March 4, 2019

Lewis Center for the Arts’ Programs in Theater and Music Theater presentThe Odyssey

Homer’s classic epic poem of a journey home is reimagined in a musical participatory production including local community and campus groups

Photo caption: The Princeton student cast with members of the Trenton Circus Squad in rehearsal for the Lewis Center for the Arts’ upcoming musical participatory production of The Odyssey.Photos credit: Hope VanCleaf

What/Who: Homer’s classic epic poem of a journey home is reimagined in a musical participatory production of The Public Theater’s PublicWorks version of The Odyssey, directed by senior Victoria Davidjohn, designed by senior Annabel Barry, and featuring seniors Carly Maitlin, Bria McKenzie, and Justin Ramos. Participating community partners include the Trenton Children’s Chorus, Trenton Circus Squad, HomeFront, Princeton Arts Council, McCarter Theatre Center’s Educational Program, and Princeton University student performing groups HighSteppers and Raqs: Princeton Belly Dance Company, with a mosaic set and pageant puppets made from recycled materials. Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Programs in Theater and Music Theater and cosponsored by numerous Princeton University departments.

When: March 8 & 9 at 8 PM; March 10 at 3 PMWhere: Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place, PrincetonTickets: Tickets are $12 general public, $10 students, $12 seniors, in advance, or $17 general public purchased the day of performances at the box office. Tickets are available in advance at McCarter Ticket Office in person or online. For information and tickets: https://arts.princeton.edu/events/the-odyssey/2019-03-08/

(Princeton, NJ) The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Programs in Theater and Music Theater at

Princeton University will present The Odyssey, a musical participatory production

reimagining Homer’s classic epic poem of a journey home originally created by The

Public Theater’s PublicWorks program, on March 8 and 9 at 8:00 p.m. and March 10 at

3:00 p.m. at the Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theater Center, 91 University Place. The

production is being directed by Princeton senior Victoria Davidjohn with design by senior

Annabel Barry and featuring seniors Carly Maitlin, Bria McKenzie, and Justin Ramos.

Joining a large cast of Princeton students, participating community partners include the

Trenton Children’s Chorus, Trenton Circus Squad, HomeFront, Princeton Arts Council,

McCarter Theatre Center’s Educational Program, and Princeton University student

performing groups HighSteppers and Raqs: Princeton Belly Dance Company. The Odyssey tells the story of the warrior Odysseus and his quest to return to his

homeland following the Trojan War. His adventure-filled, ten-year journey takes him

through the Ionian Islands and the Peloponnese and as far away as Egypt and North

Africa and the western Mediterranean, as the displeased sea-god Poseidon prevents him

from reaching his home. He encounters the single-eyed giant Cyclops, the Sirens of the

sea, the whirlpool Charybdis, and the multi-headed monster Scylla. The Odyssey is

among the oldest written works of Western literature, the model for the heroic quest, and

has had an enormous influence with numerous adaptations of the story throughout

history.

This adaptation of The Odyssey was conceived by Lear deBessonet with book, music and

lyrics by Todd Almond and commissioned by The Public Theater in New York City for its

PublicWorks program. PublicWorks is a major initiative that seeks to engage the people

of New York by making them creators and not just spectators through partner

organizations in all five boroughs, encouraging the community to join in creating theater

“that is not only for the people, but by and of the people.”

Davidjohn interned the past two summers at The Public Theater in the PublicWorks

department. “I was fulfilled by working on this initiative,” Davidjohn said. “There was an

overwhelming sense of community among the 200 or so participants, the process was

inclusive, and the rehearsal room was filled with joy. I knew I wanted to bring this

amazing radical hospitality to my senior thesis.”

Davidjohn arrived at Princeton with a love of theater, but found few acting opportunities

in campus productions as a woman of color. “I called my mom,” said Davidjohn, “and

she said ‘fix it. Put on a show that welcomes people who look like you.’ I stumbled

blindly into directing out of necessity, then fell in love with it.” She is the recipient of the

Dale Fellowship, which “enables an outstanding Princeton senior to devote the year

following graduation to an independent project of extraordinary merit.” Davidjohn, who

was raised in Puerto Rico, is majoring in English and pursuing certificates in theater and

music theater. Her English Department thesis is a journal documenting the process of

mounting this ambitious production and an in-depth analysis of the script informing her

interpretation. She notes that courses with Professor of Theater Stacy Wolf have

influenced her work, along with Wolf’s books on feminism in musical theater, including

Changed for Good: A Feminist History of the Broadway Musical. Davidjohn has also

studied advanced theatrical design and was the lighting designer for last year’s Lewis

Center premiere production of Trailing Rhiannon. She has performed in other Lewis

Center productions including the musical Once and directed In the Heights and Evita for

Princeton University Players and the Jonathan Larson musical Tick, Tick…Boom! for

Princeton Summer Theater.

Davidjohn and Barry connected in the spring 2018 Princeton course “Theater Making

Studio” taught by Broadway director John Doyle in which theater juniors explore theories

and practices in contemporary theater making. “I knew I wanted to design the set for a

production as my senior thesis,” said Barry, “but I was also interested in a production that

could incorporate my interest in puppetry and using recycled and found objects and

which could involve making theater with children.” Joining Davidjohn on a PublicWorks

type of project seemed to match these interests and the two proposed The Odyssey as a

joint endeavor.

