During the pandemic in 2020, when its stages were dark and its students were online, the University of Arizona School of Theatre, Film & Television had time to rethink its mission.
βIt was an opportunity while our stages were dark to reimagine how we might offer opportunities for more of our theater students at the school,β said Kerryn Negus, the schoolβs director of advancement and external relations. βIt was a part of our efforts to be more inclusive.β
What they came up with is the Next Performance Collective, an ensemble comprised of theater studies majors β bachelor of arts students exploring new, sometimes experimental works and coming up with inventive out-of-the-box ways to present them.
The new troupe will introduce itself this weekend with its inaugural production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkinsβ Pultizer Prize-nominated play βEverybodyβ at the Tornabene Theater Friday, Dec. 3, through Sunday, Dec. 5.
The play, co-directed by adjunct instructors Roweena Mackay and Rick Wamer, is a reimagining of the 15th century morality play βEverymanβ (or βThe Summoning of Everymanβ), which explores Christian salvation and what man must do to attain it.
Jacobs-Jenkinsβ βEverybodyβ is a playful allegory on the meaning of life and mystery of death told through the premise of Everybody dying. And Everybody means everybody; death is the endgame of life, but what if before you died you had to account for your life and do it in public. Who would you call as a witness?
Jacobs-Jenkins adds a twist: At the beginning of the play, a narrator addresses the audience and lays out the rules including standard audience protocols of unwrapping candy and taking that final cough before the play begins. And then we learn that the main characters β Friendship, Kinship, Stuff, Mind, Five Senses and Understanding β are all assigned to the actors by lottery. They have no clue what character they will land until they pull it from the bowl.
βI find out which character I will play when the audience does,β said sophomore Riley Siegler, who said she has to memorize five roles and be ready to play any of them every night.
βWe are about as mentally prepared as we can be,β said the theater and film major, who said Next Performance Collective showcases the overwhelming and untapped diversity of the BA theater program.
βAs a person of color myself, I think we are really heading in the same direction of where a lot of theaters are going, where we are looking at diversity as more of a practice than theory,β she said. βIt makes the show βEverybodyβ because everybody is in it.β
And all of this is why βEverybodyβ is a perfect launching pad for Next Performance Collective.
βI think that this ensemble is incredibly brave and they are incredibly, incredibly brilliant actors,β said Mackay, who has taught at the UA for three years and has spent nearly a decade working in film.
Sophomore Marley Councilor, who serves as the productionβs dramaturge, said one of her challenges was finding ways to convey 15th century moral values to a 21st century audience.
βIs there space for a morality play in a modern context and how do you upadate such an old text and such old values and make them make sense to a modern audience,β said Councilor, a Detroit native who is double-majoring in film and television.
βEverybodyβ is the first of two Next productions this school year. The troupe returns in late April for the New Directions Festival of short works created and performed by students.
The schoolβs primary theater troupe Arizona Repertory Theatre, comprised of bachelor of fine arts students, opened its season in October with βInto the Woodsβ followed in November by βThree Sisters.β
Coming up: βLiving Dead in Denmarkβ Feb. 27-March 20; and βHigh Fidelityβ April 10-24. For tickets and details, visit theatre.arizona.edu.
