39 Steps - UMD Stage 2

Sister Act - UMD Theatre

It's All About Those Rockin' Nuns in UMD's Sister Act
Sheryl Jensen
Duluth News Tribune
April 19, 2019

Can I get a "Hallelujah" and a "Glory Be"? The sisters of the Queen of Angels Cathedral are rockin' the house at UMD in the musical Sister Act, directed by William Payne.

Based on the 1992 film comedy with Whoopi Goldberg, the musical is set in Philadelphia in the 1970s. A down-and-out singer named Deloris Van Cartier (Tolu Ekisola) fancies herself as the Donna Summer disco queen of South Philly.

When she witnesses a murder committed by her boyfriend, Curtis (Nic Reynolds), she is forced into an unlikely witness protection program in the convent at the Queen of Angels.

Deloris takes over their most discordant and ear-splitting nuns' choir and whips the sisters into a soulful group of disco-dancing backup singers who provide a space for her to showcase her talents and theirs.

While Ekisola has the comedic skills and stage presence to create a vivid character, her voice is a bit thin, especially in the early going. The show starts slowly with her two opening numbers lacking enough vocal punch. She does, however, build throughout the evening and finds her musical legs much more in Act II.

The early scenes with Curtis and his motley band of three stooges also don't create enough spark to do more than just get the plot rolling.

It is when the action switches to the convent, and we meet the funny, sweet and talented chorus of nuns, that the show starts building up steam. The jubilant 12-member group is filled with standout singers and wonderful character actresses.

Miranda Neuhaus, as the shy postulant Sister Mary Robert, has one of the evening's most soaring vocal moments in the plaintive "The Life I Never Led."

The other strongest voice in the company is Cally Stanich, as the beleaguered and sarcastic Mother Superior. Her opening number, "Here Within These Walls," is breathtaking, and her Act II "I Haven't Got a Prayer" highlights both her comedic style and her powerhouse voice.

Reese Britts, as the timid cop Eddie and Deloris' love interest, makes the most of his cute solo, "I Could Be That Guy." The ever-reliable character actor, Simon VanVactor-Lee, charms as Monsignor O' Hara, who finds his inner groove and soul brother kinship with the church's new choral stylings.

Because of some clunky, lumbering scene changes, the show's pacing seems labored at times. One shift in the middle of the Mother Superior's opening solo (by a set crew member in backstage black shirt and pants) was particularly intrusive.

While Curtis Phillips' set was serviceable, it lacked what could have been a much more Gothic and grandiose church where much of the action takes place.

The seven-piece band, under the direction of Thomas Jacobsen, was solid throughout and balanced well with the singers.

By show's end, the company with their rousing finale, "Spread the Love Around," and their big energy curtain call, "Raise Your Voice," had the audience clapping and dancing in the aisles.

Time's Up - UMD Theatre

UMD's Time's Up is Mystical and Mesmerizing
Sheryl Jensen
Duluth  News Tribune
March 8, 2019

With a mostly barely stage and only a couple pieces of scaffolding, a table, a few remnants of fabric and some scattered gold pieces of paper, 10 UMD actors bring to devastating life a 10th century play by the medieval poetess and playwright Hrotsvit of Gandersheim.

Director Jenna Soleo-Shanks, a theatrical historian and medievalist, adapted the ancient text, The Conversion of the Harlot Thais, bringing a complex and imaginative vision to the production.

Time's Up is not an easy show to watch or at times to understand completely. Early on, an ensemble member says, "I'm so confused," and "This is pretty heavy stuff." The deep philosophical "lecture" that opens the performance makes it difficult for the audience to get their bearings of time and place.

Yet, it seems part of the intention to keep the audience uncomfortable, unsure and off balance with this slim plot of legendary courtesan Thais, and Paphnutius, the man obsessed with her, who feels compelled to rescue her from her sinful life.

Blending beautiful moments of lyrical movement with jarring angles and stylized poses, Rebecca Katz Harwood's masterful choreography is a significant part of the storytelling and establishment of the different groups of characters.

Using a mix of everything from Gregorian style chants to modern instrumental jazz, guest composer and music supervisor Andy Kust enhances the dramatic action with his witty musical motifs.

Jon Brophy's lighting is another significant theatrical element, opening with abrupt shifts of darkness and light as the cast moves into different tableaux. Brophy's use of color, isolation and movement is critical to the show's success.

As the narration of Paphnutius tells, "There is a woman, a shameless woman ..." whose beauty is legendary as "the flame of the world." Sarah Dickson, compelling as Thais, lures the audience into her shadowy world. Her dramatic arc from the arrogant, elegant harlot, queen of her domain, to the completely broken and increasingly mad prisoner locked away in her small, filthy convent cell, is the show's core.

Patrick Timmons, as Paphnutius, also travels an arc to madness as his character's "intervention" not only destroys the life of Thais but his own as well. Despite his youthfulness and "baby face," Timmons gives a mature performance in the less showy role.

