“Found Dog Ribbon Dance,” a play by Brooklyn, N.Y.–based playwright Dominic Finocchario, opened at the Mahaney Arts Center Seeler Studio Theatre on Thursday, April 4, as the first of the two spring faculty theater productions.
The simultaneously fun, comical, heartbreaking and emotionally complex play had the audience laughing one minute and crying the next. The enthusiasm that lead Maggie Blake ’24 and the rest of the cast had for the play was clearly visible.
The play follows the story of Norma (Blake), a professional cuddler with a warm and inviting personality. Norma never wants to make her clients feel uncomfortable, despite the some-what awkward service she provides. As the title suggests, Norma has found a lost — or, as she insists on calling it, found — dog and has taken him in as her own, still determined to find his owners.
One day at a coffee shop, Norma meets Norm (Ethan Fleming ’24), a shy and endearing barista who quickly falls in love with Norma. Norma soon also falls in love with the quirky and passionate Norm. Later in the play, Norma faces a number of challenges, including inappropriate clients and losing her beloved dog, through which she learns about herself, opens up to Norm and reveals hard truths about her past.
“It has been an honor to work with the actors who were all so willing to dive into the emotional truths of these wounded characters,” said Olga Sanchez Saltveit, assistant professor of theater and the director of “Found Dog Ribbon Dance.” “These were not easy roads to travel, but they all opened their hearts to the vulnerability each of them must experience in the show.”
Blake emphasized the rawness of Norma’s character arc.
“This play really was a wild ride. I’ve never had a role this big, and bringing Norma to life really was an amazing opportunity,” she said.
A psychology and theater major, Blake described the way the play brought together her different interests in the character of Norma.
“Seeing the world through her eyes and every decision she made throughout the play was such a critical step in the process, and such a cool way to look at the way people are,” she said.
Putting together a production as complicated and involved as “Found Dog Ribbon Dance” comes with its unique set of challenges and struggles. With under three months to rehearse, the company was able to put the show together beautifully. Not only did the actors bring their highly nuanced roles to light successfully, but the set design, music and lights all complemented the show wonderfully. The set brought to life a modern studio apartment, its luminous white walls complemented by candles, houseplants and colorful drapery.
“We learn[ed] to balance our responsibilities to meet the demands of being in rehearsal six days of the week,” Sanchez Saltveit said. “I want to shout out Maggie Blake, who plays Norma and is in almost every scene —she gave so much of her time, so graciously [and] professionally, to rehearse that beast of a role.”
Each member of the cast and crew faced a unique set of challenges with their role in the play. Hannah Alberti ’26, who played Miranda, a career mom struggling to hold everything together, described the most difficult part of the show as trying to fit into Miranda’s voice. “The director had asked me to use a deeper register, so trying to find the balance between using that deeper voice and still having to go through all these highs and lows vocally was a struggle,” Alberti said.
Alberti also highlighted the amount of rehearsal time it took to get the show ready. “There was a lot of emailing for extensions and late nights, so I used a lot of my daytime for recuperating,” she added.
Claire Hatch ’26 described the challenges of embodying her role of Dog.
“It was a lot of physical acting, which is tricky; I was always asking myself which parts of the character were more human and which were more dog. It ended up being a really interesting blend,” Hatch said.
The audience was clued into the character’s identity through pale blue overalls boldly labeled “DOG,” but it was Hatch’s performance that made the casting believable.
Hatch added that she had to learn to catch a tennis ball. “I would say I really honed my fetch skills,” she said.
Sanchez Saltveit expressed the joy she felt working on the production, and how the play grew on her over time.
“The whole team, the actors, the crew, our designers and their assistants, everyone who touched this show, helped build this set or the costumes brought so much good will, talent, inspiration even to our process,” she said.“I will miss the collaboration, the shared creativity, the struggles, the laughs, all of it.”
Blake echoed Sanchez Saltveit’s sentiments, and described how such a positive cast and crew helped them work through some of the tougher subjects the play brought up.
“It’s definitely safe to say I’ve made some lifelong friends throughout this show and have experienced something completely new to me.”
The ending of “Found Dog Ribbon Dance” left the audience in shock and suspense, showing them you can never judge a book by its cover. Norma, as with many of the other characters, began and ended the play as two entirely different people, changing as the storyline progressed. The grace and beauty with which Blake took on the complicated role of Norma was remarkable.