Barry’s set design includes 160 two-foot-square mosaic tiles made with recycled caps and

lids and other objects over bright, colorful backgrounds. She collaborated with the

University’s Office of Sustainability in collecting recycled materials. She felt mosaics

conveyed the theme of the production with various stories and worlds coming together

and referenced the classical nature of the story. A giant wooden loom transforms into

different scenic elements – a boat, a shipwreck, as a screen for shadow puppets – and

references the various threads that are woven to tell the story. The handmade mosaics

provided an opportunity for community involvement beyond performing. Barry and

members of The Odyssey project team have been working over the past several months

with various groups through workshops to create the mosaic tiles including children from

the Arts Council of Princeton’s afterschool program with the nonprofit social services

organization HomeFront, adults from HomeFront’s art therapy program, and students,

faculty and staff at Princeton. Barry also worked with recent Princeton theater alumnus

Alex Daniels, an intern at McCarter Theatre, to do mosaic tiles with children in

McCarter’s program and to provide theater workshops.

Barry is also creating large pageant-type puppets for the production to portray the

whirlpool, Cyclops, and the six-headed sea monster, all operated by multiple members of

the cast. The puppets are also made of recycled materials. Her idea of introducing

puppets into the production stems from her studies of the use of puppets in historical and

current activist and political theater, parades, and demonstrations.

Barry is co-recipient of this year’s Pyne Prize, one of Princeton’s highest academic

awards to seniors. She is majoring in English and pursuing certificates in humanistic

studies and European cultural studies, as well as in theater. Besides the theater making

course with Doyle, Barry notes the influence of two years in advanced theatrical design

courses, a Princeton Atelier course last spring with theater/puppet artist Basil Twist and a

current Atelier course with Wakka Wakka, a visual theater company that extensively uses

puppets. She designed the set for the Lewis Center’s production of the musical Picnic at

Hanging Rock and served as assistant designer for its production of Into the Woods. Last

spring, she designed the set for the original play Trash Mermaids, also incorporating

recycled materials in partnership with the Office of Sustainability. Barry also serves as

co-editor of the student-published Nassau Literary Review. The community groups that make cameo appearances in the production are the Trenton

Children’s Chorus, embodying the character of the goddess and Odysseus’ protector

Athena. The Trenton Circus Squad characterizes the fun-loving and hospitable

Phaeacians with their joyful movement and juggling. Princeton student performing group,

the HighSteppers represent the palace guard, and Raqs: Princeton Belly Dance Company

embody water and the mythical Sirens.

Joining Maitlin, McKenzie, and Ramos, the large cast includes 28 other graduate and

undergraduate students including seniors AJ Sermarini, Sid Anand, Linda Luo, Miranda

Christ, and Nnenna Ibe; juniors Jackson Artis, Kateryn McReynolds, Carl Sun, Ben

Kimmel, Billie Runions, Sylvie Thode, Rasheeda Saka and Calvin Rusley; sophomores

Miranda Allegar, Haydon John, Minjae Kim, Delaney McMahon, Lydia Gompper, Akash

Kushwaha, and Tyler Ashman; first-year students BT Hayes, Lexi Buzzini, Leila Abou-

Jaoude, Juan Jose Lopez Haddad, and Ed Horan; Princeton graduate students Sai Ishetiar

and Ileana Cruz-Marden; and Princeton Theological Seminary graduate student Gail

Tierney.

In addition to Barry, students are leading the design and production of The Odyssey.

Junior Jenny Kim is lighting designer. Senior Amber Lin serves as music director, and

sophomore Asher Muldoon composed additional orchestrations. The choreography team

is composed of seniors Davidjohn, Jessica Bailey, Sunny Qin, and Astrid Garay; junior

Diana Sandoval Simán; sophomore Runako Campbell, and first-year students Jacqueline

Xu and Melanie McCloy. Junior Jianing Zhao provided costume concept design in

collaboration with the Lewis Center’s Costume Shop. Junior Hannah Semmelhack serves

as stage manager. Sophomore Miranda Allegar serves as the student campus community

coordinator and Matthew Lupino serves as the professional stage manager working with

the Trenton groups. Sophomore Rosie Vasen is assistant director, first-year student Reed

Leventis is assistant lighting designer, senior Amber Lin is assistant music director, and

the assistant stage managers are senior Changhuo Liu, junior Genna Garlock, and

sophomore Eliana Cohen-Orth. Valentine Monfeuga is the professional sound designer

for the production, and Chelsea Easter serves as the professional wardrobe supervisor on

the show.

Faculty and guest artists serving as advisors to the project are Suzanne Agins and Jane

Cox on production/directing, Lawrence Moten on set and puppet design, Tess James on

lighting design, Sarita Fellows on costume design, Vince di Mura on music direction, and

Erica Nagel on community engagement.

In addition to the Office of Sustainability, other University cosponsors include the

Program for Community-Engaged Scholarship, the Office of Undergraduate Research,

the Humanities Council, the Program in Humanistic Studies, the Department of Classics,

the University Center for Human Values, and the English Department with additional

support from the Office of Religious Life, Whitman College, and the Department of

Comparative Literature. The project is also supported by the Migrations Initiative, a

three-year initiative involving 22 core faculty members, multiple University departments

and programs, and over 30 Princeton-area nonprofit organizations to investigate the

theme of migration through research, conferences, course development and programming

including lectures, exhibitions, film screenings, author talks, and performances. The two

seniors and faculty leading The Odyssey note the production relates strongly to the

initiative’s topics of refugees and forced migration.

Tickets for The Odyssey are $12 general public in advance of show dates, $10 for

students, $12 for seniors, and $17 general public purchased the day of performances at

the box office. Advance tickets are available through the McCarter box office online at

mccarter.org or by calling 609-258-2787 and in-person at the Frist Campus Center Ticket

Office or Roth Box Office at the Lewis Arts complex.

To learn more about this event, the Programs in Theater and Music Theater, and the more

than 100 other performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, and lectures

presented by the Lewis Center, most of them free, visit arts.princeton.edu.

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