Meet the Cast of Argonautika (Part 2 of 2)

Welcome back to our tribute to the amazing actors of Argonautika. If you haven't had a chance to see our previous blog post, "Meet the Cast of Argonautika (Part 1 of 2)" it featured the following eight actors:

Christine Detweiler
Tommy Kindall
Olivia Ockey
Jordan Peterson
Samm Madsen
Ezra Chia
Molly Howard
Ian Buckley

This blog post features the remaining eight actors in the show. This post is also unique because it features the cast members (1/4 of the cast, in fact) from Utah Valley University (UVU)! This is a joint-university production, mainly because our director Janine Sobeck Knighton is a professor at UVU and worked for BYU as well. We hope you enjoy reading about their backgrounds, favorite things about being the show, future theatre goals (perhaps you will see them somewhere in the future), and getting a behind-the-scenes sneak peek into their work in rehearsals.

Don't forget to buy your tickets! Our show runs from June 2-17 in the Pardoe Theatre (HFAC) on campus. See you there!

Meet Dylan Wright

Character: Jason

From: Sacramento, California

College: fourth semester at BYU, pre-Acting major

Favorite thing about acting in this play: I enjoy being able to collaborate with other actors and to learn from them as they refine their craft. I am humbled to be a witness to such incredible talent, and lastly, I appreciate being able to pick apart the mind of Jason.

Theatre goals: I would love to major in acting one day, and perhaps take a swing at directing and writing my own pieces.

dylan — Dylan portraying Jason after he has been made leader of the Argo and has collected his Argonauts to journey with him on the search for the golden fleece. He plays to Zeus for protection and a communal drink is offered to the crew.

Meet Hannah Staley

Characters: Hera, Alcimede, and Phineus

From: Sebring, Florida

College: Freshman at BYU, on the pre-Acting track (BFA)

Favorite thing about acting in this play: My favorite part about acting in Argonautika is the “dress-up” aspect of it; I love children’s theatre, so I love that my main character Hera (as well as the whole show itself) allows me to embrace the side of me that is still fueled by imagination and dreaming.

Theatre goals: I want what I think every actor wants; to be able to do what I love. I want to develop my skills here at Brigham Young. I want to unlock doors that allow me to improve my craft for the rest of my life.

hannah — Hera is a trickster impersonators. Here, Hannah portrays Hera, acting like Medea's aunt Circe while Athena looks on.

Meet BJ Warner

Characters: Castor, Pelias, and Eros

From: Alpine, Utah

College: Senior at UVU, majoring in Theater with an emphasis in directing and scriptwriting

Favorite thing about acting in this play: I love the dynamicity of the characters in this show both played by me and by others. It’s really incredible to watch and has stretched me in so many different ways. Diving into an angry old man, a clueless bro, and a frivolous child at heart all in the same performance really requires a lot of focus and fun.

Theatre goals: I have many goals and aspirations; I want to write a musical, a play, film some screenplays that I’ve already written, enter some competitions with my writing, find myself in hollywood, adapt some of my favorite movies for the stage and make the best, most coherent musical movie anyone’s ever seen! I also intend to use these skills to write and direct video games which seems out of place but, it’s all in the works!

BJ portraying old King Pelias, Jason's uncle. Here, he bribes his servants Cepheus and Asterion to do what he wants.

Meet Courtney Dilmore

Character: Atalanta

From: Bloomfield, New Mexico

College: Senior at UVU (will be graduating in December 2017) in Theatre Arts, emphasizing in performance

Favorite thing about acting in this play: Being in this show brings up a lot of unique challenges that I have been able to really have fun with. Working with a group of new people is a fabulous opportunity. I am learning so much about myself as an actor while playing in this world alongside this amazing team.

Theatre goals: After a BA, I would like to work in theatre/film whether it be acting, designing, or stage managing. I just want to be a part of creating untold stories and make others feel what I feel about a piece of art. Eventually, I would like to get my MFA in England.

courtney — Courtney portraying Atalanta during the Argonaut roll call, before boarding the Argo. The high energy comes to a halt when she steps out because she is the only woman aboard the ship. Yet that does not scare her. Here, Atalanta challenges Hercules to a race, knowing very well that she has a knack for speed...and tormenting the mighty Hercules.

