The Department of Performing and Media arts presents:

Fall Theatre Festival

HumaNatures

Directed by:
Theo Black and Raelle Myrick-Hodges

Scenic Designer: Jason Simms
Props Master: Tim Ostrander
Costume Designer: Sarah Eckert Bernstein
Lighting Designer: Fritz Bernstein
Sound Designer: Warren Cross
Stage Manager: Ivy Stevens
Rehearsal Stage Manager: Bella Peters

Class of 56 Flexible Theatre, Schwartz Center for Performing Arts
430 College Avenue
November 11th at 7:30 p.m.
November 12th at 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

The Name Above the Title
by Jon Krauss
Nathan: Owen Reynolds
Rina: Mallory Esponda

The AnthropoScene
assimilated by Theo Black, multiple sources
Featuring: Allison Borton, Amanda Vialva, Jenniviv Bansah, Joseph Lang

Space
by Donald Margulies
A: Jenniviv Bansah
B: Amanda Vialva

Chicxulub
by T.C. Boyle
Dad: Owen Reynolds

Clean Alternatives
by Brian Dykstra
Slate: Ben Lederman
Cutter: Max Garval

Finnegans Wake
by James Joyce, adapted by Theo Black
Miss: Allison Borton
Mrs: Owen Reynolds

Blades *
by Margo Hammond
The One: Ben Lederman
The Other: Jenniviv Bansah

Time Flies
by David Ives
May: Mallory Esponda
Horace: Allison Borton
David Attenborough: Amanda Vialva

The Frogs
adapted from Aristophanes by Don Zolidis
Cane Toad: Amanda Vialva

Duet for Bear & Dog
by Sybil Rosen
Bear: Jenniviv Bansah
Dog: Joseph Lang
Owner: Owen Reynolds
Wildlife Agents: Mallory Esponda, Max Garval

The vision of the Department of Performing and Media Arts is to nurture and mentor artists, performers, writers, and thinkers through the process of event programming. We recognize that all people should see their stories represented, and envision their stories as valuable.

We commit ourselves to creating spaces that actively seek to break down systems of oppression based on race, gender, sexuality, class, ability, and place of origin and empower all to be involved. We seek to stimulate thoughtful discussion and enact social change within our productions and our audiences. It is our goal to make our events accessible to the wider Cornell and Ithaca community, to strengthen bonds and engage inquiry, dialogue, and impact around social and cultural change.

In the 2021-2022 academic year we will help realize a wide range of students’ creative projects, from original plays, to solo performances, to readings, to choreographies, to acting, directorial, and curatorial projects. We are particularly happy that in addition to supporting live performances, we are now also supporting the production of several student thesis films. Enjoy the shows!

“The purpose of playing... was and is to hold... the mirror up to Nature.” – Hamlet, William Shakespeare

“Any person, any study” – Ezra Cornell

HumaNatures emerged as an experiment within PMA, to facilitate a mainstage production engaging the students in our advanced acting course (PMA 4801) as the cast. One of the most enriching aspects of this ensemble is the range of studies they bring to illuminate the art of theatre-making: biology, engineering, psychology & architecture just to name a few. This process began during the sweltering end of summer, and in the time since the enormity of these students’ commitment to creating our mainstage fall show within the context of their class & the outside hours they’ve invested is so deeply gratifying to us in making art with them – along with our incredible design faculty, staff and students – and in particular our tireless & on-point student stage manager Bella Peters & our acting-artist who helped develop the fabric of the show, Rina Peterson. This project has been a true labor of love, sweat & tears...

Part of the exciting challenge in this production model was to flip traditional approaches to casting a play (in which you first select the show, and then audition actors to fill the roles). For this experiment, we first met the cast of actors as an ensemble of students enrolled in the class – and then searched for & suited a wide range of dramatic materials to create a kaleidoscopic script. In our intertwining of found materials (one-acts, excerpts grafted from full-length plays, as well as tendrils of poetry and literature) what emerged was a focus on our relationships... as a species and with others. We encourage you to engage this play & contemplate the many interrelated motifs of how our species inter-acts with each and other living beings, ecologies, and the cosmos – shaping (as the professor-character in ‘AnthropoScene’ puts it) “both positively and negatively” as we navigate our role in the intersection of this Human/Natures plurality of elements that we continue to re-make “with our own hands.”

