theatre

‘Marcus’ Auditions Offer Opportunity for Students of Color

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Marcus auditions with Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas
Assistant Professor Quincy Thomas talks about what it
means to take part in art that reflects and celebrates
your experiences, and how the theatre department is
working to create a safe space for all students.

Spring break is just around the corner and will be quickly followed by casting for the last show in the Festival Playhouse at Kalamazoo College’s 58th season, themed “Black is Beautiful: An Ode to Black Life, Love and Strength.”  

Auditions for Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet will be held at 7 p.m. Tuesday and Wednesday, March 29 and 30. Ten students of Color are needed to tell this coming-of-age story of a young gay man in the Louisiana projects days before Hurricane Katrina strikes. 

Assistant Professor Quincy Thomas talks about Marcus, what it means to take part in art that reflects and celebrates your experiences, and how the theatre department is working to create a safe space for all students. 

Q: What can you tell me about the play Marcus and playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney? 

This play is really powerful. It’s smart, it’s funny, it’s about sexual identity and personal identity and tradition and family. McCraney’s voice is so multidimensional and new and fresh and he is very much about poetry, the beauty of the voice and music, lyricism. He does all of this to create a space for voices that have historically been silenced or pushed to the margins. This is the story of a young boy right before Hurricane Katrina, and his community and the way that shifts, and his own sexual identity and personal identity. It’s a story many Black men have dealt with, particularly figuring out your identity in our country. But it’s a story many people have not heard or do not know because it’s not a traditional Eurocentric story. For me as a Black man and as a father, the story of young men coming of age in our country is so important. 

Q: What do you know about director Anthony Hamilton? 

I know he has connections to the Kalamazoo arts community. He is another one of those young, bright voices. I believe he’s going to be able to capture the nuance and the poetic power of this piece. He will not only do this story justice, but also teach our community that is predominantly white about these kinds of stories.  

Q: What is important about this story? Why is this a story that needs to be told here? 

On a broader platform, Black stories need to be told. Art is the way we look at the world and the culture we’re in. If you want to know what’s important to a community, all you have to do is look at the art they create. When you do not see yourself in those things, that tells you that you are not important to that culture. Traditionally, theatre has been a white pastime, it’s been very Eurocentric. Despite the progress we’ve made, and how far we’ve come, theatre is still very, very white. Without the presence of Black people and people of Color in an artistic culture, not only are you saying something to the people who are absent, you’re saying something to the people who consume that art about who is important. 

Black people need to see themselves on stage. It’s also important to non-Black audiences being able to see the world and culture without stereotypes. There are still so many aspects of the Black experience that people don’t know, that people have never seen and that shapes the ways in which Black people are perceived and interacted with in the world. 

Specifically, this is an important story to tell on a college campus because it’s the coming-of-age story of a person trying to figure out who they are and what it means to be a man. The kind of people we need to be, who we want to be, the things we might be afraid to embrace because of cultural pressure. Those are things students are grappling with. Who am I now? I’m not the person I was. Who am I becoming?  

We don’t have a shortage of coming-of-age stories. There are a lot of these stories about white people. Where are those beautiful stories about Black joy and heritage and history and legacy?  Where are those stories that tell a Black person, this is who you are, this is your past; you may need to challenge that, you may need to muddy that, you may need to change that. Who do you need to be for your community and for yourself? 

Q: What is the value of telling Black stories in the context of theatre? 

One of the challenges to any theatre right now that wants to do diversity, equity and inclusion work is that we have to remember that it is not work people are used to seeing, particularly in a sustained fashion. We all need to create a new culture where people of every race, color and creed say, this is theatre for everyone. We are not at the place yet where Black actors trust that those shows are going to be handled in the right way, cast in the right way, not told from a Eurocentric lens. We have to establish trust in our community so that BIPOC [Black, Indigenous and people of Color] actors, BIPOC crew, BIPOC stage managers feel welcome. That has not happened yet. We need to continue telling those stories whether we have trouble casting them or not. That is anti-racism work and that doesn’t stop. As a Black artist, there have been plenty of times where I haven’t auditioned because I know that I’m going to read to a bunch of white directors, words written by a white person, for a role intended for a white person. If I’m being cast for diversity clout, I may not go. If I feel like they just want me because it’s February, I’m not interested in that. It’s not enough to just do a play. We have to create a culture.  

I wholeheartedly believe the K theatre arts department has the desire to make change happen. That means we’re going to have moments like this. This is the season of Black joy. We need more than a season, but the cool thing is, when we sit down and talk about the future, next year, we’re talking about shows about people of Color. We’re going to continue to do shows about people of Color. We’re going to tell those stories. We’re going to do it beyond a season of Black joy. And that is the work that needs to be done. We’re not just interested in putting non-white actors on stage. We also want to get more BIPOC designers, BIPOC crew, BIPOC costume designers. If you’re a Black woman in a play, who’s doing your hair? Who knows how to light you? Skin tones are different, being lit on stage is different. These are things a lot of people don’t consider, what it means to put a Black body on stage. This department is looking to understand all those things. 

We are committed to creating change and theatre that is proactive and for everybody. 

Q: What do you see as the value of the experience for students? 

It is more than getting up on stage and saying lines. Experiential learning is very important at K and the things you learn when you’re involved in a production translate to all kinds of different jobs. Public speaking, textual analysis, team building, communication, time management are all valuable lessons learned in a production process. If you are a student of Color, you more than likely have not had that many opportunities to create art that looks like you, to partake in art that speaks to who you are. Anytime you get to create art, it’s a privilege. So rarely do students of Color get an opportunity to create art for them, art that talks about their world, their trauma, their pain, to go through the process that enables you to give the world a view into the culture and community that is a part of your life and is your identity. When you’re in college, you may or may not have that opportunity. After college, the opportunity to do that kind of work dwindles dramatically. An opportunity to have a voice, to be heard, to have that voice guided by a fantastic director who understands Black art. The opportunity as a person of Color to be able to tell your story, showcase your identity, while being directed by a person who has walked a version of that walk, that is an opportunity you may never have again in your entire life. That is an opportunity you jump at, particularly if you care about creating art that makes a difference. 

