Theater Project Assigns Roles in the Professional Realm Middlebury College Students Plunge into Real-Life Theater Experience in D.C.

Author: Joya Scott

Every summer, Middlebury College's Theater Department migrates south invading suburban Maryland with its particular brand of provocative drama. This yearly ritual spawns the Potomac Theatre Project (PTP), the alternative theater in residence at the Olney Theatre Center in Olney, Md., right outside of Washington, D.C.

When I arrived at PTP this summer to assume my role as the Assistant to the Director (AD) for a production of "Crave" by Sarah Kane, I was greeted by the familiar faces of seven of my fellow Middlebury College theater majors and two of our professors, Cheryl Faraone and Richard Romagnoli. Faraone and Romagnoli founded PTP in 1987 as a way to give young theater artists the opportunity to work with professional actors, directors, designers and technicians in a real-world theater setting.

Every year, a small company of Middlebury students and recent grads is integrated into the process of creating a professional theater season. This summer, we expected to present three shows in repertory: Kane's "Crave," Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land" and Pam Gems' "Piaf." After settling into our humble accommodations, we jumped into our respective rehearsal processes, experiencing professional rehearsals for the first time.

"Crave," I soon discovered, is an incredibly dense text. Thus, a part of my duties as AD included the dramaturgical research for the show. I spent my evenings hunched over in front of a computer screen - hunting down the sources of the characters' obscure references became my passion. Of course, given the nature of PTP, this wasn't my only job - all eight of us did a little bit of everything (and sometimes, a lot of everything!) depending on what needed to happen to pull the three shows together. Some rehearsed roles in the productions alongside professional actors, and we were all understudies and had technical duties galore.

After a few days of relative calm, it was time to begin in full force the technical preparations for the shows. Since the schedule at a professional theater is much more condensed than the relatively luxurious time period we enjoy at school, we quickly found ourselves booked 12 to 18 hours per day with work calls, rehearsals and other tasks. We spent long hours building scenery and running mad-cap around the metropolitan D.C. area finding props and buying supplies, only to race back to Olney to rehearsal and then finally collapse into our beds late at night - I can't say that it was all fun and games. But we did learn a lot through the mad scrambles prior to opening night, and we were all amazed and pleased with the results.

Of course, our work didn't end there. The actors in our company learned what it was like to repeat a play over and over again for a period of weeks - something that characterizes professional theater, yet rarely is experienced in academia. We all took on new technical tasks to support the productions once they opened. I ran the sound board for "Piaf," for instance. Since the show was about the life of Edith Piaf, this job provided the interesting challenge of managing the technical aspects of a song-filled performance every evening. Making three plays happen in the same space (sometimes all in the same day) proved to be a logistical challenge. In the end, however, we rose to it by working as a team to get everything ready for the next performance.

I gained a tremendous amount of experience from PTP, as did all my fellow company members. We learned the ropes of professional theater by jumping in and taking on new challenges everyday. Most valuable of all was the opportunity to work with professional artists and hear about how they have found fulfilling careers in the theater. In fact, thanks to PTP, many Middlebury theater graduates have moved to D.C. to join the exciting theatrical community there. Others of us are planning to do so after graduation. My friends and fellow PTP company members Tricia Erdmann '03 and Zoe Anastassiou '03 who recently moved there put it this way:"PTP gave us the opportunity to form relationships with professional actors, directors, designers and technicians and consequently bridged the gap between educational and professional theatre. We feel blessed to have been offered such a unique experience that immersed us into the many facets of the theater world and now we are continuing to pursue our love of theater in the D.C. area because of PTP."