A Different Kind of “Romeo & Juliet” to be Shown at St. Ambrose Tonight
In yet another example of innovative Quad-Cities artists getting creative due to Covid, St. Ambrose University will present a unique filmed
Dan Rairdin-Hale is chair of St. Ambrose University’s theatre department.
theater project tonight at 7:30 p.m. at Galvin Fine Arts Center, 518 W. Locust St., Davenport.
Previously released online in three individual episodes, Romeo and Juliet – A Web Series in Shadow will be screened in its entirety for the first time at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 17, at Galvin on the SAU campus. Tickets are $8 and on sale to the public at the door and ShowTix4U.
KALA, the public radio station at St. Ambrose, will rebroadcast the performance as a radio play in the coming weeks.
SAU students operate shadow puppets for the “Romeo and Juliet” web series.
Last spring, theatre professor and department chair Daniel Rairdin-Hale ’04, MFA, conceived an ambitious reimagining of Shakespeare’s classic Romeo and Juliet. In collaboration with faculty and students in the university’s art, digital filmmaking, and engineering programs, Rairdin-Hale directed a videotaped version of the bard’s tragic love story using student voice actors and shadow puppets.
“It’s a different kind of performance,” Rairdin-Hale said. “Shadow puppetry has origins dating all the way back to the start of theatre but it’s not the kind of theatre that we do a lot of here. We
Part of the filming process for the shadow puppet series.
announced we were going to stage Romeo and Juliet before we knew how long this pandemic was going to last. So, we adapted. I was committed to telling the story of Romeo and Juliet. I think it’s an important and interesting story for these times, when there is a lot of tribalism.”
“I’ve always enjoyed the story,” he said. “I appreciate the warnings about the dangers of tribalism and long-standing divisions in society. These themes are as relevant today as they were back in the late 1500s when the play was written.”
However, with Covid restrictions, Rairdin-Hale could not direct the show as he originally planned. He had to be creative in his approach to directing, and he came up with an innovative solution.
This rendition of Romeo and Juliet was audio recorded by the cast, then video recorded with shadow puppets and released as a three-part web series. This kind of performance allowed for distance between actors, puppeteers, crew, and audience members while still being able to accurately portray the story.
While the play’s central theme is the age-old clash between class and culture, the creation of Romeo and Juliet – A Web Series in Shadow truly is a study in interdisciplinary collaboration and campus-wide support.
The shadow characters were designed by Joseph Lappie, MFA, a professorchair of the SAU art and design program. The puppets were created from book board in the Maker Lab of the Engineering Department. The videography was provided through the digital filmmaking
The “Romeo and Juliet” web series.
program, which Rairdin-Hale also chairs.
“This rendition features the vocal talents of students, alumni, faculty, and staff from across campus,” he said. “It truly was an interdisciplinary production, utilizing equipment and relationships in departments as varied as engineering, theology, theatre, music, art and design, and kinesiology.”
Senior Becky Meissen voices the role of Romeo and was among 15 students who served as puppeteers. She said the production provided rich, varied, and unanticipated opportunities for learning and growth.
“I’ve worked with little puppets in the past, but I’ve never done shadow puppets,” she said. “It was really cool to work in that flat 2D format.
The “Romeo and Juliet” web series.
It was interesting figuring out how to get them to move behind the screen.”
Likewise, revealing character and emotion strictly through voice inflection and intonation forced her to learn a new kind of acting. “It was fun to take a step back and just work with your voice instead of being on stage,” said the student, whose previous acting experience includes lead roles in high school and community productions in her hometown of Dubuque, Iowa.
Like so many students over the past 18 months, Meissen and her fellow students especially learned the importance of adaptability, ingenuity and resilience, according to Ambrose.
Those lessons continue to resonate as Meissen, Rairdin-Hale, and others prepare to bring SAU Theatre back to the stage in November with two full weekends of performances of the fantasy comedy She Kills Monsters.
The “Romeo and Juliet” web series.
Rairdin-Hale said the set design challenges will include creating a 24-foot, five-headed, fire-breathing dragon. “As our first live show in almost two years, we want it to be big and impressive,” he said, but adaptive challenges also include being prepared for ongoing restrictions surrounding the unfinished pandemic.
“We’re talking about if we need to be masked on stage, how can we incorporate those into costumes,” he said. “Because there are monsters and goblins and demons in this play, it might work to put a face covering that has teeth on it or that has zombie flesh, yet actually works as a protective mask, too.”
The “Romeo and Juliet” web series.
As the Theatre program transitions to a minor that will continue to produce programming in which students from across campus can participate, Meissen said imaginative resilience will help the program thrive.
“I think it just goes to show there are so many ways to produce theatre,” Meissen said of her unique learning experiences at St. Ambrose. “Theatre is going to be around a long time. We’re always going to figure out ways to make our art happen. We’re really good at adapting where we need to.”
In the 2020-21 school year, SAU theater staff used beyond-the-textbook lessons in cross-disciplinary critical thinking, unique solutions to unprecedented challenges, and remarkable, thought-provoking, and intriguing artistry, according to Ambrose.
In the fall of 2020, the Theatre program and SAU students teamed with KALA Radio to produce a radio-play version of Henrik Ibsen’s time-honored An Enemy of the People. Directed by Professor Corinne Johnson, PhD, the production earned a first-place national award for Best Radio Drama at the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System Conference in March 2021.
For the puppet video version of “Romeo and Juliet,” tickets are $8 and are available HERE.
