by Janine Sobeck, BYU Dramaturgy Specialist
Every semester the TYA production tours to schools in Utah, Salt Lake and Nebo counties. The BYU students dedicate their Tuesdays and Thursdays to the show in order to travel to the various schools, performing and offering different workshops.
In the middle of the semester, they add to their crazy touring schedule with a two week run on the BYU campus. Traveling around Utah by day and in the BYU theatre at night, this is a time where the lives of the actors seem to be consumed by the show in an incredible and amazing way. This period of immersion also gives a great testament as to how the production, which has been carefully crafted for the young, school-level audiences, has the ability to delight the families, college students and others who see it during the BYU run.
For The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, it is that special time of the semester. The company has spent the last week and a half performing in BYU's Margetts theatre, bringing this spooky tale to campus right in time for Halloween. The audiences have been a great mix of young and old, with all groups getting pulled in by the interactive nature of the show. When I personally saw the show, I saw everyone from little kids, to parents, to students, to our older generation stand up and dance, sing and ride the occasional "horse." I made a window with the little girl across the aisle, created a "river" with the the students sitting across the stage, and held a "baby" when the actors were called elsewhere. It was a great reminder of how much FUN theatre that is heavy on imagination can be.
There's only a few days left in the BYU run, but The Legend of Sleepy Hollow will continue its traveling production through the beginning of December.
Is there really an “edge” to everything“? For centuries, scientists, scholars, and even simple farmers have wondered about space - and how to see, up close, what is so far away.
Ever since the beginning of the rehearsal process, director Kris Peterson really wanted the cast to get their hands in the dirt. Like the events of the musical, the earth has a power to connect us to each other, and she recognized that. One way that Charlotte and I thought to do this was to provide a small number of seeds to each cast member and invite them to grow their own plants over the summer. This was also a way to encourage the cast members to stay mentally connected to the show even when they were physically distant from the rehearsal space.