Shelley Graham

If you will see, or have seen, the BYU Theatre production of Blithe Spirit this June, you may notice that there are two names in the cast list who are not given a character role, but simply the role of “Swing.” Just what is a swing, and why are they important for a production? As dramaturg, I interviewed our two swing actors to get their perspectives - and definitions - of this important role.

Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz has sometimes been called "The Phoenix of America," as she is by far the most accomplished and globally read author to come out of the early Spanish-colonized Americas. Writing from New Spain (present day Mexico) , Sor Juana composed brilliant and biting poetry, wrote fiery letters in defense of her own creative spirit and the education of women, as well as dramas like the perfectly formed Spanish Golden Age style piece, House of Desires.

One of the great things about working as a production dramaturg is the time spent in rehearsal working with the actors. For this production of 12 Angry Jurors, we spent quite a bit of time exploring the world of the play. To help the actors interact with the courtroom drama world of Boston in 1953, we created a dramaturgical website for the actors. We put a link to this website on QR codes that were printed and hung throughout the rehearsal space, so that the actors could have access to the website at any time.

This project is multiple years in the making, having been initially proposed for the BYU 2020-21 season. Originally, it was going to be my project as a faculty dramaturg. And I began working on a script adaptation that would feature women and build a more gender-neutral world in which both men and women would hold power. The pandemic forced a postponement for a year, and I paused my work on an adaptation.

by Shelley Graham, dramaturg Often one of the dramaturg's major responsibilities is to help the cast and production team understand and truly live in the world of the play. Because of the condensed timeline for this show, there was a dramaturgy presentation as part of the first rehearsal. The cast was given some basic information about Gilbert and Sullivan's history and a quick primer on theatre in the Victorian era, and that was it! The rest of the historical context, visual image research, and production history was available to the cast as part of an online learning module that they could access outside rehearsal time. But as we moved into the unique process of first recording the final tracks and then going into blocking and choreography, it became clear the another of my responsibilities as a dramaturg would be to document this creative approach. Below is a video slideshow of our process, including the studio recording, blocking and choreography rehearsals, and the filming. We hope you enjoy learning a bit more about how we created this one-of-a-kind performance!

by Shelley Graham, dramaturg [caption id="attachment_7692" align="aligncenter" width="960"] Director Tim Threlfall works with four actors in an early rehearsal.[/caption] Each performer in this production had a unique opportunity to create a character in ways we've never tried before. Such singular opportunities bring with them challenges. I reached out to our performers in the middle of blocking and choreography rehearsals, to see what they thought about the process. Here's what a few of them had to say. One of the challenges I've experienced with this production is the need to exactly replicate every inflection in my dialogue. People speak and inflect the same words differently in different contexts, on different days, and for endless reasons. Because we recorded the audio before filming, the challenge was to match our performance with the inflection we had on the recording day. I'm a fairly emotive person, and I rarely say things exactly the same way twice. In order to be successful with this production, I had to spend a lot of time listening to the recordings of myself, a strategy I've not used in preparing for roles in the past. Brendon French During this process, it was a challenge to not have in-person rehearsals when learning the score. I personally learned how to plunk out my notes on the piano, worked with those in my vocal part, and was able to meet privately with Korianne [Johnson, music director] to confirm that I was on the right track vocally, and that I was ready to record in a group! This has been such a wonderful experience despite the challenges! I have learned so much and am grateful to be a part of this production Riley Holmes I think an obvious challenge is covid. It's been affecting this whole process! The worst part about it is that not everyone can be on the stage, so I feel like it is a little more difficult to be able to react to the other actors that are "on stage." You just have to imagine that they are there! Luke Gonzalez I think the biggest challenge for me was having to learn everything alone, without any guidance or direction from either the vocal or acting directors at first. It was super interesting and a great learning opportunity, because I got to put my own spin on everything before it was altered by the directors, but it was still really hard. I think the way that I overcame this challenge was just lots of time putting into memorizing and learning and practicing. Practice makes better! AJ Klomp Highlights from Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance is live streaming March 31, April 1-2 at 7:30 pm. Don't miss it!

Follow the link below to read the study guide for North Star created by Sydney Southwick (dramaturg), Laynie Calderwood (research assistant), and Catharine Jensen (graphic designer.)

by Shelley Graham, dramaturgy supervisor Each fall semester we offer a course called "Writers Dramaturgs Actors Workshop." Throughout the semester, students in the class will workshop, develop, and offer feedback on select plays by fellow student writers. The plays are carefully selected for this opportunity from among numerous student entries so that each week in class we get to improve our skills as dramaturgs while we help playwrights improve their skills as writers. At the end of the semester, we get to work on our acting skills, when we offer public concert readings of the plays we've been working on all semester. New eyes and ears on these drafts are immensely valuable, and so we invite the public to these readings. An invaluable aspect of the concert reading is the brief discussion that immediately follows when we have those in the audience (who haven't been working on these scripts all semester long) share their first impressions and questions about the new plays. We invite everyone to join us for these readings performed on Zoom this year - we would love to share our work with you and hear your feedback! You are welcome to join any and all of these performances! Click here to join.