December 5, 2022
By Julia Levine
The week of December 5-10, 2022 marks the 20 th anniversary of Playground, the School of Drama’s totally student-run theater competition which takes place yearly on the finish of the autumn semester. During Playground week, all drama lessons are canceled, and inside a four-day rehearsal interval, college students write, direct, design, carry out, and produce unique works. Performances and installations are open to the general public and happen December 8-10 in varied areas all through the Purnell Center for the Arts.
CONCEPTION AND IMPACT
Playground started within the fall of 2003 on the suggestion of the School of Drama’s then head, Elizabeth Bradley. “At that time the students were constantly asking for time and space in the building to produce/perform a wide variety of activities – cabarets, readings, low-resourced (or no-resourced) productions,” says Dick Block, professor and affiliate head of the School of Drama. In response to the pressure these initiatives had been placing on the scholars, in addition to the varsity’s assets, “Liz suggested we cancel classes for a week to dedicate the time for this, and asked if anyone was interested. Catherine [Moore] and I immediately raised our hands,” Block recollects.
With the added management of professors Block and Moore, “Playground 2003” was so successful that they continued to provide it in following years, and right now it stays a helpful manner for college kids to discover inventive pursuits exterior of their majors or curriculum. Twenty years later, the competition has change into so infamous that potential college students apply to the School of Drama partially due to the expertise Playground gives.
“An important part of our discussion was what skills and knowledge did we want our students to have at various points in their time at the School,” Block says. “One of the characteristics we found desirable was the ability to innovate and explore ideas that were outside the curriculum of individual areas.” The thought was to offer college students with “whatever kind of theater they wanted, defined any way they wanted.” Students are inspired to discover areas exterior of their majors, in an atmosphere with no grades, no formal critiques, and no penalties for creating one thing that doesn’t succeed.
What began as a collection of diversifications, scenes, or cabarets rapidly advanced into the celebration of originality it’s right now. According to Moore, “There were already new things happening, but over time it became more about students creating their own work or doing things outside of their curriculum, and then over time we started adding on student workers and student managers.” Moore describes the items she sees by Playground as “the bravest work I’ve seen in the building,” recalling how the items see thematic shifts over time as generations of scholars react to present occasions, societal pressures, and different points on their minds. The construction of Playground has additionally seen nice evolutions from the small 2003 committee; right now, there’s a committee of six college students with particular titles who produce the competition annually, below the advisement of three school members.