Q: In your experience, why don’t many Black students get involved in theatre at K? 

I believe it is wholly, singularly about trust. People of Color in theatre, unless they’re coming from a historically Black institution, all have horror stories about the way they’ve been treated in costume shops, in makeup chairs, while their hair is getting done. A lot of university theatre departments will talk a big game and not follow up. For Black students in my experience, reluctance to audition generally comes down to, “I would love to do that play but I don’t want to be mistreated.” 

I personally will do everything in my power to ensure they are supported and feel safe. I can’t speak to how it was before, but I personally am committed to doing the work to ensure that Black artists are safe in our spaces. And if something happens that they are not, it will be handled. If students speak up, report, they will be supported. We can’t get the work done if students are being mistreated. 

Q: What would you say to Black students about this opportunity? 

I know this has happened to you, I understand the fear that you have in doing the thing, but I promise you that we’ll keep you safe. You will have a voice. This is a collaborative process.  

We can have all the great intentions in the world, but if we are not creating the space, then students can’t fill the space. I’m committed to creating spaces for these students that are better than they’ve been for me. There’s not a reality where I’m going to allow any student to be mistreated in our department. It’s personal for me. They have my word, and if something goes down, I would involve myself. You have to protect these students, and traditionally, education has not done a very good job of it. It’s not students’ responsibility to create safe spaces. It’s our responsibility. 

Q: Why should Black students audition for this show? 

There’s a risk. There’s a gamble in auditioning. It’s not easy work, but when you are an artist of Color and you actually get to do the thing … when you have a story about people of Color and you have artists of Color and directors of Color, that personally affects you, changes you. You come out the other end of that process a person who understands their own world and the larger world in a better way. Theatre is the world through a particular lens. When that lens looks like you, there is something remarkably empowering about that. When there are people dedicated to telling important stories about people like you, that is healing, affirming, life changing, even if you only do one show. There are shared languages, shared moments, moments of trauma only the cast and director you are with are going to understand. You will come out the other end of it feeling empowered, feeling you have been heard, your voice matters. 

Feeling you’re not just screaming into the void is very important. It is a wholly valuable experience. It’s never going to be a perfect experience, because there isn’t any such thing, but it is going to be invaluable.  

Auditions for Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet

  • Written by playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney 
  • Directed by Anthony Hamilton 
  • Festival Playhouse at Kalamazoo College (at the back of the Light Fine Arts building, near Dow) 
  • Casting 10 students of Color 
  • Tuesday and Wednesday, March 29 and 30, at 7 p.m. Please arrive by 6:45 to fill out an audition form. 
  • Callbacks will be Thursday, March 31, and the show will run May 12-15. 
  • No experience or preparation necessary. 
  • Visit theatre.kzoo.edu/opportunities/auditions to learn more.

Comedy “BLACKS+PHATS” Addresses Stereotypes, Beauty Ideals

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BLACKS + PHATS Playwright Kevin Renn
Kevin Renn is the playwright behind “BLACKS+PHATS,” running Thursday
through Sunday at the Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College.

Characters such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Michael Jackson and members of the Black Panther Party will help the Festival Playhouse at Kalamazoo College address themes such as racial stereotypes, beauty ideals and relationships in a staged reading of a comedy coming this week.

Kevin Renn, a playwright from New York City, will be among those observing his latest work, BLACKS+PHATS, a show that he has designed to give Black people and full-bodied people the last laugh at the end of the day as it premieres Thursday and runs through Sunday.

“I was always horrifyingly fascinated with stereotypes, how people see others in certain ways, and how that affects society,” Renn said. “I wanted to take these stereotypes along with people’s biases, and flip them on their head or stretch them to the ridiculous to point out to people how insane they are.”

Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas
Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas
will be one of the actors featured in
“BLACKS+PHATS” at the Festival Playhouse
of Kalamazoo College.

Renn has written essays for the New York Times and is known for productions such as Showcase: A Rehearsal Musical, which details a challenging final practice session for a group of theatre students the night before a college showcase performance; Mulatto Boy, about the only student of color at a private school where he runs for student body president; and Jungle Juice, addressing six friends who celebrate their college graduation and end up confronting their uncertain futures and a troubling secret. BLACKS+PHATS, however, focuses on the similar ostracism and isolation both Black people and full-bodied people face and how they can help each other.

“When I think about the heart of this play, it is a stripping down of everything to a common core,” Renn said. “It’s children. It’s this idea that the fat kids get picked on and bullied a lot. I saw that growing up. I also understand what it means to be a Black kid in a white space and be picked on, bullied and ostracized in that way. When you strip it down to that, that is the simplest element in which they can connect. It’s how they feel left out and pushed aside, and in the manner that they’re pushed aside, they find each other. They can then find strength in each other to lift and build up each other.”

Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas takes on multiple roles within the BLACKS+PHATS vignettes.

“Theatre is a space where we see the world through different lenses,” Thomas said. “I would hope that the audience walks away from this understanding the insidious ways in which popular culture, the media and even movies have marginalized and pushed blackness to the outskirts of society, the outskirts of our culture, particularly in the areas of honest representation. I hope the audience walks away understanding the ways in which the representation of blackness has been wrongfully shaped, formed and monetized.”

Tickets for BLACKS+PHATS, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, are available online. The Thursday production includes an audience talkback after the show with Renn. Tickets for adults are $15, seniors $10 and students $5. Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff are admitted free. Please note that proof of vaccination and masks are required for admittance to the theatre.

“The coolest thing about this production is that it’s a new work,” Thomas said. “The playwright has a young, vibrant, wise voice, and it’s an honor to deliver his message. It’s really exciting to spend time with him and talk with him about his motivations and his process.”