As this nexus of scenes & characters took shape, what emerged was a deeply gratifying and professional-grade commitment from these actors to embrace adaptation: regularly called upon to accept edits, additions, re-positioning, and even re-casting of roles that they began exploring as an ensemble – and the growth they have harnessed as acting artists in synthesizing guidance from us as co-directors in helping to shape their stories. They demonstrated integrity & grace in meeting each new challenge and twist in the journey of this evolving work-in-progress.

And now (as winter is coming) we welcome all of you to the shared act of fulfilling this creation of theatre in the salient way that only live performance can: by communing together, converging to engage our collective relationships of HumaNatures.

Thank you, and enjoy the journey...

Theo & Raelle

Jenniviv Bansah is in the School of Hotel Administration. Last Fall, she played a few characters in Townhall. She also played Sylvia in A Chicano's Guide to Navigation and The Climb as Tiffany in Spring of 2022. Jenniviv loves storytelling, dance, and tennis.

Allison Borton is a senior majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Theatre. She is a member of the Shakespeare Troupe at Cornell and Cog Dog Theatre Troupe, and has previously acted in productions such as Julius Caesar (2020), She Kills Monsters (2021), and Hamlet (2022). She has also been a part of other PMA productions such as the Fall 2020 10-Minute Play Festival and an adaptation of In the Parlour.

Mallory Esponda is a senior Information Science major and Theater minor from North Haven, Connecticut. She plays trumpet in the Big Red Marching Band, and is a member of the Cornell Shakespeare troupe. Mallory is a Cancer Sun, a Sagittarius Moon and a Leo Rising.

Max Garval is a junior in the College of Engineering, pursuing a degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering with minors in Computer Science and Public Policy. He's been acting for a grand total of nine months, unless you count his role as either Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum (he can't remember) in his fifth grade production of Alice in Wonderland. And in that time, he's (technically) worked as a paid actor.

Joseph Lang is a sophomore studying biology who plans to pursue a minor in either creative writing or acting (or both!). He began acting during his first year of high school and has been involved in theatre constantly since then. He has acted with Cog Dog Theatre Troupe and Ithaca Shakespeare Company, and he has both acted and directed for the Cornell Shakespeare Troupe. Outside of theatre, his hobbies include knitting and dog training.

Ben Lederman is a senior majoring in Psychology and triple minoring in Theatre, European Studies, and Biology. As an actor, his portrayals include Charles Bingley in Pride and Prejudice, Father Flynn in Doubt: A Parable, and several original characters in Cornell's own Festival24. He would like to thank Theo, Raelle, and Carolyn Goeltzer for pushing him as an actor, the entire cast for creating such a fun rehearsal environment, and all of you for supporting him in his final semester for this emotional farewell performance.

Owen Reynolds is delighted to be returning to the Schwartz with HumaNatures. Some of his most recent credits include Avenue Q (Princeton/Rod), [title of show] (Hunter), Jekyll & Hyde: The Musical (Jekyll & Hyde), and Saving for 17 (Writer/Director). A fourth-generation Miamian, Owen is currently majoring in Architecture, minoring in Theatre, and is President of Cornell’s Midnight Comedy.

David Bascom (Scenery Shop technician) is a sophomore in Mechanical Engineering who has been working in Schwartz as a carpenter for 2 years. He also works as a swim coach for the Lancing Water Cats. This year he joined the Mars Rover project team, and this semester his project is to design and build the camera mast for the rover.

Fritz Bernstein (Lighting Designer)

Sarah Bernstein (Costume Designer) is the Resident Costume Designer at the Schwartz Center and Senior Lecturer in costume design, costume history, and character design. Some of her recent projects at Cornell include: Haunted Natures, Locally Grown Dance 2022, Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, LGD 2021, Pipeline/Townhall, LGD 2020, The Next Storm, The Wolves, Spill, LGD 2019, Awakening of Spring, Mr. Burns, LGD 2018, Hamlet Wakes Up Late, The Caucasian Chalk Circle, and Baltimore. Sarah is a graduate of The Theatre School at DePaul University and the Yale School of Drama.

Theo Black (Co-Director) is a Lecturer in Cornell's Department of Performing and Media Arts, and acts as an advisor for C.A.M.P. & the Cornell Shakespeare Troupe. Theo is an Equity actor and company member of The Cherry Arts, and has worked regionally for over a decade, primarily in works by Shakespeare. Venues include California Shakespeare Theatre, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, African-American Shakespeare Co., and many others. In 2006, he worked as consultant for Norway’s National Theatre production of Othello. Directing credits include: Cyrano de Bergerac and Hamlet (The Nevada Theatre), House of Blue Leaves,Fuddy Meers, Lt of Inishmore, and All The Live-Long Night (Grass Valley Center for the Arts), Macbeth and Skin of Our Teeth (Don Bagget Theater), Our Country’s Good, VOX, and Eating Raoul (UC Berkeley). His primary research interests include scholar-practitioner Shakespeare and Eco-Performance.