Meet Kiersten Zundel

Character: Athena

From: Kalispell, Montana

College: Sophomore at UVU, majoring in Theatre (BFA), emphasizing in acting

Favorite thing about acting in this play: The exposition is so exciting!

Theatre goals: I would love to get my MFA someday in the future.

kiersten — Kiersten portraying Athena, who has the power to hold onto characters (without their knowledge) and possess them to speak for her through prophesy, visions, etc. Here, she holds onto Phineus in order to instruct Jason where to find the fleece. Idmon the blind prophet listens as well.

Meet Devin Davis

Characters: Meleager and Boreas

From: Orem, Utah

College: recently graduated from BYU with a BA in Theatre Arts Studies, emphasizing in directing

Favorite thing about acting in this play: I love mythology and I love theatre. It is so exciting to try to find ways to portray these mythical fantastic elements on stage. I also love the amount of characters and how they are portrayed. Myths really tell us about ourselves and so does theatre so this show becomes such a fascinating exploration of humanity in general.

Theatre goals: I’m looking into grad school, studying arts administration or performance studies. I want to eventually produce and direct immersive theatre based in found spaces, especially outdoors.

devin — Devin portraying Meleager, conversing with Jason, the leader of the Argo and the journey to the find the golden fleece. Meleager is partially immortal and is therefore an important asset to the crew. Yet there is a catch to his immortality. Take note during the play of Meleager's curse and fate.

Meet Costner Henson

Characters: Idmon and Aeson

From: Thousand Oaks, California

College: Senior at BYU, majoring in Theatre Art Studies, emphasizing in directing

Favorite thing about acting in this play: I love exploring and creating both my characters and the complete story of the show. I also love magic, myths and adventure, so this play is perfect for letting my inner child run a little wild sometimes. My favorite character to play is Idmon because there is so much depth to his reasons for doing what he does.

Theatre goals: I want to create work that will stir people’s hearts and both help them change and help them love theatre the way I have come to love it. I also hope that my degree in theatre will be a plus on my medical school applications.

Costner portraying Idmon during the roll call. He is the first to introduce himself during this song before they aboard the Argo. He tells the crew that although he is blind, he is a prophet and he is powerful and valuable to the crew.

Meet Tyler Scott "Scottie" Mitchell

Characters: Pollux, Cepheus, and Styrus

From: Chicago, Illinois

College: Junior at UVU, double majoring in Musical Theatre Performance & Computer Science

Favorite thing about acting in this play: I love how integrated the cast has to be in order for everything to “sell” if one person is not pulling their weight it can really show, and believe me, everyone is pulling their weight.

Theatre goals: I would love to go into scriptwriting and/or lighting design.

scottie — Scottie portraying Pollux, who is the twin brother of Castor (portrayed by BJ Warner). Their father is Zeus and that makes them very confident and god-like. Here, Castor and Pollux share their introduction during the roll call as they prepare to board the Argo.

There you have it! We hope you take joy in watching our production, having gained a stronger introduction to these talented performers from both BYU and UVU, who have given up so much of their time to tell this magnificent myth to Provo audiences. They truly are one of the most talented, entertaining, and supportive casts with which I have ever had the chance to work. I know you will love them too, when you see them on that Pardoe Stage next month. Stay tuned for four more blog posts regarding our show and the ins and outs of Greek mythology.

