Adapted and Directed by Dr. John Newman
Written by William Shakespeare
Chris Vlamakis
Apollo Weaver
Amy Whipple
Collin Schmierer
Nate Lowry
Hair & Makeup Design
Kaitlin LeBeau
Kathy Curtiss
Liz Golden
Mary Pobanz
Kaely Hope
Devon Parikh
Lillian Hanks
Ramses Contreras
Grace Bowman
Alex Russon
Seven Harrison
KC Johnson
Isaiah Gale
Jessie Hensley
Brendan Hanks
Chloe Henry
Kat Balanzategui
Lizzy Jensen
Bronwyn Andreoli
Carson Lawrence
Haley Howe
Anne Post Fife
Trinity Johnson
Grace Fillmore
Kaitlin LeBeau
Kaitlin LeBeau
Brendan Hanks
Trinity Johnson
First Assistant
Stage Manager
Brooke Hall
Second Assistant
Hayden Buss
Production Assistant
Lucinda Lai
Stage Hands
Props Master
Wardrobe Supervisor
Dressers
Light Board Operator
Sound Board Operator
Swing
Hair and/or Makeup
Supervisor
Makeup Technicians
Makeup Design Faculty Mentor
La Beene
Lighting, Sound, & Stage Manager Mentor
Graham Whipple
Welcome to the world of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet! If this is your first time experiencing the play on stage, we hope you will appreciate the Italian Renaissance setting in which Shakespeare pictured the story. While we have condensed the text to the “two and a half hours traffic of our stage,” all scenes remain, and the rhythm and rhyme have been carefully preserved.
All Shakespeare productions mix historical and contemporary staging practices as they present the story to modern audiences. While grounded in the Renaissance, we have envisioned a version of that world in which women step into roles traditionally reserved for men and in which the educated class learn sign language rather than Latin or French. We have brought Romeo’s first love, Rosaline, onstage to explore her story, using rarely performed passages from the original script and borrowing lines from Shakespeare’s other plays. We resisted romanticizing the suicides of the lovers or showing them as inevitable, and we have tried to illuminate moments where a different response from a friend or family member might have led to a different outcome. At the end of the show, we explore how the “glooming peace” of tragic events may inspire kindness and forgiveness among rivals.
We hope you enjoy seeing this play for the first time, or seeing the familiar story through an unfamiliar lens. When we feel we are fortune’s fools, tragedy helps us observe the mistakes of others and envision a better way forward.
Dr. John Newman, Director
The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education; Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation; The Honorable Stuart Bernstein and Wilma E. Bernstein; the Kennedy Center Corporate Fund; and the National Committee for the Performing Arts.
This production is entered in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). The aims of this national theater education program are to identify and promote quality in college-level theater production. To this end, each production entered is eligible for a response by a regional KCACTF representative, and selected students and faculty are invited to participate in KCACTF programs involving scholarships, internships, grants and awards for actors, directors, dramaturgs, playwrights, designers, stage managers and critics at both the regional and national levels.
Productions entered on the Participating level are eligible for inclusion at the KCACTF regional festival and can also be considered for invitation to the KCACTF national festival at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC in the spring of 2011.
Last year more than 1,300 productions were entered in the KCACTF involving more than 200,000 students nationwide. By entering this production, our theater department is sharing in the KCACTF goals to recognize, reward, and celebrate the exemplary work produced in college and university theaters across the nation.
Utah Valley University acknowledges that we gather on land sacred to all Indigenous people who came before us in this vast crossroads region. The University is committed to working in partnership—as enacted through education and community activities—with Utah’s Native Nations comprising: the San Juan Southern Paiute, Paiute Indian Tribe of Utah, Uintah & Ouray Reservation of the Northern Ute, Skull Valley Goshute, Confederated Tribes of the Goshute Reservation, Northwestern Band of Shoshone Nation, Hopi Tribe, Navajo Nation, Ute Mountain Ute-White Mesa Community, and urban Indian communities. We recognize these Native Nations and their continued connections with traditional homelands, mountains, rivers, and lakes as well as their sovereign relationships with state and federal governments. We honor their collective memory and continued physical and spiritual presence. We revere their resilience and example in preserving their connections to the Creator and to all their relations, now and in the future.
With this statement comes responsibility and accountability. We resolve to follow up with actionable items to make the School of the Arts at UVU and The Noorda Center for the Performing Arts an inclusive, equitable, and just space for all. There is much work to be done, and we are committed to putting these words into practice.
Chair, Associate Professor
LA BEENE, MFA
Associate Chair, Associate Professor
JULIE HEATON, MFA
Administrative Assistant
CURTIS CLUFF, MFA
Associate Professor
AMANDA CRABB, MM
Assistant Professor
JENNIFER DELAC, MFA
Lecturer
ELIZABETH GOLDEN, MFA
Lecturer
M. CHASE GRANT, MFA
Professor
LISA HALL, PHD
Professor
LAURIE HARROP-PURSER, MFA
Lecturer
SHANNON HUTCHINS, MFA
Assistant Professor
RICHARD LORIG, MFA
Professor
JOHN NEWMAN, PHD
Assistant Professor
STEVEN RIMKE, MFA
Lecturer
GRAHAM WHIPPLE, MFA