By Matthew Laurrie
Assistant Features Editor
It may be a wrap for the 2011-12 SBU Theater season, but in just four months, it will return from intermission and draw open its curtains to reveal its newest play. Next year isn’t just any ordinary year for the theater department, as it will be performing three productions instead of the usual two.
SBU Theater will begin its triple-production run with the presentation of Kathryn M. Coughlin’s play “More Than Before” a month after classes resume in the fall.
Ed. Simone, director of the theater program, knows Coughlin personally and enjoyed reading her piece so much that he decided to help bring it to life on campus.
“I loved the play,” Simone said. “I just thought it was a really great piece.”
Rebecca Misenheimer, associate professor of visual and performing arts, said Coughlin is expected to visit campus to collaborate with the cast and crew of the show.
Simone discussed the premise of the play and noted the interesting personal commentary it offers on love and loss.
“‘More Than Before’ is actually based on an incident in the playwright’s life,” he said. “It’s about a young woman who loses her best friend in an accident and how she deals with that vis-à-vis her mother and her boyfriend. In this production, (there’s a) recurring appearance of the dead girl who continues to walk through the young woman’s life.”
According to Simone, SBU Theater normally prepares for eight or nine weeks and more than 100 hours before a show debuts. He said despite limited rehearsal time, he is confident the performers will be stage ready come September because they will be expected to learn their lines over the summer.
Misenheimer, the technical director of the play and coordinator of set design, said because “More Than Before” is an unlikely story, the technical portion of the play can be creative.
“It will be simple, scenically – there are not a lot of props, there are a few furniture pieces, but it’s a wonderful, gorgeous script,” Misenheimer said. “There are some things that are very poetic about how it’s presented; it’s an episodic structure, rather than a clearly realistic linear. ‘More Than Before’ isn’t a realistic show, so we really get to have fun and focus on the mood and atmosphere.”
The theater department takes pride in its ability to compile pieces that aren’t typically well known or widespread, according to Simone. He explained it is important to highlight the theatrical capacity of playwrights who have a lot to offer but may not be acknowledged enough.
“What’s cool about our program is that we try not to do the kinds of things that are necessarily expected,” Simone said. “If we’re going to do a musical, we’re going to do one that isn’t done that often. If we’re going to do plays, we’re going to classic and contemporary plays that aren’t necessarily mainstream pieces.”
The theater department held auditions Wednesday and Thursday to fill roles for the production’s three-day run.
SBU Theater also plans to perform an adaptation of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” toward the end of the fall semester and a musical – tentatively projected to be the Reale brothers’ “A Year with Frog and Toad” – in the spring. “More Than Before” is composed of only four characters, allowing the department to prepare for and perform the show while simultaneously gearing up for these upcoming shows.
Simone said he is proud of what SBU Theater students have accomplished, and he looks forward to the future of productions on campus.
“We’re a real presence on campus, and the students have made it so,” he said. “We try to do things that resonate with students and make a difference.”
laurrimr11@bonaventure.edu
