The Department of Performing and Media Arts (PMA)
presents

Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments

An immersive-environmental performance

Directed by:
Kelly Richmond

Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts
430 College Avenue
May 6, 7:30 p.m.
May 7, 7:30 p.m.

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!

“Nature is a Haunted House – but Art – a House that tries to be haunted”

– Emily Dickinson

Welcome, welcome human beings and microbiomes to the Wartz Entré for the Arts of Perfectly Forming and Remediatedly Dying. You are about to enter the site of Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments, an immersive environmental performance created in collaboration between the classes of PMA 1611 “Rehearsal and Performance,” PMA 1610 “Production Technology Laboratory,” and PMA 2610 “Production Crew Laboratory.”

Haunted Natures is, in one sense, a haunted house experience. You are free to walk through the various rooms (see the provided map), and as you do, do not be surprised if ghosts appear. Like most apparitions, our ghosts seem trapped in an infinite loop, repeating and repeating the same sequence of events again and again. Occasionally, they have been known to catch the eye or take the hand of a visitor, as if desperately trying to break out and tell us something. But what?

In another sense, Haunted Natures is a work of collaborative research-creation devised in a classroom setting. The project emerges from my dissertation project “Spectral Ecologies: Queer Hauntings at the Edge of Climate Crisis” in which I investigate how the haunted properties of performance might serve an ecological function for the theatre. Throughout our rehearsal process, the class of PMA 1611 has explored the uncanny feelings and unsettling interconnections created by placing our source texts (Nathalie Claude’s The Salon Automaton, Marie Clements’s Burning Vision, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Erin Shield’s Paradise Lost, Anne Washburn’s Apparition) in dialogue with one another. The students have worked with scripts and methods both familiar and unfamiliar; they have risen to meet the challenge of not only staging scenes but performing them within the demanding time-maze of a haunted house. This is our spectral ecology.  You too are a part of the research-creation process. Expect to be asked on your way out the door: What was haunting about the work you experienced tonight? What ecologies emerged from this dynamic environment?

Haunted Natures responds to the intermingled challenges of performing in our moment of climate emergency and global pandemic. Rather than reiterate a neoclassical dramatic plot to a passive audience through the proscenium’s fourth wall, Haunted Natures is an immersive environmental performance. It demands you attend carefully and actively to your environment, and the stories it whispers. There is no singular pathway through this house, no beginning, middle, or end to this story. It alludes all attempts to assert control, hierarchy, or linear thinking onto its structure. Let this be your permission to have fun with it and within it.

Finally, like any ecological network or theatrical collaboration, Haunted Natures is dependent on the interrelations between its many participants, human and nonhuman, contained within, and supporting from without. This project would not have been possible without the generous commitment of time, energy, creativity, and care of all the faculty, staff, students, and community members listed in this program, as well as those in attendance with you now. Thanks especially to the PMA Production Team: Fritz Bernstein, Sarah Bernstein, Steven Blasberg, Lisa Boquist, Chris Christensen, Warren Cross, Gary Gabisan, Howie Klein, Pam Lillard, Tim Ostrander, Youngsun Palmer, Savannah Relos, Chris Riley, and Jason Simms who have created a truly sublime apparition out of the most uncanny and unruly of ideas.

Your presence is appreciated. The absent ones always miss out on something.

-Kelly Richmond, Director

Kartikay Jain - Little Boy
Kartikay Jain is studying Computer Science and the reason he decided to participate in Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments was because he loves theatre. I hope you walk away from the show thinking about what it means for something to be haunted.

Jack McManus - Bro LaBine 1, Satan
Jack McManus is a freshman in the College of Agricultural and LifeSciences, currently majoring in Biological Sciences and minoring in PMA. Their previous works at Cornell include Reach for The Sky (2021), Festival24, and Hamlet. They’d like to thank their family for constantly supporting them in their theatrical endeavors, it means the world to him that they believe in him. They’d also like to thank their friends, who continue to be their biggest fans. Their only hope for the audience tonight is they’re able to enter the world we’ve created to the fullest.