Playwright Kevin Renn Offers Public Discussion at K

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Playwright-Kevin-Renn
Kevin Renn will conduct an open-to-the public discussion regarding his
experiences as a Black playwright at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 22, at the
Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, 205 Monroe St.

A playwright from New York City will conduct a free and open-to-the-public community discussion at Kalamazoo College days before his latest show, Blacks+Phats, is presented at K’s Festival Playhouse.

Kevin Renn will discuss his experiences as a Black playwright at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, February 22, at the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, 205 Monroe St. Renn is known for productions such as Showcase: A Musical Rehearsal, which details a challenging final practice session for a group of theatre students the night before a performance; Mulatto Boy, about the only student of color at a private school where he runs for student body president; and Jungle Juice, addressing six friends who celebrate their college graduation and end up confronting their uncertain futures and a troubling secret.

Blacks+Phats uses characters such as Goldilocks and the Three Bears, the Black Panther Party and Michael Jackson to take a satirical look at Black cultural issues, body image, fetishism and their representation in modern society. The play will be presented at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, February 24–Saturday, February 26; and at 2 p.m. Sunday, February 27, at the Festival Playhouse, 129 Thompson St.

Tickets for Blacks+Phats are available through the Festival Playhouse online box office. Adults are $15, seniors $10 and students $5. K students, faculty and staff are admitted for free. The Thursday production includes a talkback session with Renn and Director Janai Lashon. Please note the play includes potentially triggering references to sexual assault and eating disorders, and masks and proof of COVID-19 vaccinations are required for admittance to the theatre.

For more information on the play and the Festival Playhouse, visit its website at festivalplayhouse.kzoo.edu.

“Acting Shakespeare” an Ideal Intro to the Bard

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Matthew Swarthout rehearses for Acting Shakespeare
Matthew Swarthout ’22 will present “Acting Shakespeare,” his own play
adapted from Sir Ian McKellen’s production of the same name, this
Thursday–Sunday at the Dungeon Theatre, 139 Thompson St.

If you desire an appreciation for the works of William Shakespeare yet find his plays challenging, you’ll want to attend a show coming this week to Kalamazoo College. Matthew Swarthout ’22 will present his self-written senior integrated project (SIP), a play titled Acting Shakespeare, adapted from Sir Ian McKellen’s production of the same name, this Thursday–Sunday at the Dungeon Theatre, 139 Thompson St.

The original production featured McKellen alone on stage with no props or scenery, performing monologues from Shakespeare’s work, and discussing some of his plays. McKellen first performed it in 1980, and a 1984 Broadway engagement earned him the Drama Desk Award for an Outstanding One-Person Show and a Tony Award nomination.

This version will encompass both Swarthout’s and McKellen’s insight into Shakespeare’s plays, featuring monologues and scenes from plays such as Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet, Macbeth, Henry the Fourth Part One and Henry the Fifth.

“This is the kind of Shakespeare show for people who don’t know Shakespeare,” Swarthout said. “I can talk in my 2022 language, which everyone can understand, and then I can shift into Shakespearean language and say, ‘This is what Shakespeare meant by this.’ It’s like a sampler of plays. You’ve got a comedy, a tragedy, a history and you can decide for yourself if you enjoy Shakespeare enough to see more of his plays.”

Matthew Swarthout rehearsing for Acting Shakespeare
Matthew Swarthout ’22 offers his insights into William Shakespeare’s plays
in “Acting Shakespeare,” coming this week to the Dungeon Theatre at
Kalamazoo College.

Swarthout first developed his appreciation for Shakespeare as a young child when he saw As You Like It at the Stratford Festival in Canada. He later was drawn to K as he found the liberal arts could empower him to double major in biology and theatre. Since, Swarthout has performed in several Festival Playhouse shows with roles including the comical character Sir Andrew in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, and Buzz Windrip, a politician who unexpectedly wins the U.S. presidency in It Can’t Happen Here, a play based on Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 satire of what could happen if Fascism spreads to the United States.

“I’ve had a lot of freedom at K with directors who really like to see some big, expressive characters, and that’s the kind of role I’m often cast into,” Swarthout said. “Even for Acting Shakespeare, I change things around one day and try something completely different the next day to see what works. It’s nice to see what goes wrong in order to see what’s going to go right.”

Acting Shakespeare production poster
“Acting Shakespeare” will encompass plays such as “Romeo
and Juliet,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Hamlet,”
“Macbeth,” “Henry the Fourth Part One” and “Henry the Fifth.”

That freedom takes on more complexity in preparing for Acting Shakespeare as Swarthout serves as both actor and director. He listens to recordings of himself reciting the play while snowboarding for memorization purposes in addition to maintaining regular rehearsals.

“There’s a challenge in looking at yourself with such a critical eye,” he said. “Usually as an actor, you’re doing your best and then it’s up to the director to say, ‘You could improve upon this.’ But since I’m directing myself, I’ve had rehearsals where I go over about three lines in 45 minutes. It’s hard to separate the director from the actor.”

In additional theatre pursuits, Swarthout participated in the New York Arts Program, a study away opportunity that places students from Great Lakes College Association (GLCA) affiliated schools in Broadway and off-Broadway theatre organizations, opera houses, dance companies, publishing houses, literary agencies and music performance venues. Swarthout worked at the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, finishing just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit the city. An adviser told him not to expect an opportunity to act on stage while there, as most of the acting opportunities go to New York University students. However, his talents enabled him to accept the role of Underling in a production of The Drowsy Chaperone, a parody of American musical comedies of the 1920s.

“That was probably the best experience I had in New York just because I felt like I was living there as a working actor,” Swarthout said. “I had my classes, I had my job and then I had the gig, which was really fantastic.”

Swarthout is sending out audition tapes to adapt to theatre’s current virtual landscape in the hopes of one day returning to the East Coast and eventually New York after graduation. In the meantime, he’s excited to think of how his audiences could develop an interest in Shakespeare as a result of his performances. Tickets for Acting Shakespeare, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Thursday–Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday, are available online. Kalamazoo College students, faculty and staff are admitted free. Tickets for the general public are $5. Please note that proof of vaccination and masks are required for admittance to the theatre.

