"hursday • April 13, 1995
The Battalion • Page 3
•■■MMi
Dramatic ^rts at A&M
Tragedy strikes Rudder Forum with performance of Othello
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Derrick Nelson/ special to Thf. Battalion
Rene Travino and Jennifer Jordan rehearse for Othello.
By Amy Collier
The Battalion
I tudents will soon be able to witness one of the most
^famous tragic plays in history.
The Texas A&M Theater Arts Program and The Ag
gie Players are presenting William Shakespeare’s Othel
lo, starting tonight in Rudder Forum at 8 p.m.
Othello is a tragic play by Shakespeare in which the ti
tle character, a noble Moor, becomes insanely jealous by
the villain lago. He is finally driven to kill his faithful
and loving wife Desdemona, and realizes he was wrong
after she is gone.
Dr. Mike Greenwald, an associate professor of theater
and director of the play, said he proposed the play to a
season selection committee because he has never directed
a Shakespearean tragedy and also because senior theater
arts major Rapulana Seiphemo is graduating in May.
Seiphemo is a nationally-acclaimed actor who has
been extremely active in the theater program during his
four years at A&M. Greenwald said he wanted the role to
be a tribute to Seiphemo’s acting talent.
“We specifically chose the show because Rapulana
Seiphemo is graduating this year,” Greenwald said. “We
felt we owed it to him before he left.”
When Seiphemo found out he was the main reason
why the play was chosen, he said he felt honored and for
tunate to star in the title role.
“It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,” he said. “What bet
ter way to go out. It’s like I’m going out with a bang.”
The performance will pay off for the rest of the 24 cast
members as well, since they have been studying the play
in a theater class the entire semester.
Greenwald said in addition to studying the theatrical
sense to the play, the students have studied it with an
academic approach as well.
“They’ve studied it from a lot of angles,” Greenwald
said. ‘We don’t just do plays to do plays, but also as a
learning experience.”
Students started rehearsing the play four weeks ago,
and Greenwald said it has been somewhat difficult for
them to perform Shakespeare.
“In an age where art heroes are Forrest Gump, Dumb
and Dumber and ‘Beavis and Butthead,’ Shakespeare is
going to be a little more challenging,” Greenwald said.
“At a university, we need to challenge ourselves.”
The actors agree that Othello is a tough play, and
Seiphemo said studying and rehearsing for his part has
been quite a challenge.
“This is like the ultimate role for any actor to get be
cause it is emotionally and physically demanding,” he
said. “I try to bring it to life on stage.”
The last time a Shakespeare play was presented by
the department was The Merchant of Venice in 1991.
Greenwald said their interpretation of the play was
very different than the original, and had mixed reactions
from audiences. AlthoughOfheZZo is also interpreted
somewhat different, it is very similar to the original play,
he said.
“This one is much more traditional,” Greenwald said.
“I’m trying to show our audience where Shakespeare got
his inspirations.”
Susan Kelly, coordinator of the theater program, said
the play is inspirational.
“Othello is a real challenge for any college to do,” she
said. “It’s one of Shakespeare’s most difficult. People
should come to see what our University’s students are ca
pable of doing.”
Kelly said she attended the first dress rehearsal Mon
day night and was entranced by the play.
“There, were some real moments of honesty and truth,”
Kelly said. “That’s real hard to get with Shakespeare be
cause you can get so carried away with just the lan
guage.”
Greenwald said even though the language of the play
is different, the play is still easy to understand.
“I think we’re making sense of the play,” Greenwald
said. “It moves well and it’s entertaining. People will go
away understanding what the play is about.”
Seiphemo said all should see the play to broaden their
minds.
“Everyone has to be involved in theater for the cultur
al experience,” he said. “This is one of the best produc
tions the theater department has ever put on.”
Arts
By Amy Collier
The Battalion *
A mong the numerous engineering and life sciences
majors at Texas A&M, some majors may be forgot
ten. Many people do not even realize a theater arts
major exists here at A&M.
Theater Arts currently has 65 aspiring actors in
the program.
The Theater Arts Program was first created in 1977
under the Department of English.
In 1985, it made new strides and broke away from the
English Department to become the Department of
Speech Communications and Theater Arts.
Susan Kelly, coordinator of the Theater Arts Pro
gram, came to the department in 1987 primarily as a
costume designer after four years of freelance design
ing in Oregon.
“I realized I missed teaching and so I came here,”
she said.
This past summer, the Theater Arts Program was
granted the freedom to function separately from the
speech communications department and Kelly took over
as the coordinator of the program.
“We still are tied to the department, but we function
independently,” Kelly said. “It’s given us independence
and the ability to really develop our goals.”
This new freedom has been beneficial to the develop
ment and exposure of the department.
“It’s not so much freedom as it is a sense of recognition
that theater arts is a separate unit,” Kelly said. ‘We’re in
a period of rediscovering who we are and why we’re here
and I think we’re going to come out of it much stronger.
I’m real optimistic.”
The program has had so little exposure in the past,
Kelly said that when they distributed their season
brochure this year, many people called asking her if the
program was new.
About 20 percent of the program’s students go on to
become certified to teach theater in high schools and 50
percent go on to professional theater or graduate-acting
school, Kelly said.