Elliot Overholt - Bro Labin 2, Chorus A, Angel Australia
Elliot Overholt is a junior Computer Science major in the College of Engineering. They decided to participate in Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments because ghost stories, and hauntings are something they enjoy exploring in stories. They enjoy exploring the uncanny, the unknown, and the unknowable in theatre, and have been particularly enjoying exploring physical storytelling during the rehearsal process. Previous performance credits include Festival24 (Virtual, 2020), The Prophet Project (Still Small Theatre Company, 2019), and The Diary of Perpetua (Still Small Theatre Company, 2019). They hope you will leave the production slightly less certain of your reality.

Krishna Poddar - Miner, Angel Antarctica

Kate Schrag - Hostess
Kate Schrage is a senior English major and Human Development minor in the College of Arts & Sciences. Though shecurrently has no other performing experience, Schrage’s writing credits include The Undelivered Love Letters (10-10 Festival, Chagrin Falls). She holds the utmost gratitude for the HNHE team’s patience and faith in her as a newcomer to theater, and hopes that the guests of the haunted house enjoy the enthralling exploration of both their fears they can see, and those they cannot.

Muskaan Chugh - Dandy Poet
Muskaan Chugh (Dandy Poet) is a third-year Architecture major in the college of Architecture, Art and Planning with a concentration in Performing and Media Arts. She was introduced to HNHE by participating in the production’s scenic design process through Jason Simm’s Scenic and Lighting Design class. HNHE perfectly combines her interests in performing arts and architecture. This is her first production at Cornell and she would like to thank Kelly for opening up a path that Muskaan would continue exploring.

Arlette Arroyo - Drinking Patroness
Arlette Arroyo is a junior Performing and Media Arts major in the College of Arts & Sciences. She recently designed the set for Marisol (Risley Theater, 2022) and HNHE is her first production as an actor. Immersive theatre is not something she was familiar with but seeing Kelly’s scenic design process this past fall semester made it all the more intriguing. Being a relatively new performer, she is grateful for the support she has received from the incredible cast and crew and hopes the audience walks away with unsettling realizations about the everyday fears surrounding their mortality.

Andy Colpitts - Cabaret Artist
Andy Colpitts is a PhD student in Performing and Media Arts. His research focuses on how theatre and popular entertainment serves rural communities in navigating an increasingly urbanized world. Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments is his first production at the Schwartz Center and has been a wonderful opportunity to get to know the spaces and artists that fill it. He trained at the Ecole Jacques Lecoq in Paris. He has toured with the Bread & Puppet Theater and performs burlesque under the stage name La-Di-Da.

Sinclair DuMont - Harpe, Satan
My name is Sinclair. I major in English with a concentration in Media Studies and minor in Russian. I am a junior and a transfer student. I am from New Orleans, Louisiana. Next year I will be writing a thesis about robots and gender and I am an officer in the Pole Posse club on campus. 

Arin Sheehan - Mr Lies, Satan
Arin Sheehan is a senior studying Applied Economics and Management with a minor in Theater. On campus, she is the producer of Festival24 and the Melodramatics Theatre Co., with previous acting credits in The Wolves and the 10-Minute Playfest. She is happy to be able to participate in this haunting display in her last semester at Cornell, and nothing would bring her more joy than scaring an audience member.

Vrinda Sharma - Chorus B, Angel Asiatica
Vrinda is a senior Biological Sciences major and Environmental Engineering minor. Though she has no theater experience she has performed as a dancer since she was eleven. HNHE presented the perfect opportunity for Vrinda to explore and combine her love for ghost stories, her passion for environmental science and her drive to try a new performance medium before graduating. She hopes for the audience to immerse in this synthetic world and connect it to their own reality.

Christel Robinson - Chorus C, Angel Europa

Adam Shulman - Chorus D, Angel Africanii
Adam Shulman is a concurrent degree student in the departments of Performing and Media Arts, Fine Arts, and Music. At Cornell, he has appeared in student films, Cymbeline Anthropo Scenes (Virtual, 2021),the 10 Minute Play Fest, and Festival 24. Adam designed sets and projections for The Pleasures of the Quarrel (Bailey Hall, 2022), Reach for the Sky (Schwartz Blackbox, 2021), Asiamnesia (Virtual, 2021), and After Nature Had Drawn a Few Breaths (Schwartz Exterior,2021). Next year, he will present his PMA thesis, Nature’s Play, a theatrical wildflower garden near North Campus. Please enjoy the fear and beauty of nature encapsulated indoors..