The ensemble plays a variety of parts from the "locals" who have their West Side Story Jets vibe on, and later pay their creepy homage to The Handmaid's Tale. At times humorous and other times menacing, the ensemble members help to advance the story with song, dance and their panoply of characters.

In a recent interview, Soleo-Shanks said that the play is about how women have lived and found their way in the world over the centuries, noting how that dominant dramatic theme has not changed from the early Greeks to modern day.

This dark play gives us pause to decide who is the sinner and who is the sinned against and how control over another person, in any kind of physical or psychological bondage, can crush the human spirit.

Love's Labor's Lost - UMD Theatre

Students do Justice to Shakespeare's Love's Labor's Lost
Dennis Kempton
Duluth News Tribune
February 8, 2019

Reportedly, the first performance of Love's Labor's Lost was done during the Christmas season in 1597 for Queen Elizabeth I at court. The enduring power of Shakespeare's sophisticated wordplay is evident, since, over 400 years later, students in the Fine Arts program at the University of Minnesota Duluth opened their own iteration of the comedy Thursday night at the Marshall Performing Arts Center.

Director Kate Ufema ascended the stage to thank the surprisingly well-attended performance for braving the elements and the drifts of snow to see the play. As the house lights dimmed and the action began, the beauty and thought put in to the set design by veteran Curt Phillips came fully into effect.

The story line is as classic as it is anachronistic in culturally problematic ways. The King of Navarre (Ole Dack) and his lords Longaville (Jake Nelson), Dumain (Samuel Keran) and Berowne (Addison Sim) have pledged to devote themselves to intense study and fasting for three years. This pledge includes an edict that no woman must come within a mile of court — ostensibly because men are simply unable to control themselves.

There is a lot of action packed into 94 minutes. And the play is especially challenging in its cadence and sophistication. Among the king's companions, Nelson and Keran handle their lines adroitly, but it is Dack and Sim who carry the performances of Shakespeare's voluminous vocabulary. Sim, in particular, is compelling on stage, providing emotional fluency with his lines and a steady, sure delivery. His facility with Shakespeare is again as apparent as it was the last time I saw him in performance for Much Ado About Nothing.

Bounding onto stage, Thomas Henry as the naughty Costard holds his own with wry comic chops, busted for a tryst with a town "wench," Jaquenetta, played mildly by Cally Stanich. But, his accuser, Armado, a Spanish visitor to court, is brilliantly played by Reese Britts with masterful elocution, comedic timing and movement on stage. His moments on stage leave one noticing his absences from the action — not a bad thing for an actor.

The plot is predictable, but not thin. The lords and the king fall for the Princess (Taylor Sexton) and her ladies, Maria (Laura Carlson), Katharine (Miranda Neuhaus) and Rosaline (Leah Walk), visiting Navarre on official business but staying in tents away from the palace due to the edict. Letters are shuffled to them and plots devised to woo them. Sexton had considerable presence on stage but seemed overburdened at times with her lines. In her defense, the dialogue is cumbersome. What would have flowed on the tongues of 16th century Londoners is wholly unfamiliar today. As a group, the women on stage have their own juicy witticisms getting the better of the men — as all women do.

Choreography by Rebecca Catz Harwood gives us the treat of seeing the king and lords dancing capably as disguised Muscovites with gorgeous costuming by Kelsey Bias. These details add flair, texture and pure comedy.

Notable is Simon Van Vactor-Lee as solicitor to the Princess and her ladies as Boyet. His subtle timing and ease with the complexities of the script add just the right measure of comedy that lifts the action when needed.

The company put on an exuberant and capable performance making it obvious that taking on the challenge of Love's Labor's Lost is a feather in a student's cap. The lauded Bard's appeal endures, and the UMD theater program did it justice in a show that is worth the perils of plowing through the snow to see on a winter's night.

Significant Other - UMD Theatre

Significant Other a Solid, Sad Look at Young Gay Man's Life

Dennis Kempton

Duluth News Tribune

November 9. 2018.

There's an essential loneliness present in the lives of gay men that few outside that tribe can fathom. No matter how many of the most amazing friends gay men have, and no matter how many of the girls at work love them, single gay men, as they age and remain single, find their own personal relationships diminished by the omnipresence of heteronormative family life.

That's the weighty material laid out bare on stage in playwright Joshua Harmon's 2015 dramedy, Significant Other on stage now in the Dudley Experimental Theatre at the University of Minnesota Duluth.

The play needs an intimate theater. UMD's choice to put it in the smaller Dudley space in the Marshall Performing Arts Center may limit the seating capacity, but the emotional impact would disappear in a larger setting. The opening night performance was sold out.

The cast of seven, with Eukariah Tabaka and Patrick Timmons carrying the weight of three characters each, is tightly woven in their performances on stage. Perhaps this is due to the inevitable closeness that develops in the weeks of rehearsals before a show opens. Maybe it's because they're all pretty near the age of their characters, and the lives they lead on stage are so near in their own life cycles. 

Whatever the case, director Ann Aiko Bergeron has assembled an impressive company of friends.

