By Karen Trimbath
Public Information
The audience sits in hushed silence watching an actress, clothed in a sleek cocktail dress, nervously toss down a drink to the strains of a Puccini aria. Another actor, playing her husband, enters.
"I have done the deed," he tells her, revealing his bloodstained hands and knife. He is a black-suited mafioso from the 1950s who has just killed his cousin Duncan to usurp his power.
The lights dim, the props are replaced and the scene is repeated again, with a radically different setting. This time, the wife listens to Pearl Jam as she waits for her husband to return to their trailer home in the deep South. They are an interracial couple who want to rise out of their impoverished circumstances by murdering the husband's powerful cousin.
Although these scenes may not seem connected, both are one and the same -- act two, scene two of the Shakespearean tragedy Macbeth, performed during a recent session of Theatre 100, an introductory course that combines a brief lecture with a related performance given by graduate students enrolled in the MFA theatre arts program.
Around 400 students enroll in each section, but the large roster is actually an advantage, according to Annie McGregor, assistant professor of theatre arts, who teaches the course.
"Large lecture classes often get a bad rap. But a large class actually enhances the theatrical experience," McGregor said. "We have a legitimate audience, with a diverse cross-section of ethnicities, nationalities and majors, who are bound together as they watch and discuss performances. The effect would be lost with a class of 20 students."
An integral part of this class is the performance company, made up of 12 graduate assistants and one faculty member.
"This class blends professional training for graduate students and undergraduate education," McGregor said. "Some students have never seen live theatre. By the end of the semester, they'll have seen a lot."
Dan Vernon, who is studying in the MFA directing program, is the one who directed Macbeth as a Mafia tragedy -- an idea that arose out of his research on the Mafia's power hierarchy during the 1950s. After three-and-a-half hours of rehearsal, he and actors Mark Light-Orr and Deborah Curtis were ready to go.
"Belonging to the performance company allows for a practical application here of what we learn at the school," Vernon said.
Theatre 100 has an international scope and runs the gamut from prehistoric to contemporary drama. All aspects of theatre are covered -- including directing, acting and design.
Currently, McGregor is in Dakar, Senegal, where she is giving a presentation on her class at the Third World Congress, a theatre training conference sponsored by the International University Theatre Association from Nov. 14-21. Dan Carter, director of the School of Theatre Arts and artistic director of Pennsylvania Centre Stage, will also give a presentation and three graduate students and five current and former members of the THEA 100 company will perform in front of an international audience.
The Department of Theatre Arts is online at http://www.personal.psu.edu/dept/theatrearts/.