The soothing Death Cab For Cutie song, “Crooked Teeth,” played in the almost empty Greenberg Theatre. “Angsty but a little poppy,” director Randy Baker said of the music. As in the song, tension mixed with emerging energy as Baker waited for his cast. His actors faced their final run-through last night of the New Student Showcase: “Almost Me and Outta Here.” Carrying out a decade old Department of Performing Arts rite of passage, these fresh faces prepared to make their AU theater debut. The show opens tonight at 8 p.m. at the Greenberg and will run Saturday at the same time and location.
A play-musical hybrid, “Almost Me and Outta Here” offers incoming AU students the opportunity to perform together and be introduced to the arts department. Since the DPA fall musical is cast in the spring, new students do not have the chance to participate.
The characters are in Performance 101, a basic performance class for theater majors. They deal with realities like practicing an emotional monologue in a dorm room and holding their own at the Mass. Ave crosswalk, all while preparing for an important audition. An ensemble show, “Almost Me and Outta Here” does not have lead actors, and every performer is has a solo speech or song.
Performers sing “You Can Do Anything” throughout the show, a literal and meaningful refrain. “Almost Me and Outta Here” mixes the rose-colored glasses freshmen often wear with moments of awkwardness and uncertainty. There is a tenderness here, both through the characters and towards the actors, because we all have been where they are.
Written by AU professor Caleen Sinnette Jennings, the show is performed each year and changes as the actors do. In 2010, “Almost Me and Out of Here” replaced Perf. 101, which was also penned by Jennings and had been the student showcase since 2003. The current program recognizes DPA professors Baker, Javier Rivera and Carl Menninger for adding material to Jenning’s original script. Songs were written by Rob Rokicki and Michael Ruby.
The cast members also had a hand in shaping the show. Four monologues, or “testimonials,” are based on real experiences from the student’s first weeks at AU. Of these, a cringe-inducing story of a “sexiled” roommate stands out, if only because you wish it were not true.
The Director
This is Baker’s first go-around with the new student showcase, though he has been an adjunct professor at AU for three years. One of the changes he made was removing the “voice of faculty” character, in which an unseen staff member spoke. Instead, the students play professors and directors, reflecting the balance Baker strikes with many of his students who are also members of the cast.
Baker runs his own theater company, Rorschach Theatre in DC, and he teaches at the National Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts. What makes AU actors different from other college students and professionals? According to Baker, not much. “The details are different, but being young and new, it’s similar…They’re all still actors, and they’re all still amazingly talented people.”
Baker commends his cast for handling rehearsal schedules on top of adjusting to their first weeks here. Of course, the stress got to some. No one who auditioned was cut from the show, but the original 40 person cast dwindled to 24, as actors dropped out from the pressure of too many obligations. Baker understands and said he feels, “no hard feelings” about the overwhelmed students who quit.
The (mostly) Freshmen
For those who stayed, “Almost Me and Outta Here” proved to be a worthwhile experience. Not all of the actors are theater majors, and not all of them are freshmen. The unifying theme seemed to be the stressful time management. Anthony Nimmo, a freshman and the only biology major in the cast, was not prepared for his chemistry exam today but felt that his school work took time from rehearsal, not the other way around. His fellow freshmen cast member Monica Emma agreed, as she treasures her time spent with the DPA community and learning about herself more than her time in classes.
Mahlia Fulk, a sophomore in international studies and College of Arts and Sciences, is the only transfer student in cast with freshmen, in a show about being a freshmen. Though her experience was unusual, Fulk expressed her gratitude that the showcase was open to transfer students and freshmen alike.
Cast member Patrick Kavanagh, a freshmen in the School of Communication and College of Arts and sciences, played a character that had not existed until now. The character bumps into his female romantic interest again and again. Kavanagh said he was not upset about being excluded from DPA’s fall musical, the Rocky Horror Show. He joked about having his lace and fishnets ready just in case, but he enjoyed building this show and bonding with other new students.
“About Me and Outta Here” plays on Friday, September 20, and Saturday, September 21, 8 p.m., in the Harold and Sylvia Greenberg theater. Tickets are $5 general admission.