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by Makenna Johnston, dramaturg In a ‘special projects’ theatre class held between January and March of 2020, four students and their professor began devising a show. Their devising team? David Morgan (professor), Clara Wright, Mikah Vaclaw, Sten Shearer, and Dylan Wright. Their source text? The Turn of the Screw, a novel by Henry James. Though the team’s original devising process was cut short due to the Covid-19 pandemic, aspects of their invaluable contributions to the production live on. Each student deviser's unique perspective about the story and devising process are explored below. Clara Wright Our professor David Morgan had the idea to create a devised piece of theatre to take to the Edinburgh fringe festival with a group of students. He was drawn to the script of the Turn of the Screw, but wanted to do his own take on it, so he decided to create a new adaptation of the original book with a group of students. He was drawn to the eerie nature of the piece, the elements of horror, and the slow descent into madness of the governess. I joined Dave's class to write and devise this script because, first of all, working with Dave has always been a pleasure, but the story was intriguing to me as well. I loved the idea of studying and understanding a layered female character. I don't think there are enough interesting female characters out there at the moment. The governess was affected greatly by societal pressures and a deep, depressing history that drove her to madness when she arrived at Bly. The story was mesmerizing. I was also excited to work the muscle of creating a new piece of theatre. I am not confident in my writing abilities, but it was exciting to take a piece of literature that already existed and make something new and interesting out of it, using visual elements that you can't get from reading a book. We not only wrote dialogue, but we also wrote out ways we could use movement, sound, lighting, puppetry, and more to tell the story in the most effective way possible. The devising process was a blast! Dave would tell us what scene he wanted us to write and we would each go home and write out our own interpretation of the story. The next class, we would get together and go over which elements of people's scenes we liked best, which moments were the most clear, and which lines we for sure wanted to keep in the final script. Sometimes our interpretations were so different and unique that it was difficult to choose which direction the piece needed to go. Ultimately, Dave would piece together each of our scenes into a cohesive script. Other moments I enjoyed were when we would put scenes on their feet and act them out to see how they translated to the stage. The introduction especially benefited from this exercise. The last exciting part of the devising process that I'll talk about is writing the music. I hadn't written original music like this before so it was such a cool experience creating sound like this for the first time. I didn't ever think about what scene I was writing for, but Dave told me what tone he was looking for in a piece of music and then I experimented until I found something I liked by layering on different sounds I could make on my violin. It was an overall thrilling experience! Turn of the Screw example music Turn of the Screw example music 2 Mikah Vaclaw Because of COVID, we didn’t get to fully get the script up on its feet, so we focused a lot on writing. First, we all read the book over Christmas break, and when we had our first meetings as a group, we talked about what stood out to us in the story and what we wanted our retelling of the story to be. Something we really wanted to explore was the idea that the ghosts were actually things born out of trauma the governess had experienced in her youth, and how she was the only one that could see them/was affected by them. We also wanted to explore jealousy between Mrs. Grose and the Governess. Once we had fleshed out what was important to us, we started writing. Dave would tell us what scene he wanted us to write for homework, and we’d all come back with our different written versions of that scene. Then, in class, we would read them aloud together and talk about what we thought worked, and what didn’t. Dave would then take all of our scripts and compile them together into one cohesive scene. We were able to start toying with the introduction to the play, and Clara wrote some really cool violin music for it. Sten Shearer The process of devising the script was the five of us (David Morgan, Clara and Dylan Wright, Mikah Vaclaw, and myself) would get together a couple times a week. Initially, David gave us some conceptual ideas he had for the show (like using movable screens that could utilize shadow work). Then we all read the original story. At each meeting, we would assign a chunk of the original story as our writing assignment. Using that chunk of the story as inspiration, the four students would go home and write a scene that translated that section of the original story into a play scene. Through that process, we collaboratively came to an understanding of the themes that we wanted the play to explore as well as theatrical devices and ideas that we thought would work well in putting the play on its feet. Simultaneously to writing these scenes, we were also using our class time to experiment with staging and blocking using the earlier scenes that we had written. So for instance, when we were about halfway through writing the script, we were also staging what the early scenes would look like to help test if the script we were writing worked in practice as well as on paper. Dylan Wright We chose this project because we obviously needed something in the public domain that we wouldn't need to pay royalties for, but aside from that this story really highlights the mental turmoil of a young governess as she grapples with her duties as a woman and her place in the world religiously as well. We took this story to an extremely dark place-- it has since been edited for this particular production-- that orbited around this idea of religious toxicity, something all too familiar in Utah. We felt that it was important to excavate and expose the uncomfortable and truly ugly parts of religion and the toll it can take on us. I wanted to work on this project because Mikah, Sten, Clara, and Dave are some of my favorite people and artists. The driving force really, as mentioned earlier, is that we wanted to create. We were all itching to create something. None of us needed this class credits-wise so the idea of coming together to tell a ghost story that echoes modern themes in a bare-bones, devised manner was extremely appealing. Unfortunately we were never able to perform this production because of COVID. But the devising process was an invaluable gem. We would each read the same chapter of The Turn of the Screw and then come to class with our own interpretation of this chapter in scene-form, creating dialogue and stage directions. Dave would then pull the pieces from each that rendered a clearer, more specific story and then we would go from there. When we would arrive in class we would also read each other's scenes out loud to get a feel for them. It was a marvelous process.

Meet the Cast of Argonautika (Part 2 of 2)

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