“People should enjoy Shakespeare and keep Shakespeare alive, not for the history of it, but what we can do with it,” Swarthout said. “We can change its meaning and interpret it in so many ways to get a point across. If you’re trying to have a theatre season that’s focused on anti-racism or has some themes around homophobia, for example, you can use a Shakespeare show to bridge gaps of understanding. Shakespeare becomes a powerful tool.”

Esteemed Guests Offer Free Play to Honor MLK

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Dwandra Nickole Lampkin Rehearses for the Free MLK Play, 'The Conviction of Lady Lorraine'
Western Michigan University Associate Professor of Theatre Dwandra Nickole Lampkin
is the writer and actor behind “The Conviction of Lady Lorraine,” a free play
being presented Friday and Saturday at the Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College.

Two esteemed guests visited the senior seminar led by Kalamazoo College Professor of Theatre Arts Lanny Potts on Wednesday. It’s not unusual for him to bring in professionals that have something to offer his students, but Dwandra Nickole Lampkin and Dee Dee Batteast are special because they’re ready to present the at-large Kalamazoo community with a gift from their talents.

The Festival Playhouse will produce The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, a one-person show written and performed by Lampkin and directed by Batteast. The free play will be offered to the public Friday and Saturday as a part of K’s Martin Luther King Jr. week celebrations. Support for the production is provided by the Arts Fund of Kalamazoo County, a program of the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo.

Director Dee Dee Batteast with Projection Designer Angela Mammel and Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts at the Festival Playhouse
Director Dee Dee Batteast (left) prepares for “The Conviction of Lady
Lorraine,” a free play this weekend at the Festival Playhouse, with Projection
Designer Angela Mammel ’22 and Theatre Arts Professor Lanny Potts.
Batteast is an adjunct faculty member at Ball State University.

The play is set in Memphis near the Lorraine Motel where King was assassinated. A writer, played by Lampkin, has a brief but powerful encounter with a homeless woman, Lady Lorraine. The writer finds herself transformed by Lady Lorraine’s 20-year quest to right a social wrong. One year later, the writer returns to Memphis, hoping that Lady Lorraine will share her full story of conviction. The writer quickly finds herself asking new questions about many things, and discovers that Lady Lorraine is not the only one on a quest for recognition.

Lampkin connected with Potts when the two worked on a virtual production of The Conviction of Lady Lorraine through Farmers Alley Theatre in Kalamazoo, where they agreed it would be outstanding for the community to see.

“Every theatre has its own energy,” Lampkin said. “The moment I walked into the Festival Playhouse, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, this space feels good!’ The intimacy of that space is perfect for a one-person show. It allows me, the story-teller, to connect with the audience; in the way that larger space wouldn’t.”

Lampkin serves as an associate professor of theatre at Western Michigan University. Her career spans two decades with television credits that include Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Third Watch and Wonderland. She has performed at the Tony-Award winning Denver Center Theatre, the Huntington Theatre in Boston, the Human Race Theatre Company in Dayton and the Indiana Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from The National Theatre Conservatory.

Batteast is an adjunct faculty member with Ball State University’s Bachelor of Fine Arts program, where she teaches courses in beginning acting, auditioning, one-person shows and Shakespeare. She also coaches Ball State’s professional showcases in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Her recent regional theater credits include work with the Clarence Brown Theatre, Virginia Stage Company, Illinois Shakespeare Festival, PlayMakers Repertory Company and Indiana Repertory Theatre. Her television credits include Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D. She also has a Master’s of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Batteast and Lampkin are natural creative partners as they have known each other since Batteast was Lampkin’s student at Ball State.

“I’m 38, I’ve been through two degrees and this is the only person of color who has ever taught me theatre,” Batteast said, while gesturing toward Lampkin. “I’ve always been drawn to this person as a storyteller and thirsting for that person to teach me because she handles stories in a way that I understand, as she intrinsically looks like me. This is a collaboration that continually gives back. I’m still learning and that’s a gift.”

Lampkin was a short-list candidate for a faculty position at the University of Memphis when she visited, among other sites in the city, the Lorraine Motel. That’s when she got the idea to write The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, thanks to a woman she spotted on the corner.

“The moment I walked away from that corner, I knew that I wanted to tell her story,” Lampkin said. “They ended up offering me the teaching job at Memphis, but I turned them down because I realized that I was never meant to teach at University of Memphis. I believe I was put in that space for the sole purpose of crossing paths with this woman.”

Tickets for The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Playhouse at 129 Thompson St., are available online. Please note that proof of vaccination and masks are required for admittance to the theatre.   

“We’re coming up to MLK Day, so just the idea that I can tell this story is personally significant because there are many themes that surround Martin Luther King Jr. and his life and legacy,” Lampkin said. “To be able to bring a show like this to K College and to the community of Kalamazoo at this time, is a blessing and a privilege. It’s a way for me to use my creativity to keep his legacy alive, and honor him and the celebration that surrounds his day.”

Free MLK-Week Show Opens Winter Theatre Events

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Students acting in theatre events
Kalamazoo College’s Festival Playhouse produced “Well-Intentioned
White People” last term. This winter, its theatre events include
two one-person productions and a satirical vignette about
Black cultural issues.

Make plans now to attend three theatre events during the winter term at Kalamazoo College, including two one-person productions and a satirical vignette about Black cultural issues. 

First, the Festival Playhouse will produce The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, written and performed by Dwandra Nickole Lampkin, and offer it free to the community as a part of K’s Martin Luther King Jr. week celebrations. Support for this production is provided by the Arts Fund of Kalamazoo County, a program of the Arts Council of Greater Kalamazoo.

