Changing roles – theatre professor acts in alumnus’ production

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Wesley Young

There was a time in his student career when theatre alumnus Deejay Gray ’10 staged managed under the direction of associate theatre Professor Wesley Young for the latter's one-man show about Oscar Wilde. This past May their roles shifted and Young found himself acting in a play for TheatreLAB in Richmond, Va., where Gray is the overall artistic director.

Young portrayed Herod in “Salome: a Wilde Experiment,” an adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s play “Salome.” Adapted by the show’s director, James Ricks, the play was set in what Young describes as a disturbingly decadent, dystopian world. This piqued Young’s interest.

“Deejay called me in mid-April and told me about the project to see if I was interested. It happened that the whole thing was taking place in the week immediately following graduation so the timing was right,” says Young.

Then Gray approached Ricks, the director, about the idea of casting Young as the king who has John the Baptist decapitated as a reward to his stepdaughter Salome for doing the Dance of the Seven Veils. After submitting an audition video Young was immediately hired for the role.

Another RU theatre alumnus, Axle Burtness ’11, was brought in by the director to play John the Baptist after the original actor left due to an emergency.

“The second he [Rick’s] told me both Deejay and Wesley were involved, I jumped on the opportunity! Wesley was a great mentor and professor through my years at Radford,” says Burtness who now resides in Washington, D.C., but credits Gray for helping him become a member of the Richmond theatre community in 2012 through TheatreLAB.

The director of “Salome: a Wilde Experiment” used an approach he had employed in a few Shakespeare productions. This entailed the actors being assigned their roles, showing up with lines memorized, then rehearsing in a daylong process and performing the play that evening. This way of working, referred to as bootleg, is reminiscent of rehearsals in the Renaissance, particularly Elizabethan England.

The TheatreLAB production was done in a similar fashion. Rehearsals were Monday through Thursday evenings and the play was performed Friday and Saturday, May 16 and 17. This comes out to about the same amount of rehearsal time as a traditional bootleg day. Rehearsals and performances where held at the School of the Performing Arts in the Richmond Community in Richmond.

Young found this process to be very exhilarating as an actor and reaffirming as a teacher, being able to do what one teaches,  “It makes me want to encourage students to work faster. Though the bootleg experience is an extreme version of an accelerated process, many professional directors and producers are looking for actors that can work fast and can 'go big'.”

Going bigger is something to which Gray relates. As a founding member and artistic director of TheatreLAB, he helped begin this mobile theatre group in 2012. Now the company is working to create a permanent home called the Basement. “Salome” was the kick-off of a summer capital campaign to raise funds to renovate the newly acquired downtown Richmond space.

When asked about working with Gray, Young says, “He is very committed to upholding the reputation TheatreLAB has established for doing quality and cutting edge work. So, any awkwardness that might ordinarily be expected when the mentor becomes a subordinate just wasn't there.”

Young reflects on Gray’s professional decisions, “So many guest artists and lecturers we've had over my time at RU have consistently given the advice to our students to create your own work. That is what Deejay is doing with TheatreLAB. Do what you want to do. Yes, there is lots of work out there and you may be getting that work or not but if you have a vision follow that.”

For more information about TheatreLAB, visit www.theatrelabrva.com. To learn more about RU’s Department of Theatre and Cinema, go to www.radford.edu/theatre.

Jul 25, 2014
CVPA
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