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.
Near the end of his life, Anton Chekhov who had suffered from tuberculosis and depression throughout his life, decided to move to the seaside town of Yalta in order to heal. On January 18, 1904, he wrote to his wife, the actress Olga Knipper, “I’m writing The Cherry Orchard very slowly. Sometimes I feel it’s a success, sometimes a failure…It’s all very ordinary, but that’s how things are, unfortunately.”
For this production we are trying something new! You'll still see some dramaturgical information in your printed program, including the dramaturg's note, "The Weight of Waiting in The Cherry Orchard."
Alabama Story, playwright Kenneth Jones’ six-actor, one-set drama about censorship, book banning, Civil Rights and American characters in “the Deep South of the imagination,” had its world premiere by Pioneer Theatre Company in Salt Lake City, Utah in January of 2015.