Warren Cross (Sound Designer) is the Resident Sound Designer for the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University, joining the department in 1990. In addition to designing sound for department productions, Warren teaches courses in Sound Design, Post Production, and Interactive Performance Technology. He attended Five Towns College for Music Technology, Manhattan School of Music for Composition, and SUNY Stony Brook for Technical Theatre. He is a designer/builder of acoustic and electronic musical instruments.

Raelle Myrick-Hodges (Co-Director) is known simultaneously as a Stage Director for narrative text-based work and a curator of performance. Raelle has only worked in live theater as choice. It is the art form she pursues in process and presentation. She recently presented a newly created work in the Under the Radar Festival (Public, 2020) while currently an adjunct professor in directing with two MFA programs Brown University/Trinity and The Actor's Studio School/Pace University.

Bella Peters (Rehearsal Stage Manager) is a Junior double majoring in Performing and Media arts and Psychology. She has previously worked as the assistant Stage Manager for Seven Homeless Mammoths Wander New England, as well as Stage Managing this semester's Festival 24. She is so grateful that she was able to be the rehearsal SM for HumaNatures and hopes you enjoy!

Caroline Ryan (Stage Crew) is a third year Biology & Society major with intended minors of Law & Society and Education. She enjoys experimenting with expression through fashion design and makeup and is the costume designer for this semester's performance of Baby Rock. She also enjoys dancing, and most recently performed as The Bride at Cornell’s Halloween Drag Bingo. She loves all things theater and is excited to be a part of the crew for HumaNatures!

Jason Simms (Scenic Designer) he/him is an award winning scenographer for Theater, Opera, and Musicals and has designed over 150 productions. Born and Raised in Carson City, NV, Simms started designing for theatre at the age of fifteen. He designs in New York City as well as at regional theaters all across the United States.

Ivy Stevens (Stage Manager) is a graduate of Ithaca College and the National Theater Institute. She can most often be found working with the Ithaca Shakespeare Company, where she's worked consistently for the last 10 years. She's also been a Stage Manager for Opera Ithaca and The Cherry Arts; a Director for House of Ithaqa; a Master Electrician for the Kitchen Theater Company; an actor for Walking on Water; and a Company Manager for the Hangar Theatre, among other things. Most recently she was in residence with Salt Marsh Opera in CT as their stage manager.

Stage Crew: Caroline Ryan
Dresser: Jillian Parrino
Light Board Programmer: Jesse McDonald
Sound Board Operator: Jack Dobosh
1610 Technical Production Lab: Andrew Aman, McKee Bond, Olivia Breitkopf, Tatiana Bustos, Ana Carmona-Pereda, Kaitlin Chang, Flora Ding, Peter Levine, Oscar Llodra, Ben Mehler, Elliot Overholt
Scene Shop Work-Study: David Bascom, Arianna Louise Marie Josue, Julianna Lee, Charlie Wright
Prop & Paint Work-Study: Jessica Ritchie
Costume First Hands: Isabel Berkenblit, Havily Nwakuche, Jill Parrino, Bella Peters
House/Building Managers: Idey Abdi, Cierra Baptiste, Kenneth Choi, Mari-Christina Clark, Safiyyah Franklin, Jack McManus, Jessica Pedro-Pascual, Nia Reid-Vicars, Ethan Sarpong, Matthew Saylor
 

PRODUCTION STAFF
Director of Productions and Events: Pamela Lillard
Technical Director: Fritz Bernstein
Assistant Technical Director: Savannah Relos
Props Coordinator: Tim Ostrander
Costume Shop Supervisor: Lisa Boquist
Master Electrician: Steven Blasberg
Sound Engineer: Warren Dennis Cross
Computer Support: Chris Christensen
Communications Manager: Gary Gabisan
Performance & Events Coordinator: Youngsun Palmer

* This play is presented by special arrangement with Applause Theatre & Cinema Books, 4501 Forbes Blvd, Suite 200, Lanham, MD 20706. For more information on this and other works available for performance, write to the above or e-mail rtwombly@rowman.com.