Laughter, anxiety, and awe were just a smattering of the feelings evoked by this past weekend’s showings of Why We Vote, a student-written, course-based performance aimed at tackling voting and ballot topics in light of the 2024 election. Cast members captured the audience’s attention with their unique staging and post-performance Question & Answer session.
Actor Krissy Zhu ’28 described her enjoyment during the Q&A panel, which allowed members of the show to discuss the trials and tribulations of their production process. She highlighted how the interactivity was able to draw the audience and actors closer together.
“It’s a cool experience, where the audience is actually…connected with the cast of the show, and to see that they have actual intriguing questions about our process. It makes me feel happy that they are actually curious about [what] this process was like, rather than just seeing the performance and then leaving. So I think that made me feel really happy,” said Zhu.
This past weekend, Theater 915, taught by Robert Lazar, Instructor in Theatre and Dance, and Allen Grimm, Instructor in Theatre and Dance, put on a devised theater production titled Why We Vote as the culmination of their work throughout the term. Audience member Maxie Wu ’28 shared her thoughts after watching the show.
“It was interesting, especially with the upcoming election. The interview process for them, too, must have been a lot of work. It was cool to see the hard work of the class and how they pieced the script together, which we figured out in the Q&A later… I liked how they moved around. Especially when they were talking about abortion rights, and Natalie [Giancola ’28] stood up on the block, [the physicality] in the show stood out to me,” said Wu.
Cast members collaborated to create a script from scratch using interviews from anonymous friends, family, and faculty. They focused on encapsulating the importance of voting through the first-hand experiences of their interviewees. Natalie Giancola ’28 dove deeper into the process of designing the show.
“We started off with doing a lot of research, trying to figure out what questions we wanted to ask for interviews, and getting enough background knowledge on politics that we could have effective interviews. Then we went off, and we interviewed people that we thought would be interesting, or have interesting things to say about politics. And then after that, we got the interviews and started piecing it together into making it a coherent script. In the past week or so, we’ve been putting it on its feet and getting the block in and preparing it for the show,” said Giancola.
This elaborate process also came with its share of challenges. Whether it was personal opinions or tedious transcription work, Zhu described how cast members had to adapt and compromise when it came to writing.
“Some challenges were editing the script because there were a lot of times when our cast had disagreements. One person will say, ‘I believe that fits well’, and the other person [would say], ‘That doesn’t fit at all.’ So I think working out those issues and agreeing as a cast [was a major challenge],” said Zhu.
For some performers, this play was their first time writing and producing a show. Zhu described how, despite the challenges along the way, producing the show was an enlightening experience for actors and audience alike.
“The biggest takeaway is being able to come up with a script ourselves that incorporates other people’s opinions [rather] than our opinions. In all the performances I’ve done before, we were just given a script, so we had to fit into this character which we don’t really know. But I think what is really cool is that we are familiar with the people we interview, and we’re familiar with the responses. So it actually makes me feel that my biggest takeaway is that we are more connected to script. We know how to organize a script, and we’re able to act it out in a more engaging way,” said Zhu.
