'Stairs' Leads Collaborative Effort

Last spring, American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) director Diane M. Paulus ’87 gave undergraduates fifty free tickets to her production of “Hair” on Broadway. This month, students benefit from further collaboration with the A.R.T.—but they also learn that it’s not all fun and games.

“Acting as foxes is extraordinarily painful,” Christian A. Rivera ’13 explains, describing his roles in the upcoming A.R.T. production of Tennessee Williams’ “Stairs to the Roof”, which opens on Thursday.

“I’m the fox, I’m the message boy, I’m a soldier, I’m a youth at a carnival,” he says. “I have very few speaking roles. It’s more a treat to watch professional actors work and see what it takes.”

“Stairs to the Roof” is the first joint production of the Office for the Arts (OFA), the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club (HRDC) and the A.R.T. Institute. The last of Williams’ apprentice plays, “Stairs” tells the story of a factory worker in the 1930s who breaks away from his mechanical life and embarks on a fantastic adventure.

According to assistant director Matthew C. Stone ’11, the collaboration between undergraduates and professionals is the best aspect of the production.

“I do want to go into theater professionally and this is the first opportunity [at Harvard] that really gives undergraduates the chance to participate in the realization of a professional show,” Stone says.

Director Michael M. Donahue ’05 says he and the organizers of the production went to Common Casting last fall without a set number of undergraduates in mind. Besides choosing six production assistants, they ended up selecting three freshmen to round out their cast. These nine students also participated in the A.R.T. Institute’s January Undergraduate Theater Training Intensive, a graduate-level theater program from January 4 to January 23.

“Stairs” is only Rivera’s second play since he began acting in musicals as a junior in high school. It is his first show at Harvard, apart from his involvement in the Freshman Arts Program.

He says that being able to watch the Institute actors work has allowed him to see the incredible amount of dedication involved in professional acting.

In rehearsal, he says, the actors spent ten hours perfecting for a two minute scene and improved upon it each time.

“Just when you think they can’t think of something new, they do,” he says.

Stone, who previously directed undergraduate productions including “Attempts on Her Life” and “The Birthday Party,” says the collaboration posed a challenge in terms of accommodating everybody’s schedules.

While college students are dealing with classes and shopping week, the graduate students are understandably more accustomed to the pace and hours of rehearsals. Add to that the physical intensity of the play, and the end result is a mix of exhaustion and excitement.

“In general, the challenge of working on the production is keeping the energy at a constant high level,” Stone says.

For Donahue, the collaboration also presents a chance to produce a play of “great imagination” while giving students the invaluable experience of working in a professional dramatic production.

“As a Harvard undergrad I remember coming here and feeling very hungry to find new answers and break out of the world that I had been living in [in] high school,” Donahue says.

There was no opportunity, he says, for formal engagement between the A.R.T. Institute and undergraduates during his time at Harvard and is excited to be able to facilitate this new initiative.

He describes his directing style as one that strives to break down the “fourth wall” between the audience and the actors.

“I tend to be interested in work where we are all in the same room together, where we’re breathing the same air, and we’re on the same breath,” he says.

With “Stairs”, Donahue has brought down a wall of a different sort­—by integrating two distinct communities of performers, each holding their breaths as they anticipate Thursday’s opening.

—Staff writer Anita B. Hofschneider can be reached hofschn@fas.harvard.edu.