Fall 2025 Theatre Newsletter

Fall 2025 was an exciting, busy, and deeply gratifying semester here at Fir Acres building. Personally, as a returning Chair of the Department, I’m happy to be back, and after a long absence the Fall semester once again reignited my love and appreciation of the community we have here.

The semester started with a “bang:” our Theatre Department “Meet and Greet” attracted a stunning one-hundred-and-twenty students, of which more than eighty were incoming freshmen. Our classes, especially those in our energized Dance program under the leadership of Tiffany Mills, were filled to capacity, and the Fir Acres Building was buzzing with activity around the clock.

Our production program was a busy one. The semester began with the annual Student Directed One Act Festival. Three student directors, Lila Kunkel, Andrew Van Voorhees, and Brodie Joseph directed an ensemble cast of six actors in pieces ranging from realistic relationship drama set on a fishing boat (!!!) in the Louisiana Bayou to an absurd critique of the American middle class with eyes literally popping out of the characters’ eyes on stage (!!!) to a slightly sophomoric “sex comedy” that had the audience in stitches.

We followed with our mainstage production of Rain and Zoe Save the World, a new play by a New York-based playwright, Crystal Skillman and directed by a guest director, Tracy Francis. The production was a new experiment for us, since the playscript is still in development, and the actors worked directly with the playwright and the director in shaping the final version of the text in real time.

The production was also a vehicle for Quinn Newberry, a graduating senior in fulfillment of their Creative Senior Thesis. Quinn played the main role of Rain, was on stage the entire time, and gave a wonderfully truthful and engaging performance.

Our annual Dance Extravaganza attracted a record number of audiences and every performance was sold out. Eight student choreographers working with a company of more than thirty student dancers created pieces that were not only stunningly beautiful and precisely choreographed but also displayed a wonderful kaleidoscope of styles ranging from a ballet-inspired dance to a dance-theatre-like piece to an energetic riot of a dance that had the audience shout and holler.

At the end of the semester, we presented the Acting III and Directing final projects in the Black Box theatre. The Acting III class, never known for its modesty, produced a two-hour-long version of a little-know play, Hamlet by an obscure English playwright, one William Shakespeare. The nine student directors in the Directing class working with thirty-four actors, presented scenes and one-acts, ranging from Beckett, to The Crucible, to Sarah Kane, and others. The final performances attracted a large crowd of audiences filling the Black Box to capacity. In addition, the Playwriting class offered a Festival of New Plays with staged readings of ten original plays generated in the class.

Apart from the “official” season, the students once again put on an entirely student-generated and self-produced production of a “chamber musical,” The Last Five Years, the regular “Once Upon the Weekend” festival of short, under-rehearsed, but (or maybe exactly because of that) brilliant student-written plays, as well as the end-of-a-semester “Speakeasies,” a relatively new tradition of a cabaret-style production of music, short scenes, and all sorts of other shenanigans.

The big news on the faculty side is that Suhaila has a baby! Layla Ruby Wu was born on October 9th. Welcome to the world Layla Ruby Wu!!! Little Layla is growing and thriving in Chicago, where Suhaila is spending her maternity and her sabbatical leave. As we have already written in our previous newsletter, Suhaila has received one of the most prestigious academic fellowships in America, the ALS Fellowship, and she’ll continue researching and writing her book as part of that program next year. She has also published an article in the November issue of “Theatre Topics,”the premier Theatre research publication. The article, based on her mainstage production of the Wolf Play in the Spring of 2024 is accompanied by a number of production pictures featuring our students.

Rebecca has been leading the New York Off-campus program. She and the fourteen students in the program have seen more than twenty-five productions in New York, and they are coming back energized and inspired by having spent fifteen weeks at the very center of the theatrical universe. Back on campus this spring, Rebecca and Tiffany are devising, writing, and workshopping their joint Spring semester mainstage production, and Rebecca is also preparing to direct a play for the Third Rail Repertory Company in May. The Spring semester is shaping up to be a busy one for her!

Štěpán, after his Morocco Overseas program and a year-long sabbatical, had an eventful and gratifying semester, and apart from teaching three classes, supervising the one act festival, working with our Seniors in preparation for their Theses, and chairing the department, he wrote, directed and produced The Snow Globe, a Christmas show with music, which had a sold out run at the “21Ten Theatre” in Portland.

Miranda designed at the Portland Playhouse, Tiffany continues working with her company jet-setting between Portland and New York as she recently started a new dance/theatre work with Tiffany Mills Company in January 2026, called “In Search of Evangeline”, and Jenny and Matthew have been busy supporting all the various projects at the Fir Acres Theatre. Cristi and Eric continue to inspire students at Fir Acres and in their work out in the world. Jessica, our departmental admin has held it all together for all of us (the students and the faculty) throughout the semester, and she clearly is the best thing that has ever happened to the department.

Our graduates are thriving, and while there are too many to mention, one highlight is that Rocco Weyer-Johnson (2022) has just finished a run of a wonderful production of Little Women at the Portland Center Stage. He is now a proud member of Actors Equity, and the show is now traveling to the Cincinnati Playhouse for another five-week run. And see page 12 to see what Emma Green (2024) is up to!

So, all is well at the Theatre Department. While the College as a whole is experiencing some budgetary issues, the Theatre Department is thriving. In the Spring we have one of our largest group of seniors (18), our production season is packed with fantastic stuff, our classes are filled to the brim, and everyone is working together as a closely-knit community of artists and scholars.

We are really really good at what we’re doing here, and we’re good because we know that no matter what, THE SHOW MUST GO ON!!! 

Cheers,

Štěpán, the (rocking) Chair of the Department

Fall 2025 Theatre Newsletter