Seniors cap theater majors with work on distinction projects

Duke students are known to be ambitious, driven and hard workers. Theater Studies majors working towards graduating with distinction are models of this notion.

Though applications for graduating with distinction are due in the spring of one’s junior year, many of these students plan their distinction projects from the start of their Duke education. Ali Yalgin, a senior Theater Studies major, realized that he wanted to pursue the project after acting in a friend’s during his freshman year. But Yalgin had his sights set on directing his own production.

“I wanted to take a challenge as a director which would allow me to develop my skills and work closely with faculty members,” he said.

Students form close relationships with faculty members who serve as advisors throughout the project, in addition to Director of Undergraduate Studies Ellen Hemphill. Students may choose to pursue a project in directing, design, acting, dramatic literature, theater history or dramatic theory. Projects must have a research and written component, and may also have a production component.

Yalgin hopes to challenge his directorial skills and develop his own style while working on directing the production of Creditors by August Strindberg. Yalgin admits that even though Creditors is not one of Strindberg’s most famous plays, the play will appeal to its audience through its physicality of movement and special lighting and sound. The production will emphasize the darker parts of the human soul, dabbling in hypnotism and playing off of the characters’ suggestive powers. The audience can expect to see, in Yalgin’s words, “vulnerable people that are taken over by their hunger for control and power.” Creditors will run from Feb. 23 through Feb. 25.

On the opposite side of the emotional spectrum, Nathaniel Hill’s production of Ragtime, a collaboration between Hoof ‘n’ Horn and the Theater Studies department, promises to be a “crazy, exciting, wild musical with a lot going on and a lot to see.” Hill, who took on this project during his year as Hoof ‘n’ Horn’s president, explored a hands-on approach in his production. Hill began contacting the Theater Studies faculty with the idea of a large-scale musical production in April 2010. For Hill, the benefits of combining the two programs outweighed the sheer magnitude of the workload. Ragtime is a 40-person cast (including five children) with a full orchestra and crew. Hill works to maintain day-to-day communication between every cast and crew member. Ragtime, one of Hill’s favorite musicals, is about breaking down barriers and creating unity between three different groups of people at the turn of the 20th century: upper-class white suburbanites, African-Americans and Eastern European immigrants. Hill hopes to reach a broader population with his production by employing fresh tactics such as a thorough marketing campaign (which includes a new website, an opening night party, free giveaways and a YouTube trailer) to produce a comprehensive theater experience.

Theater Studies will display a wide array of productions this semester to showcase student’s distinction projects. Mary Lowell will be translating from Middle English and presenting a reading of The Mary Plays from the N-Town Cycle (Mar. 23-25). Tennessee Williams’ masterpiece Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Feb. 2-4) comprises four distinction projects. Director Kim Solow and actors Jennifer Blocker, Kirsten Johansson and Kyler Griffin have been tirelessly working on their own interpretation of one of Williams’ most popular productions.

Theater Studies’ distinction program allows for artistic control, freedom of opinion and enhanced creativity for the students that take on the challenge. This year promises a talented pool of projects up for distinction honors.