When faced with major budget cuts, the NE Playhouse could have chosen to only produce one play this semester. Instead, students chose to plan, rehearse and direct an ambitious production.
“Everybody” is an allegorical account of the lead character, Everybody, grappling with the aspects of life that are left behind when Death comes.
At the start of each show, a lottery system determines which character each member of the cast will portray: Everybody, Friendship, Kinship, Stuff and more. The randomness of the lottery creates 120 possible combinations, so actors are required to memorize the lines and staging for each of the 10 roles.
NE student Darolyn Nieves, who is directing the play, said she’s excited to see audiences’ reactions.
“It is a show that is meant to get you to start talking,” Nieves said. “I mean, the question people should ask themselves when they leave is, ‘If I die today, what matters most to me?’”
The NE drama department lost 57% of its budget due to the districtwide cuts in September, so the department pivoted from the original play that was planned and auditioned to a student-led production.
The cast and crew managed casting, staging and rehearsals. Costumes were assembled from what students had available in their closets, and the set offers a view of the entire stage, curtains up, with minimal furniture or props. Slats, or the walls of a set, typically hide the mirror that lines the backstage wall, but students used pieces of old productions to cover the mirror for this production.
“Our set is very much, just like the theater itself, gutted,” Nieves said. “The idea is that it’s basically what you would typically see when a show is being built. However, the progress for it has been stopped, which is sort of reflective of Everybody’s journey in life being halted randomly. … It kind of lends to the whole idea of, you never know when, what you’re doing, it’s just gonna be gone.”
August Markle has performed in shows throughout high school, but this is his first production at TCC. He said his high school department had a lot of money to work and experiment with, so this show has been a different experience, but he said it’s been nice to see this company work around the budget struggles together.
“That [the budget cuts] was just like a, ‘Welcome to TCC Theater,’” Markle said. “We just got just got a lot of money taken from us, but we’re gonna work with what we got.”
Associate professor of drama, Jakie Cabe, said he observed and acted as a mentor in the production process but allowed students the control to create and make choices.
He’s taught and directed most of the cast in the show in his time at TCC, but he will be leaving at the end of the semester.
“I kind of dig that my last sort of project here is one where I’m going, ‘Let them have it. Let the students take it and run,’” Cabe said. “Sometimes we get bogged down with a lot of the other stuff, so it’s nice to just sit back and go, ‘You’re doing great. Yeah, they got it.’”
Kaitlin Bridges has been in eight shows at TCC, but she has usually been cast in smaller or understudy roles. She said she’s never been cast as a main character or had this many lines before. The main cast had to attend every rehearsal to practice each possible version of what the show could be.
The production of “Everybody” has made her grow professionally and personally, she said.
“I’m terrified of death, actually, and I think this production actually helped me make more peace with it,” Bridges said. “I was a victim of saying, ‘Oh, someday I’ll do this. Someday this will happen.’ But after this started, I started realizing, ‘Do it now.’ I feel like I’m a much more driven person and less socially awkward, shrinking into a corner.”
Tickets to see “Everybody” are free, and the show runs Nov. 11-14 at 7 p.m. with a matinee on Nov. 14. at 2 p.m.
Kiki Jackson has worked on the technical side of previous productions, but this is her first time on stage at TCC. She said Nieves is a good student-director, and she hopes people come and show their support for the arts.
“It would mean the world for people to just come see it, see our passion,” Jackson said. “I learned too many lines for people not to come see it.
