about this world, but about the one on beyond us. Simultaneously he is grieving and experiencing the guilt that often comes with it. With our current events, there is a new heightened meaning to these themes. In our present time of Covid, we have all had expectations that have been broken. We have all felt guilty. We have all grieved. This play covers these topics in a poignant and unexpected way. I believe that we can all learn something from Buddy Layman.

If you are interested in seeing more dramaturgical work, please feel free to contact me!