The Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College says the show must go on this fall, even with building maintenance temporarily displacing the theatre company away from the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse.
Thanks in part to the Office of Admission opening its living room to rehearsals, the Fitness and Wellness Center providing space for a costume shop, and partners across campus showing support, the Festival Playhouse will perform The Importance of Being Earnest from Thursday, November 7–Sunday, November 10, in the Olmsted Room at Mandelle Hall.
Theatre Company Manger Kirsten Sluyter said Festival Playhouse representatives had to think about what would be best for students in deciding whether to go on as scheduled, shift gears to a different play or perhaps cancel the show entirely when they learned the Playhouse wouldn’t be available. Yet they found support from across campus, and the smaller Olmsted Room, which seats just 45 patrons as opposed to 400, provided an interesting opportunity.
“This piece was originally written as a drawing-room play, which means both that most of the action takes place in a drawing room, and that it was meant to be re-enacted in a home drawing room,” Sluyter said. “If we were going to design a set to look like an English sitting room in a country estate, we probably couldn’t have done better than the Olmsted Room. It’s been a mixed blessing to be away from home, but being there gives us a unique opportunity to stretch some muscles we don’t get to use as much.”
In the play, Jack Worthing—played by Cooper Dahl ’28—is a community pillar in Hertfordshire, where he is a guardian to Cecily Cardew, played by Ella Myers ’27. For years, Jack has pretended to have an irresponsible brother named Ernest who leads a scandalous life while pursuing pleasure and getting into trouble that requires Jack to rush to his assistance. No one but Jack knows that he is Ernest.
Cecily is a granddaughter of the late Thomas Cardew, who found and adopted Jack when he was a baby. Jack is a major landowner and justice of the peace with tenants, farmers, servants and other employees depending on him as he falls in love with Gwendolen Fairfax, played by Sophia Merchant ’25. Other K students in the play include McKenna Wasmer ’25 as Lady Bracknell, who is Gwendolyn’s mother; and Lee Zwart ’27, as Algernon Moncrieff, Jack’s best friend and Lady Bracknell’s nephew.
The play weaves through multiple tales of deception between characters as playwright Oscar Wilde criticizes Victorian society. Although tempered by comedy and happy endings, he exposes the upper class, where deception and hypocrisy were rampant at the time. Zwart, who hails from South Bend, Indiana, said he chose to attend K for its studio art program, and he appreciates that the theatre program is open to anyone. He found the opportunity to act in a play like The Importance of Being Earnest appealing.
“Algernon is an over-the-top and kind of ridiculous character—very much an Oscar Wilde self-insert,” Zwart said. “My mom is big into Oscar Wilde. When I first mentioned that we were doing Being Earnest, I asked her what part I should go out for. She said, ‘Well, Algernon is a lot of fun.’ He romantically pursues Cecily, and a lot of the play involves him scheming about doing that.”
The play will be challenging for actors and behind-the-scenes crew alike as the audience will rotate from facing the back of the Olmsted Room, to facing the side windows, to facing the front between the three scenes. Stage Manager Evelyn Ellerbrock ’27 is enjoying that opportunity along with a chance to work alongside Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas, who is the play’s director.
“I’ve always done backstage theater work in high school and now in college, but I like the experience of seeing the rehearsal side and also getting to see the tech side,” Ellerbrock said. “I think people will want to see this show because it’s funny and there’s a certain appeal to doing it in the Olmsted Room. Not being in the theater space means that there’s something new and interesting to discover. It will be great to see how it works out.”
That premonition about it being well attended has turned out to be true as the play is completely sold out for each of its four performances.
“It’s just a good show, even if people don’t necessarily understand all of the Victorian references,” Zwart said. “I think we do it in a way that a modern audience will understand and enjoy.”