Directed by Dee Dee Batteast, the January 14 and 15 play is set in Memphis near the Lorraine Motel where King was assassinated. A writer, played by Lampkin, has a brief but powerful encounter with a homeless woman, Lady Lorraine. The writer finds herself transformed by Lady Lorraine’s 20-year quest to right a social wrong. One year later, the writer returns to Memphis, hoping that Lady Lorraine will share her full story of conviction. The writer quickly finds herself asking new questions about many things, and finding that Lady Lorraine is not the only one on a quest for recognition. 

Lampkin serves as an associate professor of theatre at Western Michigan University. Her career spans two decades with television credits that include Law & Order, Law & Order SVU, Third Watch and Wonderland. She has performed at the Tony-Award winning Denver Center Theatre, the Huntington Theatre in Boston, the Human Race Theatre Company in Dayton and the Indiana Repertory Theatre in Indianapolis. 

Tickets for The Conviction of Lady Lorraine, which is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. in the Playhouse at 129 Thompson St. both days, are available online. Please note that currently both proof of vaccination and masks are required for admittance to the theatre.   

Then, from February 10–13, Matthew Swarthout ’22 will undertake Sir Ian McKellen’s one-person show, Acting Shakespeare in this year’s Senior Performance Series. The show will encompass both Swarthout’s and McKellen’s insights into Shakespeare’s plays, featuring monologues and scenes from Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s dream, Hamlet, Macbeth and more. Watch the Festival Playhouse website for ticket information for the show at the Dungeon Theatre, 139 Thompson St.  

Finally, from February 24–27, a quick-witted comedy will follow in the Festival Playhouse’s 58th season themed “Black is Beautiful: An Ode to Black Life, Love and Strength.” BLACKS+PHATS will examine themes such as beauty ideals, relationship dynamics and levels of attraction while searching for enlightenment in stereotypes. Current K students are eligible to audition. Watch the Festival Playhouse website for ticket information. The show will take place in the Festival Playhouse at 129 Thompson St. 

Please observe the Festival Playhouse’s COVID-19 safety plan when enjoying productions this term. The plan follows current guidelines from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Michigan State Department of Health and Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the Actors Equity Association (AEA). Find more information online about the safety plan and upcoming shows.  

“Well-Intentioned White People” Runs Through Sunday

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Well-Intentioned-White-People-Poster
“Well-Intentioned White People,” runs Thursday
through Sunday at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse.
A live stream will be available Friday night.

Is it possible for people who mean well to do more harm than good when it comes to race relations? Well-Intentioned White People, running Thursday through Sunday, examines this idea. It is the first production in the Festival Playhouse at Kalamazoo College’s 58th season themed “Black is Beautiful: An Ode to Black Life, Love and Strength.” All three plays—including Black+Phats in February and Marcus; or the Secret of Sweet in May—will feature Black playwrights telling Black stories.

In this play, college professor Cass wants to forget about experiencing an anti-Black hate crime while simply moving on with her life. Her white roommate and the dean of the university, however, push her to do something about it.

Suddenly, Cass is roped into planning an Equality Day and Unity Week while trying to convince her roommate not to plan a sit-in. Well-Intentioned White People explores how some people attempt to deal with discrimination not directed at them and how “well intentions” can be problematic.

“This play has a lot of heavy themes, wrapped up as a humorous political satire,” said Meaghan Hartman ’23, the play’s dramaturg. “It deals with the constant presence of racism at primarily white institutions and how white people attempt to cover it up, rather than digging into the root of the problems. It also forces its audience to think critically about racism on this college campus and the impact it has on our daily lives. This whole play shows us that meaning well is completely different from doing good.”

Cameo Green ’23 plays Cass in the main role. Addison Peter ’25 portrays Viv, Arman Khan ’24 plays Parker, Brooklyn Moore ’24 presents Dean Baker, and Mickie Wasmer ‘25 fills the role of Mara.

Tickets for Well-Intentioned White People, which will take place at the Nelda K. Balch Playhouse at 129 Thompson St., are available online. The presentations start at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. A virtual live stream will be available with Friday’s show. A recording of the live stream then will be available until Sunday. Adults are $15, seniors are $10 and students are $5. K students and faculty and staff are free when an ID is presented. Audiences should expect mature language and situations within the play.

“We hope to start a larger and critical conversation about race and racism on campus and in the community,” Hartman said. “I hope that after seeing Well-Intentioned White People that the audiences, especially white people, are able to critically examine their own feelings about race.”

Student-Written ‘Unzipped’ Spotlights Self-Discovery

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Production Poster Says Unzipped by Rebecca Chan
“Unzipped,” complete with monologues and Rebecca Chan’s own
music, explores the perception of East Asians in the U.S.
and her experiences as a queer Chinese American.

Our life stories make great stage plays and Rebecca Chan ’22 has a chance to share her story with us all. Her self-written coming-of-age story, Unzipped, is a part of the Festival Playhouse of Kalamazoo College’s Senior Performance Series.

The production, complete with monologues and Chan’s own music, explores the perception of East Asians in the United States and her experiences as a queer Chinese American. Unzipped takes aim at a common racial slur used against Asian Americans and refers to Chan’s life of unpacking and discovering her identity.

“I’d say in the past few years there has been a lot more representation of Asian Americans, and like myself, mixed Asian Americans,” Chan said. “But I find a lot of media has characters who maybe have one white parent and one Asian parent like myself, and the racial experience of that existence is brushed over. A lot of my life has been me questioning my racial identity, trying to understand it and what it means, so I wanted to write a show very specifically about that experience.”

Chan, a theatre major, has participated in Festival Playhouse productions and events since her first year on campus. In 2019, she was selected for the week-long Kennedy Center American College Theatre National Festival in Washington, D.C., where she was one of four students from around the country to participate in its Institute for Theatre Journalism Advocacy (ITJA) events; another one of her self-written plays, Record, was featured at Theatre Kalamazoo’s 10th annual New PlayFest in February 2020; and she earned the Theatre Arts First-Year Student Award at Honors Convocation in 2019.