The action centers on Jordan (Liam Jeffery), a gay man in his late 20s. He's a single professional, Jewish, and insecure. Weaving in and out of his life are his three besties, Laura (Erin Hartford), Vanessa (Megan Graftaas), and Kiki (Sarah Dickson). As each of them follows the heteronormative track of dating, engagement and marriage, Jordan finds his circle tightening and his relevance diminishing in their lives. Jeffery inhabits the role with remarkable depth. From his plain, unassuming appearance in the costuming — at one point, Vanessa remarks, "Your clothes are so sad!" — to his posture and pacing, there isn't a minute on stage wasted in Jeffery's performance.

He is able to plumb the depths required for Jordan's life with moments of joy and uncomfortable rawness. Any gay man can identify with what's happening on the stage not just because the writing is good, but because the actor is fully committed to the role. The three young women in orbit around Jordan are less intense, but equally committed. Dickson's Kiki is vapid and profane, but loyal. 

Hartford's Laura is that one dark but devastatingly blunt friend who knocks us off our foundations when they get traditional. And, of the three actors in Jordan's trio, Graftaas is the most memorable. Vanessa's relationship with Jordan runs deep, and the two of them powerfully convey all that entails in one of the more painful scenes on stage during Vanessa's bachelorette party. The two men in the show are, rightfully, window dressing and peripheral. But both Tabaka and Timmons faithfully provide what's needed in the telling of Jordan's fraught relationships. Tobacco shines as the unattainable Will.

Veteran actor Ellie Martin adds a sad warmth with pops of humor as Jordan's grandmother, Helene. In her brief moments on stage, she's able to convey her worried love for her grandson. The technical crew hits every emotion credibly, and the mechanics of the scene changes are smooth. The play runs at 2 hours, 30 minutes and honestly could use some editing to reduce its run time.

Significant Other is a piece of contemporary theater performed at the college level as competently as any main stage production in the city. The student actors have executed a solid show that pulls at hearts and tear ducts alike.

Dear Finder 2018 - UMD Theatre

UMD's Dear Finder Packs a Mighty Message
Dennis Kempton
Duluth News Tribune
October 11, 2018

The poet Emily Dickinson once wrote, “The mind was built for mighty freight.” It is within the spirit of this quote that the latest iteration of Dear Finder, written by Tom Isbell, Valerie Buel, Denise Dawson, Jamison Haase, Kourtney Kaas, Julie MacIver, Andrew Nelson and Julie Unulock, dwells as it opened Thursday night at the Marshall Performing Arts Center on the campus of the University of Minnesota Duluth.

The provenance of the play is well known by now within our community, so there’s no need to delve into it. The rightful focus is on these stories told on stage by a group of students riding on a freight train of their own into the storytelling of the Holocaust.

I’ve not seen the previous productions of this play, so I have nothing to compare. The impact was jarring, deeply disturbing and, at moments, almost propelled me from my seat into the lobby to gasp for breath.

That’s all due to the 16 actors on stage. More a dramatic witnessing and retelling of survivor stories and the rise of German National Socialism than a traditional play, the actors are taking raw, jagged cuts of real life and throwing them down before the audience, in a manner that, directorially, is more confrontational than entertaining.

It’s a necessary and vital direction. In this load of mighty freight, there’s no place for nuance. And the actors refuse to give it to those in the house seats.

The scenic design by Ashley Ann Woods is a slab tableau of gray, iron, dirt and despair, punctuated dramatically and with haunting precision by Jon Brophy’s lighting design. Notable is a scene where the actors play out prisoners in a cattle car on their way to die at Auschwitz. Brophy’s lighting cast an almost yolky yellow fog of light around them while stripes of dull white light flashed in front of the actors. The effect of movement was powerful and full of foreboding. The dirt on stage is its own powerful property. The actors use it to maximum effect, causing one to recoil, cry and rage at the carnage acted out on it, throughout the play.

Rachel Williams turns in a riveting performance, assuming the role of a survivor of one of the many death camps. As she recounts, in a lengthy and masterfully delivered monologue of falling into a pit of the dead and wounded, feigning death in order to survive, the tension in the theater increased noticeably. The ability to pull that much power from the stage is just one reason every actor is important.

Amanda Hennen, as the prosecutor, and assuming other ensemble appearances during the documentary storytelling, is also a captivating presence on stage. Her delivery rises from bold questioning and indignation to the near whispers of a woman who can barely believe what she’s charged with unearthing.

I wanted a stronger performance in Anna Matthes and Addison Sim as the reporter and playwright, respectively. The contrast in passion between the two and the rest of the cast was noticeable. It was the only weakness in a production of considerable passion and total commitment to roles.

The play ends with a drumbeat of modern-day offenses mirroring the rise of deadly authoritarianism in Germany, reminding us that history rhymes, in the most stunning revelations.

This is not cultural appropriation. It’s witnessing. And this play is still vitally necessary, year by year, victim by victim. It’s the definition of how theater can transform through the ages. It would usually be hyperbolic for one to say they were undone by the performance. But, I am.

Icarus - UMD Stage 2