Triniti Slaughter - Bus Stop, Radium Painter

Kelly Richmond - Director, Set Designer
Kelly Richmond is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Performing and Media Arts. Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments is the practice component of her dissertation project “Spectral Ecologies: Performing Queer Hauntingsat the Edge of Climate Crisis”in which she que(e)ries how the haunted properties of performance might serve an ecological function for the theatre. Kelly’s directing work explores queer performance forms and adaptations; previous credits include You Love Me Right? (Gay Play Day Festival,Toronto), In Fair Verona: A Lesbian Dystopic Burlesque (Moyse Hall, Montreal), and Peter Pan (Player’s Theatre, Montreal). She hopes the ghosts of our haunted house will disturb and delight in equal measure.

Beth Milles - Faculty Directing Advisor
Beth Milles is a Director and Associate Professor in the Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University Recent directing work includes Timebomb by Carson Kreitzer (Kitchen Theatre), Felt Sad, Posted a Frog  (international pandemic collaboration Cherry Arts) Farewell Chris Yee (NYC).

Pamela Lillard - Director of Productions & Events
Prior to receiving her MFA in Stage Management from Virginia Tech, Pam earned her membership in Actors’ Equity Association as a Stage Manager for the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. She went on to stage manage at many regional theatres throughout the country including The Alaska Rep, Tacoma Actors’ Guild, Willamette Rep and Ft. Worth’s Shakespeare in the Park. She has been at Cornell since 1987, serving the department as Production Stage Manager, Production Manager and in her current position.

Matthew Kassorla - Assistant Director
Matthew Kassorla is a sophomore English major in the College of Arts and Sciences. After taking a class in playwriting, Matthew decided to join the team of Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments as his first-ever theatre experience. He has since become fascinated by this production’s effort to combine live theatre and interactive spaces and has enjoyed being a part of such a highly creative and collaborative environment. Matthew hopes that the incoming guests will feel the creative energy coursing through the theatre walls and be just as inspired as they are unnerved by the hauntings they see.

Kaitlyn Cui - Assistant Director
Kaitlyn Cui is a freshman undecided major in the College of Arts and Sciences, planning to declare a PMA major next year. The reason she decided to participate in HNHE was her love of ghost stories and Sci-Fi. She enjoys being a staff behind the scenes. Previous credits include Festival 24, and two plays in the Cornell Chinese Drama Society: Metamorphosis of Butterflies (Risley Theater, 2021) and Twelve Angry Men (Annabel Taylor Hall, 2022)

Charlie Wright - Assistant Director
Charlie Wright is a freshman in the College of Engineering. He has always loved building sets and being backstage for performances, and decided to join Haunted Natures, Hidden Environments as a chance to be more involved in the creative process of designing and directing a performance. He hopes you have an exciting and frightening time exploring the haunted environments we were able to create. Previous credits at Cornell include First Date (Risley Theater, 2021) as well as aiding in production of sets for several other shows.

Howard Klein - Stage Manager
Howard Klein has worked for many years as a professional AEA production stage manager off-Broadway, regionally, and on tour around the USA. He is the Stage Manager for The Department of Performing and Media Arts at Cornell University. Howard has also worked in more than 300 venues in 11 countries and counting, as Production Manager and Lighting Designer of the dance company, Galumpha. He worked at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts as Producing Coordinator in the Theatrical Production department and stage managed more than 30 productions for the NYU Graduate Acting Program. Other favorite credits include The Lincoln Center Institute, WP Theatre and The Cider Mill Playhouse. Howard has also taught Stage Management at SUNY Binghamton where he received his BA in Technical Theatre.

