Theater/Theatre

Stansbury Theater Seating Chart (Image Source: Lawrence.edu)

Theater: The space itself
Theatre: The art in that space

“In particular if one takes the map in its current geographical form, we can see that in the course of the period marked by the birth of modern scientific discourse, the map has slowly disengaged itself from the itineraries that were the condition its possibility. “ The Practice of Everyday Life (pg. 120)

As a Theatre Major with emphasis on Production, Design and Directing, I have worked on shows since I was a freshman. I went from the simple jobs like painting the nuts and bolts of a door to ultimately directing and designing large productions. During this past fall term I completed my capstone that combined my two passions of film and theatre together in one coherent project. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - The Staged Adaption, was born.

 
For this project, I wanted to show footage of this show in a way that detailed how a vast empty space can ultimately become a place where entire stories and journeys are told. When you walk into an empty Stansbury Theater you see seating for an audience and you see an elevated empty space. That's it. There is nothing interesting or special about the space other than its constant underlying potential. When my show opened, my co-creator Kayleigh Kitzman and I took our audience on a journey that unfolded on that very stage. We showed the progression of two characters lives and the world that surrounded them. What was once an empty meaningless space forever changed due to the events and moments that it housed.

I matched this project with the quote above about the changing nature of places and how a space can be disconnected from what it has or could ultimately become. Stansbury, like the map in the quote, goes through constant discourse and changes to encompass the world that it is going to present to an audience at a particular time. Stansburys existence has changed for me because, even though it has gone back to its “mundane empty space” mode, it is ready to house another potential world. Stansbury Theater was the place where I took on the hardest project I've ever done in my life and where I learned the most about my work and myself.