It’s not often that college thespians have the opportunity to discuss their work with one of the preeminent forces in American theater. The cast and production team of Wesleyan’s “365 Days/365 Plays” festival were given just that opportunity last Tuesday at the ’92 Theater.
A group of thirty students, professors, and other fans of Suzan-Lori Parks’ nationwide theater event met with Joseph Roach, Charles C. and Dorathea S. Dilley professor of theater and English at Yale University and member of Yale’s World Performance Project (WPP), to discuss how Yale and the WPP organized “365” in New Haven this past November.
Roach seemed just as excited as the students to collaborate on the worldwide theater experience.
“So, what should we do?” Roach said. “We have his extraordinary opportunity together.”
The talk allowed those involved with the University’s production to discuss both their specific theatrical visions and the various logistical issues with veterans of Yale’s own event. Kate Krier ’01, technical director and production manager of the WPP, added her own insights about the difficulties the project poses.
“This is as much a creative process on the administrative side as it is on the production side,” Krier said. “No one really knows what it is going on, and that is great. It is definitely more exciting than sitting in your cubicle answering e-mails.”
The first half of the discussion focused on Yale’s adaptation of the first week of Parks’ plays. WPP Artistic Director Emily Coates offered behind-the-scenes stories on why the WPP chose certain options for performing and casting the plays. Coates explained how the organizers came to cast Yale professor, poet, and dancer Elizabeth Alexander in the play, “Window of Opportunity.” Coates showed a recording of Alexander, dressed in black and sporting a pair of butterfly wings, dancing around the stage gracefully and reciting her lines.
“This is a good example of how we think through the text and ‘physicalized’ the text,” Coates said.
A Yale graduate and current lecturer in the Yale College Theater Studies Program, Coates is the co-founder of the performance group Kinesthetic Theory. A dancer herself, she has performed with the New York City Ballet, White Oak Dance Project, and the Twyla Tharp Dance Company.
The Wesleyan “365” cast performed some of Parks’ plays for Roach, including “Worms,” “Original Motherfucker,” and “The Lake Shore Limited.”
By the end of the discussion, both Roach and the Wesleyan “365” team admitted that being part of the “365” play cycle was both a massive undertaking and an opportunity for something wonderful to be created.
“I must say this is really crazy,” Roach said. “It’s nuts, but, it just seems to be such an opportune moment. The only thing that makes me sad is that I am not nineteen. You have this fabulous moment. People of your generation have some wonderful opportunities, and this is it.”
According to the Yale University website, Roach previously chaired the Department of Performing Arts at Washington University in St. Louis, as well as the Interdisciplinary PhD in Theater at Northwestern University, and the Department of Performance Studies at NYU. He has written multiple books and articles, including “Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance” which won the James Russell Lowell Price from the MLA, and the Calloway Prize from NYU, as well as “The Player’s Passion: Studies in the Science of Acting,” which won the Barnard Hewitt Award in Theatre History. Roach is currently the principal investigator of the World Performance Project.
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