Tim Ostrander - Prop Master, Set Decorator & Scenic Artist
Tim has been the Schwartz Center Props Coordinator since 2001. In that time he has propped and dressed the sets for several hundred shows as well as designing scenery for and performing in multiple PMA productions.  Prior to that he lived in San Francisco and New York City where he performed onstage as a sketch, improv and stand-up comic while also working behind the scenes in television, commercial and theater production on projects for Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, HBO and PBS among many others.

Jason Simms - Lighting Designer, Faculty Set Design Advisor
Jason Simms (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. 

Warren Cross - Sound Designer
Warren Cross 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.

Lexi Turner - Associate Sound Designer
Lexi Turner is a 3rd year PhD student in the Department of Performing and Media Arts, and a musician and sound artist. Best known for her work under the moniker Prayer Rope, she also performs as And the Maiden, Tears of Morning, as one half of the projects Avoidance and Homocidal, and a member of the harsh noise supergroup TSALAL. She is a member of The Lethal Temple, Pink Triangle Series and Voyeur’s Motel sonic collectives. Her academic writing combines cultural theory, media studies and philosophy, exploring what she terms “shadows of being and horizons of thought.”

Sarah Bernstein - Costume Designer
Sarah Eckert Bernstein has been the Resident Costume Designer at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts since the fall of 2001. She is a Senior Lecturer in costume design and history at the Department of Performing and Media Arts. Ms. Bernstein is a graduate of the Theatre School at DePaul University (founded as the Goodman School of Drama) and the Yale School of Drama. 

Julianna Lee - Scene Shop Work-Study
Julianna Lee had an amazing time creating the set (and sometimes some props) for Haunted Natures. She has loved doing backstage work since high school from stage managing Matildato playing bass in the pit for Thoroughly Modern Milly. At Cornell, she is part of the Cog Dog Theatre Troupe and also took the PMA Production Lab last semester. She really hopes that at least one other person sings "Secret Tunnel" in the mines as she immediately did while creating it (hopefully that is not a spoiler).

Arianna Josue - Scene Shop Work-Study
Arianna Josue ILR '24 with Inequality Studies and Law and Society Minors has been a work-study in the scene shop since September 2021. She has helped construct scenic elements for various productions and is honored and excited to keep learning and improving skills with the help of Fritz, Savannah, Tim, and the rest of the incredible team.

PMA 1610 - Technical Production Lab:  
Sofia Aguirre, Erin Brickle, Kit Ellsworth, Hayden Garniewicz, Daniella Gonzalez, Aidan Herz, Hannah McManus, Jillian Parrino, Katrina Peterson, Saif Quraishi, Maxwell Ringer, Grayson Rosenberg, Noah Rubinstein, Bonny Wong, Vannessa Wong, Angela Yuan

Scene Shop Work-Study:  
David Bascom, Arianna Louise Marie Josue, Julianna K. Lee, Charlie Wright

Props & Paint Work-Study: Jessica Ritchie

Costume First Hands: Emma Kindig, Simone White, Lillian Liu, Bella Peters

Dressers: Shiyi Huang, Josh Wong, Lily Hsu

Assistant Stage Manager: Ally Bruno

Light & Sound Technician: Saleen Alin De La Cruz

Stage Crew: Devon Brewer, Giles Mitchell

Electrics Work-Study: 
Emlen Brown, Anastasia Kreisel, Matthew Secondine, Ariel Shaked Costume First Hands: Emma Kindig, Lillian Liu, Bella Peters, Simone White

BUILDING/HOUSE MANAGERS:
Sofia Aguirre, Mackenzie Closson, Naomi Daniel, Samantha Granja, Deepak Ilango, Anastasia Kreisel, Jack McManus, Maxwell Ringer, Matthew Saylor, Ariel Shaked, Sarah Zaragoza-Smith

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
Computer Support: Chris Christensen
Communications Manager: Gary Gabisan
Performance & Events Coordinator: Youngsun Palmer
Box Office Manager: Julie Tibbits

Jessica Banner, Anna Evtushenko, Arnika Furhman, Ellen Gainor, Kristina Gu, Caitlin Kane, Chris Riley, Sara Warner, Cornell Council for the Arts.