Unzipped, however, represents her senior integrated project. She had a chance to write the play as an independent study during the spring term of her junior year while taking an advanced playwriting class taught by then-Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts “C” Heaps. Since, Chan has been calculating the details of the acting process.

“It’s been tricky because I want to be emotionally invested in the show, but I don’t want to carry so much of the emotions that it weighs me down,” Chan said. “It’s a very careful balance of being in the moment of the show and knowing I’m telling the story how I need to tell it.”

The production’s storytelling process includes projected pictures of Chan’s own childhood and picks up with her in high school.

“I talk about different high school relationships and how I understood myself, and as I get into college, how those experiences changed my perception of who I am,” she said. “There are two big plot points: my relationship with my family, like with my grandmother and my dad and how those evolved over the course of my life, and my relationships in college. There’s a lot of weaving and intersecting of how my perception of my family influences how I interact with my friends, and then how things I realized for my friends influenced how I think about my family.”

Chan wrote the music for Unzipped over two years and has added new songs to fill in the gaps.

“I started writing the music before I even knew I wanted to make the show,” Chan said. “I was always interested in it, but in high school, I felt very nervous about it. I didn’t think I had a good enough voice to sing on my own or had enough knowledge of music to produce something people would want to listen to. But starting my sophomore year, I got back in touch with the piano and started picking up the ukulele. I would just write little songs as I was going through life. It was a coping mechanism that helped me process what I was going through in the big events of my life. Over the summer, I spent a lot of time recording demos of the songs so I could share them with whoever would be playing in my band. Luckily, I was able to find five musicians who were available for the show. Four of which are current students and one a recent alumna.”

Milan Levy ’23 is the director and Angela Mammel ’22 designed the set and projections for their senior integrated projects. Attendees should be aware the play contains racial violence and language. Tickets for the in-person performance of Unzipped, at 129 Thompson St. in the Nelda K. Balch Theatre, and the virtual show are available online. In-person presentations start at 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday and at 2 p.m. Sunday. The virtual broadcast is at 7:30 p.m. Friday.

“The biggest thing I’ve learned is to be unapologetic in who I am,” Chan said. “I think I spent a lot of time trying to make my focus educating other people or changing the world around me. While those are important things to strive for and do, I think the core of my existence should be living for myself and not living to change others who might not be willing to change.”

Kalamazoo College Welcomes New Faculty Members

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Kalamazoo College is pleased to welcome the following faculty members to campus this fall:

Assistant Professor of Spanish Tris Faulkner

Assistant Professor of Spanish Tris Faulkner
Assistant Professor of Spanish Tris Faulkner

Tris Faulkner, who is originally from Jamaica, lived in Chile for about two years, working as a translator and interpreter at a prominent law firm before earning a Ph.D. in Spanish linguistics from Georgetown University. She also has professional experience as a translator and interpreter at the Embassy of Venezuela, and in similar roles at a legal firm and a business school in North Carolina.

Faulkner has lived in Spain and visited various Spanish-speaking countries, experiences which have helped her to observe the diversity that characterizes the Spanish language. Her research investigates the semantics and pragmatics of variation in verbal mood, tense, and aspect, as related to the Romance language family, English, and Jamaican Creole.

In addition to her Ph.D., Faulkner has master’s degrees from Georgetown (M.Sc. in Spanish linguistics) and Wake Forest University (M.A. in interpreting and translation studies), and a bachelor’s degree from Louisiana State University (B.A. in Spanish language and literature and international studies). She will teach seminars in Spanish linguistics, as well as various other courses in the upcoming academic year.

Assistant Professor of Religion Sohini Pillai

Assistant Professor of Religion Sohini Pillai
Assistant Professor of Religion Sohini Pillai

Sohini Pillai will teach courses this academic year on religious traditions in South Asia. She is a comparatist of South Asian religious literature and her area of specialization is the Mahabharata and Ramayana epic narrative traditions with a focus on retellings created in Hindi and Tamil.

Pillai is the co-editor of Many Mahabharatas (State University of New York Press, 2021), an introduction to diverse retellings of the Mahabharata tradition in the forms of classical dramas, premodern vernacular poems, regional performance traditions, commentaries, graphic novels, political essays, novels, and contemporary theater productions. She’s also a member of the Steering Committee for the Hinduism Unit at the American Academy of Religion.

Pillai has a Ph.D. in South and Southeast Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley; a master’s degree in Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African studies from Columbia University; and a bachelor’s degree in South Asia studies and theatre studies from Wellesley College.

Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas

Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas
Assistant Professor of Theatre Quincy Thomas

Quincy Thomas earned his Ph.D. in theatre and his performance studies certification from Bowling Green State University. His research centers on subjects including counter-storytelling, Black performativity in American culture, representations of the marginalized in popular culture, comedic and solo performance and performative writing. At K, he will teach directing, theatre history and playwriting, with further prior experience teaching theatre, performance studies and film.

His courses are informed on issues of cultural marginalization and misrepresentation in the arts, specifically of racial and ethnic minorities, women and members of the LGBTQ+ community. His work has been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, including the International Review of Qualitative Research and Puppetry International, and presented at national conferences, including the Mid-America Theatre Conference, the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, and the Mid-Atlantic Popular and American Culture Association (MAPACA). He currently serves as president of MAPACA. His most recent directorial offering was Robert Patrick’s Play-by-Play: A Spectacle of Ourselves: A Verse Farce in Two Acts. Thomas also has a background in acting. Some of his favorite roles played include Christopher in Joe Penhall’s Blue/Orange, Albert in Bruce Norris’ Clybourne Park, and most recently the role of Actor in Nassim Soleimanpour’s White Rabbit; Red Rabbit.

Assistant Professor of Economics Darshana Udayanganie

Assistant Professor of Economics Darshana Udayanganie
Assistant Professor of Economics Darshana Udayanganie

Darshana Udayanganie earned her Ph.D., with specializations in environmental economics and college teaching, and a master’s degree in economics from the University of New Hampshire. She also has a master’s degree in resource economics and policy from the University of Maine and a bachelor’s degree from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. Before joining K in 2017 as a visiting assistant professor, she taught at Central Michigan University from 2014 to 2017, Merrimack College in 2013 and 2014, and the University of New Hampshire’s global student success program from 2011 to 2014.

