Theatre

UVU Theatre Department Presents

Romeo and Juliet

Adapted and Directed by Dr. John Newman

Written by William Shakespeare

 
Stage Manager

Chris Vlamakis

Scenic Design

Apollo Weaver

Costume Design

Amy Whipple

Lighting Design

Collin Schmierer

Sound Design

Nate Lowry

Hair & Makeup Design

Jessica Butler
Assistant Director

Kaitlin LeBeau

Choreographer
Ramses Contreras
Fight Director

Kathy Curtiss

Intimacy Coordinator

Liz Golden

Assistant Scenic Design

Mary Pobanz

Assistant Costume Design

Kaely Hope

Assistant Sound Design

Devon Parikh

Assistant Hair & Makeup

Lillian Hanks

 
 

Cast

Romeo

Ramses Contreras

Juliet

Grace Bowman

Paris

Alex Russon

Benvolio

Seven Harrison

Tybalt

KC Johnson

Friar Lawrence

Isaiah Gale

Balthasar

Jessie Hensley

Peter

Brendan Hanks

Escalus/Apothecary

Chloe Henry

Mercutio

Kat Balanzategui

Lady Montague

Lizzy Jensen

Lady Capulet

Bronwyn Andreoli

Lord Capulet

Carson Lawrence

Rosaline

Haley Howe

Nurse

Anne Post Fife

Mistress Sampson

Trinity Johnson

Mistress Gregory

Grace Fillmore

Abram/Livia

Kaitlin LeBeau

 

 

Understudies

Kaitlin LeBeau

 

Brendan Hanks

 

Trinity Johnson

 
 

Production Run Crew

First Assistant
Stage Manager

Brooke Hall

Second Assistant

Hayden Buss

Production Assistant

Lucinda Lai

Stage Hands

Ethan Freestone

 

Madison Halverstadt

 

Kara McCarthy

 

Kate Smith

 

Nathan Van der horst

Props Master

Caitrien Neilson

Wardrobe Supervisor

Keller Cummings

Dressers

David McKain

 

Jenna Murdock

 

Ele Rose

Light Board Operator

Alessandro Falabella

Sound Board Operator

Braden Clement

Swing

Elise Jones

Hair and/or Makeup
Supervisor

Brigitte Espenschied

Makeup Technicians

Mckenzie Blair

 

Lizzie Hughes

 

Rachel Naylor
 

Faculty Advisors

Makeup Design Faculty Mentor

La Beene

Lighting, Sound, & Stage Manager Mentor

Graham Whipple

 
 

Director's Note

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

The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival™ XLIII

 

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.

 

Land Acknowledgment

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.

 

Coming Soon
The Noorda

School of the Arts
Events

THE DEPARTMENT OF THEATRE

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

Associate Professor
JANINE SOBECK KNIGHTON, MFA


Assistant Professor
RICHARD LORIG, MFA

Professor

JOHN NEWMAN, PHD

Assistant Professor
STEVEN RIMKE, MFA


Lecturer
GRAHAM WHIPPLE, MFA