Arts | 4/17/08

Media Credit: Eric Gazzillo [Click to enlarge]

The Ruth Marder Studio Theatre in the Center for the Arts: The stage is minimal. No walls. No curtain.

The set is modeled as a dean's office at the fictional Belmont College, with a typical mahogany desk and a typical striped couch. In little to no time, the student actors in the play "Spinning into Butter" will make their way onto the set, running through one of the few remaining rehearsals before opening night on Thursday, April 17.

Director and junior theatre major Lexi Hubb stands in the seats, as actors and crew come up to her, asking the important questions: How's my makeup? What lighting do you want? Is this too much? Too little?

"I proposed this play last semester," Hubb said. "Basically they handed me $500 and a theater and said hey, hold auditions."

Hubb picked the play, which follows the reactions of white administrators, faculty and students at Belmont to a racist note found on a black students dorm room door, after her faculty advisor gave her four plays to read over a weekend when she was struggling to chose one to produce.

"One of the reasons why I picked this play is because the text flowed really nicely," she said. "Also, it reminded me of stuff that had been happening on campus."

Hubb said that her interest in the topic was the basis of conversations she had with groups on campus and in her apartment concerning diversity. She said that she overheard many of the same conversations in the University Union and on the "beach."

"I basically said I need to do this play," Hubb said. "It needs to happen at Towson to continue the conversation of what I interpret as the lack of racial diversity at Towson."

With a play finally chosen, Hubb scheduled auditions for the final week of school before Winter Break after she was able to procure rights to the script.

"It was basically what we call a 'cattle call,'" she said. "It was a cold reading and they just read selections from the script."

A final cast was decided, featuring undergraduates Caitlin O'Hare as Sarah, Rich Buchanan as Ross, Vinnie Lidie as Patrick, Vince Constantino as Greg, Allen O'Brocki as Strauss, Jenifer Wilson as Catherine and J. Brandon Beatty as Meyers.

Continued...

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