Her current research focuses on urban economics and environmental economics. She also has published book chapters on economic growth in relation to military expenditure and international trade.

Assistant Professor of Japanese Brian White

Brian White will teach courses in Japanese language, literature and culture at K.  He specializes in contemporary (post-1945) Japanese popular culture and media studies.

He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Chicago, where he wrote a dissertation on 1960s Japanese sci-fi literature and film, asking specifically, “What can a genre do?” He will delve into that history when he teaches a course in the winter term this year on Japanese science fiction and media history.

White earned a bachelor’s degree in East Asian languages and civilizations at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Across his undergraduate and graduate careers, he has spent a total of two and a half years living in Japan, primarily in Tokyo, Yokohama and Kyoto. 

Assistant Professor of Chinese Yanshuo Zhang

Yanshuo Zhang’s research addresses multiethnic Chinese identities in literary and visual cultures produced in China and the U.S. Her research on multiethnic Chinese cultural productions helps diversify scholarly understanding of and teaching about modern Chinese national culture.

She was a lecturer in Stanford University’s Program in Writing and Rhetoric (PWR) from 2018 through 2020, where she designed classes on cross-cultural explorations of diversity, particularly in Asia and the U.S. She also has been a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Michigan.

She earned a bachelor’s degree from St. Catherine University and a Ph.D. from Stanford University.

Visiting Assistant Professor Vijayan Sundararaj

Vijayan Sundararaj leads a biology course this term in ecology and conservation. He has prior education experience as a lecturer, teaching assistant and topic lecturer between Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Canada, and Texas A&M University-Kingsville. His teaching interests include evolutionary ecology concepts, animal behavior, foraging behavior, predator-prey interactions, conservation biology, wildlife ecology, waterfowl ecology, mammalogy, spatial ecology, and introductory geographic information systems.

Sundararaj received a bachelor’s degree with a specialty in zoology from Gujarat University in India before earning a master’s degree in ecology from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel; a geographic information systems applications specialist graduate certificate from Sir Sandford Fleming College in Canada and a doctorate in forest sciences and wildlife ecology from Lakehead University.

Visiting Assistant Professor Eunice Uhm

Eunice Uhm specializes in modern and contemporary art, with a transnational focus on the United States and East Asia. Her work examines the conditions of migration and the diasporic aesthetic subjectivities in the works of contemporary Japanese and South Korean art from the 1960s to the present. She has previously taught courses on modern and contemporary art, East Asian art, and Asian American studies at Ohio State University. She has organized panels and presented her work on Asian American art at national conferences such as CAA. She is an active member of numerous grassroots community organizations for Asian Americans and immigrant rights, and she is involved in immigrant rights campaigns such as Love has no borders: A call for justice in our immigration system. Her essay, “Constructing Asian American Political and Aesthetic Subjectivities: Contradictions in the Works of Ruth Asawa,” is forthcoming (Verge: Studies in Global Asias, University of Minnesota Press).

Uhm received a master’s degree and a doctorate in the history of art from the Ohio State University. At K, she teaches courses on Asian and Asian American art, art and race, and transnationalism.

Visiting Assistant Professor Fungisai Musoni

Fungisai Musoni has joined the history department where she will teach courses in African civilizations, decolonization in West and Southern Africa, and U.S.-Africa relations since World War II.

Musoni has prior teaching experience in African literature, American politics and global issues, and social studies between the Ohio State University, Georgia State University, Gwinnett County Schools in Atlanta and the Zimbabwe Ministry of Education and Culture.

She fluently reads, writes and speaks the African languages of Shona and Manyika. Her education includes a bachelor’s degree in economic history and Shona from the University of Zimbabwe, Harare; master’s degrees in political science and history from Georgia State University and Mercer University respectively; and a doctorate in African American and African Studies from the Ohio State University.

Visiting Assistant Professor Badru-Deen Barry

Badru-Deen Barry teaches Introductory chemistry and biochemistry at K this fall.

His education includes a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone, master’s degrees in chemistry from Northeast Normal University in China and Michigan State University, and a doctorate in chemistry from Michigan State.

He previously served Michigan State and Northeast Normal as a graduate research assistant, Société Générale de Surveillance in Freetown, Sierra Leone, as port supervisor and chemist, and Fourah Bay College as a laboratory and teaching assistant.

Visiting Assistant Professor Mikela Zhezha-Thaumanavar

Mikela Zhezha-Thaumanavar is teaching courses in Spanish this fall as well as a course in foreign language teaching methods. In addition, she serves as the coordinator for the Spanish Teaching Assistants at K. She received her bachelor’s degree, master’s degree and doctorate in Spanish linguistics from Western Michigan University.

She has previously taught courses in Spanish at Western Michigan University, Davenport University, and Kalamazoo Community College. She also served WMU as a guest professor, teaching in the institution’s Summer Translation Program. She previously has worked in translation and speaks Albanian and Italian in addition to English and Spanish.

Visiting Assistant Professor Jennifer Mills

Jennifer Mills is leading courses including seminars in psychology and health psychology this term. Mills holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia, master’s degrees from Georgia College and State University and Western Michigan University, and a doctorate from WMU.

She is working on an executive master’s in public health at Emory University with an emphasis in prevention science. For the past 10 years, Mills has owned and operated MindBodyWell, a private counseling practice that focuses on science-based approaches to stress, depression and anxiety. 

Mills is an active member of the Institute for Public Scholarship, a local, anti-racist organization that works on issues of place and belonging. Her research interests focus on preventing and mitigating the impact of early childhood adversity on health. 

Visiting Assistant Professor Robert Mowry

Robert Mowry is teaching two sections of Introduction to Society and Culture offered by the Department of Anthropology and Sociology. His additional teaching interests include quantitative methods, disaster, the intersection of politics and the environment, and ways of seeing and knowing.