Students in the program gain valuable experience to
go on to anything in the acting field, she said.
“I think one of the strengths of this program is that a
high degree of responsibility is given to the students,”
Kelly said. “It gives them wonderful credentials, builds
up their portfolios and makes them strong candidates for
graduate school.”
Many of the plays are student-directed and this past
year, 75 percent of the shows have been student-de
signed, Kelly said.
Since the department’s new-found freedom, Kelly said
the program has become closer to music and art pro
grams on campus.
“When you get independent, then you start looking for
people who are similar in nature,” Kelly said. “It’s been
really wonderful.”
Performances have always been an important part
the Theater Arts Program and still continue to be.
Othello, opening tonight, will be the program’s seventh
and final play of the season.
Next year will bring changes, and Kelly said they will
be presenting only three plays, two of which are The Cru
cible an&Of Mice and Men. This will lend even more time
to making Ingh-quality productions, she said.
“I think we rec
ognize that when
we tend to do too
many produc
tions, we don’t
have enough time
to really do them
well,” Kelly said.
“A lot of what
we’re trying to
stress is the
process and to
take the time to
do it to the best
standards.”
The lighter
production load
will also give stu
dents involved in
the program
some much-need-
Roger Hsieh/THE Battalion
Susan Kelly is the head of the
ed time away from Theater Arts department,
the theater.
“The problem with it is our students have to be stu
dents, as well as spend the time in the theater,” Kelly
said. “You can’t ask them to work those 80-hour weeks on
the productions and still maintain a high G.P.A.”
The environment at Texas A&M has helped Kelly en
joy her years here immensely, she said. In her eight years
here, Kelly said the Aggie spirit still overwhelms her.
“I still go over and watch the film in the MSG and I just
get chills up my spine,” she said. “I see that same spirit of
being an Aggie in theater majors as any other major.”
Former theater student captures major role in feature film
By Michael Landauer
The Battalion
T | he road to Hollywood generally bypasses A&M. Al
though a small theater arts program may not be ex
pected to create tomorrow’s starts, former A&M stu
dent Jennifer Kinard has found
herself in a major role in a full-
length feature film.
Kinard, a 22-year-old former
A&M student, works as a profes
sional actress in Houston. She is
primarily a stage performer but
said she couldn’t pass up the oppor-
tunity to be in a movie.
“I think I was really lucky to do a
full-length feature film,” she said.
“I’ve never had film experience and
it was great. I learned a lot.” Kinard
Dig Back Yard, an independent
film out of Austin, is still in the editing stage. About 150
actors were interviewed for the starring roles as six
friends (three men and three women). They are reunited
years after college at a wedding of mutual friends.
The friends find that they have grown apart and the
characters struggle to realize that friendship is not forev
er. The film, which takes place in one night, explores the
characters’ relationships with each other.
Kinard plays Morgan, a character who is growing tired
of being her friends’ sounding board. Morgan realizes
they are outgrowing their friendships, but she is not
bothered by the fact.
Kinard said her experiences at A&M helped her pre
pare for a professional acting career.
“It was great at A&M because it was like we were run
ning our own little black box theater,” she said. “I got a
lot of stage time because it was a small department.”
My Children My Africa and Dangerous Liasons were
among the plays she performed at A&M. She said Dr. Os
car Giner and Joanne Johnson, both of the theater arts
program, taught her to follow her passion for the theater.
“There was a spirit they gave us — believing in the
passion you have inside of you and going after it,” she
said.
She said her mentors helped create a good theater
family when she performed at the Fallout Theater in the
Blocker building.
“I feel we had a good group there,” she said.
“Everyone involved with Fallout Theater was really
dedicated. You can’t always find that drive and dedi
cation in everyone.” Creating the right atmosphere
for theater has never been easy in Bryan-College Sta
tion. The Fallout Theater group was closer because
their work was challenging, Kinard said.
“At A&M, it was like you were on a mission,” she
said. “There’s so much culture to be had, and you feel
like the people in that town only want to watch a
football game. There was a challenge to getting peo
ple out to watch a play.”
Although her plays often had large audiences, Kinard
said a lot of the people who came to see their plays had to
be offered an incentive.
“Hopefully, some day, people won’t have to get extra
credit points in English to come see a play,” she said.
Working as a professional has spared Kinard of that
kind of audience, but she said she enjoys her work in the
ater for other reasons as well.
“When you’re in the theater and in front of a five audi
ence, they’re giving you all this energy, and you form a re
lationship with them,” she said.
Kinard said she never had a desire to do films and
that theater is probably where she will do most of her
work in the future.
“I’m very weary of seeing myself perform,” she
said. “That’s why theater is great — you don’t have to
see yourself.”
She said that she will probably audition for more film
and television roles now that she has experience, but that
theater is where her passion is.
“I’ll always go back to theater,” she said. “Theater
always comes first. It’s just not the same — theater is
•always better.”
She may never make it to Hollywood, but she said
that’s not an immediate goal of hers.
“I love Texas and I don’t know if I’ll ever want to
leave,” she said. “There’s a lot of good theater in
Texas. I just want to find a good theater family, pay
my bills and be happy.”