ARTS

Day of Theater activities pull focus on future wish lists

Packed weekend of shows entertain, but some actors have serious concerns

Michelle Chang

When you start mapping your weekend out, how often is it that a theater production is part of your plans? If you're an avid theater goer, chances are you've been booked near solid this entire year. This Saturday, theater students are organizing an official Day of Theater in an effort to spread an awareness of the presence and importance of theater at Oberlin.

A handful of theater productions are going up this weekend in good timing for the event, including Tartuffe, The Pelican, \twelv\'s King Lear opera, Furniture, and Michael Early's Romeo and Juliet project just to name a few. In addition, Primitive Streak will be holding an open rehearsal. Outside of those events, the day will involve a lot of guerilla theater on Wilder Bowl.

Theater students will be reciting monologues at will, acting out scenes and trying to engage other students in the process. Some students, for example, plan to pull people out at random and get them to do impromptu scene dialogues with them. These events will be happening on the triangle between Wilder, Warner and Mudd.

The hope is that the day will provide a diversity of styles under one umbrella. Whether it's Shakespeare, realism, performance art or improv comedy, all theatrical art forms come from a similar place or essence. "All theater has the desire to communicate ideas and speak to an audience," said senior theater major and organizer of Day of Theater Jacob Hauser, "and every culture has theater of some kind, be it plays, storytelling or puppetry."

Theater life on this campus has been flourishing at record levels, from the variety of theater being offered to the sheer volume of productions going up. Student productions, faculty productions, independent productions and even performance installations have all been a part of the mix. There have also been notable increases in women directors, first-year directors and directors of color.

Ticket sales have been sky high, with shows often selling out and students trying to claw their way off of waiting lists to get tickets. It all goes to show that theater is one of the most well received art forms at Oberlin, at least as far as audiences are concerned. The problem lies in administrative support for theater.

As Hauser is quick to point out, there is not a single building on this campus that was created for and devoted strictly to theater. The Little Theater was originally a television studio, Warner was of course a gymnasium and Hall, although a decent venue for theater, was primarily intended to be a concert hall.

"The sound board in Hall is older than your average college senior," said Hauser. With stale equipment and a lack of proper facilities, it is tough to fufill the potential that the theater community holds. The talent and energy are there, it's the means that are missing. "It's not a cheap thing to keep up," admits Hauser, "but right now we're not investing anything."

Part of the goal for Day of Theater is to force a recognition of the vitality of theater at Oberlin and the need for a new theater facility. As the prospects for the theater community become brighter, the necessity for increased funding becomes more inevitable. The students who have invested themselves into the theater community will continue to make the push for administrative investment.

Day of Theater is Saturday, April 25.

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Copyright © 1998, The Oberlin Review.
Volume 126, Number 22, April 24, 1998

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