Mowry comes to Kalamazoo College from the University of Notre Dame, where he recently earned his Ph.D. in sociology. Previously, he earned master’s degrees from the University of Notre Dame and the University of Sheffield, and a B.A. from Earlham College.

As a teacher-scholar of disaster and politics, Mowry employs multiple methods to study the processes and outcomes of globally diverse, high-stakes political arenas—from post-disaster contentious politics in the U.S. and Japan to the gendered dynamics of protest participation in Europe. A related stream of research looks at how cultural processes of learning, memory, and thinking spur spontaneous laughter outbursts during Supreme Court oral arguments. His work has been published in Sociological Theory.

Visiting Assistant Professor Jennifer Perry

Jennifer Perry leads courses at K including General Psychology, Sensation and Perception, and Psychopharmacology in the Department of Psychology. Her credentials include a Bachelor of Arts from St. Olaf College and a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota. Perry’s research includes studies on the ethics of laboratory animal research and the role of impulsive behavior in drug abuse.

Alumnus Puts Streaming Center Stage for Theatre Industry

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Cody Colvin edits video for streaming
Cody Colvin ’18 (left) hopes to show the theatre industry how streaming can increase revenue.

A Kalamazoo College alumnus has a plan to ensure all the world’s a stage for the theatre industry now and in the future, despite the drama that COVID-19 has caused behind the scenes.

Cody Colvin '18
Cody Colvin ’18

Cody Colvin ’18 traveled the country in about 45 days this spring with the staff of his business, Colvin Theatrical, to film 11 of the 12 Outstanding Production nominees at this year’s American Association of Community Theatre (AACT) Festival. His travels to cities from Lexington, Massachusetts, to Spokane, Washington, helped Colvin show the industry how recorded or streaming broadcasts of theatre events have the potential to widen audiences from the few sitting in theaters to thousands more regardless of their location.

“There’s one element to the filming, which was protecting theaters during the pandemic and helping them get back some of the revenue they might have lost,” Colvin said. “But what we’re really excited about is the prospect of growing the industry. We’ve found that there are companies that are doing better with streaming than they were in person, and the reason for that is scale.”

Scale is the opportunity to increase revenue at a faster rate than costs, which is one of the ideas Colvin studied as a business major at K.

“Scale in the theatre industry is basically impossible when you have a limited number of seats that you can sell,” he added. “Theaters at every level, whether they be community colleges or Broadway companies, could only sell so many seats, and their costs continued to rise. Filming creates an interactive experience that allows companies to scale their audience and reach people all over the world.”

Colvin Theatrical Sets Up for Streaming a Play
Colvin Theatrical films an AACT Festival Outstanding Production nominee on the road.

Colvin’s filming opportunities developed when he first helped K’s Festival Playhouse rethink its plans for the 2020 productions of Kokoro and K. His streaming services gave a silver lining of optimism to what otherwise might’ve been a lost season and Colvin was grateful for the work experience.

That work was key for Colvin in attracting the attention of the AACT Festival, which affirms, supports and nurtures actors, directors and producers in community-theatre companies. The event, normally conducted every other year in person, needed to be virtual in 2021 because of the pandemic. That meant the Outstanding Festival Production nominees needed to be filmed with a presentational touch absent in the single-camera video submissions they initially provided festival judges. Colvin’s services provided the solution.

An actor participates in 'The Mountaintop'
Dominic Carter portrays Martin Luther King Jr. in the Lexington (Massachusetts) Players production of “The Mountaintop,” which earned Outstanding Festival Production honors at the AACT Festival.

“With our cameras, our broadcasting equipment and the way we shoot these productions, it’s very interactive and theatrical,” Colvin said. “You occasionally have moving shots, you have multiple cameras, and you have really good audio so you’re able to get an experience that is a mix of theatre and film to take a story to the rest of the world. Video has a place in every level of theater and there’s always going to be an expanded audience that any theater at any level can find.”

Colvin and his team used Blackmagic Design products, including video-editing tools and digital film cameras, to produce film with a cinematic quality that drew rave reviews from the theatre companies. Colvin Theatrical is also partnering with Blackmagic Design to create a website, FilmingTheatre.com, that will launch in September. The interactive site will help teach theaters around the world how to film and broadcast their shows. There also will be a documentary film of their work on the site to show the production process.

“When you have the trust of all those people, you want to do it as well as you possibly can and they were very happy with us,” he said. “When you’re able to look back and say, ‘Yes, we did that as well as we possibly could have and it was a success,’ that’s an amazing feeling. The reactions are just amazing.”

Colvin admitted some might still prefer an in-person theatre experience to streaming even if they have to pay a premium for tickets. However, filming and streaming can only widen opportunities for audiences and theatre companies alike.

“Anything that you once knew as live, whether it be a few years ago or a couple decades ago, is finding a home on television,” he said. “We think theatre’s going to be no different. When I watch a Lions game, I actually prefer watching on TV because I see the best angles that way. I can hear commentary, I can see pretty much every angle of the game, and I can do it from the comfort of my own home. It’s not a direct parallel, but I think it’s where the theatre industry is headed.”

Colvin often worked at the Festival Playhouse at K. That and his experiences as a business major are fueling what stands to be his success now and in the future with much of the credit going to faculty members such as Professor of Theatre Arts Lanny Potts, Edward and Virginia Van Dalson Professor of Economics Patrick Hultberg, L. Lee Stryker Associate Professor of Business Management Amy MacMillan and Associate Professor of Economics and Business Timothy Moffit.

“The College gave me an education that allows me to be an entrepreneur at 25,” Colvin said. “I use what I learned in the business department and the theatre department every day. I use the negotiation skills I learned with Patrik Hultberg, accounting with Dr. Moffit, and marketing with Professor MacMillan. So much of how I think about business is structured based on how they taught me. I couldn’t be more thankful for my time at K.”