Stupid F##king Bird

By Aaron Posner
Sort of adapted from The Seagull by Anton Chekhov

Creative Team

Director: Lauren Roth

Dramaturg: Gavin Orson

Technical Director: Scott Boyle

Scenic Designer: Elyssa Munch

Properties Coordinator: Matthew Lamers
Costume/Makeup Designer: Jeannie Hurley

Asst. Costume Designer: Olivia Zastrow

Lighting Designer: Samantha Brown

Asst. Lighting Designer: Abby Swanson

Sound Designer: Ethan Hollinger
Stage Manager: Katy Lacy

Asst. Stage Manager: Kian Arnold

Acknowledgments

UMD Office of Disability Resources American Sign Language interpreters Judy Hlina and Dawn Stevenson

UMD MMad Lab/Viz Lab and Dan Fitzpatrick for promotional video

Special thanks to Thomas Jacobsen for serving as a music consultant for this production.

Thank you to Thressa Schultz and Katy Lacy for promotional and headshot photography. 

Cast & Creative Team

Director's Note

Stupid F##king Bird. How can one not be drawn to a title that catchy? That bird is, of course, a seagull – not unlike the ones you might see poking around a McDonald’s parking lot in a frenzied hunt for leftover fries. Some cultures prize seagulls as emblems of freedom, happiness, and purity. Others merely refer to them as dirty sea rats.

The stupid bird you will see here today is inspired by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull. Contemporary playwright Aaron Posner took Chekhov’s source material and “sort of adapted” it into what Posner calls “a deconstruction, a rip-off of [the] classic.” In many ways, this adaptation brilliantly sheds light on the relevance of this classic to our modern world.

The characters in The Seagull and thus, in Stupid F##king Bird, are caught in a cycle as they repeatedly attempt to better themselves – and repeatedly fail. Some cope by giving up entirely. Some cope by settling for the next best thing. Some rely on vices to numb the pain. Some just… go on. They are characters in a play, based on Anton Chekhov’s observations of human behavior from over a hundred years prior; but they are humans that we all know and interact with today. They are weird theatre kids, tortured artists, and goth rebels; they are free spirits, weirdos, and nerdy misfits; they are professionals who have found themselves in passionless careers; they are performers who take to the stage as a means of escaping their own problems. Sound like anyone you know?

Perhaps most importantly, they are human beings navigating what it means to grow older and to try desperately to hold on to the spark of childlike wonder which we all once held. It’s tough to blame them for wanting to do so. My hope is that this play might inspire you to set off on a wild goose chase (err… seagull chase?) of your own to find that spark buried deep within you. The purity, the joy, the innocence, and the brilliant naiveté are somewhere in us – but buried under years of defense mechanisms, social masks, heartache, and malaise.

Stupid F##king Bird may take you on a journey. It may not. Maybe you paid for a ticket to this production. Maybe you’re here for free. Maybe you have no idea what you’re even doing in a theater right now. But you’re here for the next two hours. If you choose to come along for the ride, you have permission to laugh, to cry, and to feel all the feelings. If nothing else, this play will allow you to feel: feelings of joy, frustration, embarrassment, horror, pride, anticipation, and much more.

Enjoy the catharsis, wherever it takes you, and give yourself permission to feel all the feelings. So much feeling…

Lauren Roth

Dramaturg's Note

Aaron Posner’s Stupid F##king Bird (SFB) is an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s 1895 play, The Seagull. Chekhov’s writing, an early example of Realism, has the play’s action revolving around the desperate circumstances of real life situations. Chekhov found humor within these scenarios which led him to promote the play as a comedy. However, at its premiere in 1896 The Seagull was met with boos from the audience. Like Chekhov’s play, SFB shows us the comedy inherent in our world. The characters are quirky, troubled, and unhinged, much like the original. At times in the play Posner pokes fun at theater itself, but when the cover of comedy falls away the play goes deeper.  Posner’s adaptation is a masterclass on how to update the classics and bring them into the modern age.

SFB has some shocking moments. For example, the characters talk about plays in a way that suggests they know about their own performance. One of the novelties of Chekhov’s nineteenth-century work was the innovation of putting “real life” on stage. The characters would interact with each other, and the stage, to mirror our own world.  In Posner’s twenty-first century adaptation, he removes the artificiality of Realism and offers metatheatricality: instead of pulling the audience into another world, we are made aware that this is only a performance. This undressing of the production is where the play becomes borderline performance art, a style in which there is no line between performer and audience. 

SFB, like The Seagull, plays with the blending of genres. Posner’s adaptation uses the same comedic approach to introduce serious subject matter. The characters are all emotionally unhinged in one way or another. On the surface the situations are comical, but underneath are truly devastating circumstances, and the audience identifies with them. The more difficult real life is, the more we need to laugh. Comedy – a release of tension –  is a necessity for our human society to grow and evolve. Just as humor can be used as a defense mechanism, theatrical convention sometimes stands in the way of real emotion. SFB uses the groundwork created by Chekhov to provide a reflection of reality, that even in a stressful situation comedy is often used as a coping mechanism. We need comedy (hell, even art) to survive.

Gavin Orson

Production Crew

Staff Technical Director: Sean Dumm

Master Carpenter: Regan Peterson

Shift Crew: Kirstyn Saulsbury, Cody Burgoon

Scenic Design Faculty Advisor: Curt Phillips

Dresser: Jay Kray, Sylvia Cabak

Makeup/Hair: Hope Davis, Sophia Nelson

Costume/Makeup Design Faculty Advisor: Caitlin Quinn

Costume Shop Supervisor: Laura Piotrowski

Light Board Operator: Wesley Christianson

Sound Board Operator:  B Kelly

Lighting/Sound Faculty Advisor: Ethan Hollinger

KCACTF Load-In Crew: Mackenzie Ammon, Kian Arnold, Abby Aune, Moriah Babinski, Scott Boyle, Samantha Brown, Shea Callaghan, Kaitlyn Callahan, Hope Davis, Lou Divine, Cody Do, Maddie Froehle, Trevor Hendrix, Luke Hiland, Ethan Hollinger, Isabelle Hopewell, Jeannie Hurley, Katy Lacy, Matthew Lamers, Jake Lieder, Tanner Longshore, Olivia Nelson, Luke Pfluger, Hunter Ramsden, Jordyn Rodriguez, Thressa Schultz, Jack Senske, Abby Swanson, Irie Unity 

Scenery / Props Construction Crew: Figensia Alcenat, Mackenzie Ammon, Abby Aune, Moriah Babinski, Cody Burgoon, Robert Carlson, Jager Christenson, Maggie Clark, Sheridan Cornett, Isabelle Hopewell, Matthew Lamers*, Madeline Nave, Gavin Orson, Regan Peterson*, Luke Pfluger, Archie Reed, Izzy Roy, Lisa Scott*, Jack Senske, Abby Swanson, Jessica Thanghe, Nelson Wennberg*

Stagecraft Practicum Instructor: Katie Cornish

Costume Construction Crew: Ava Balciunas, Moriah Babinski, Deklan Boren, Alyssa Brennhofer, Shea Callaghan, Emmalyn Danielson, Lou Divine, Lydia Dupre*, Ro Feitl*, Kade Gau*, June Haider, Cindy Hansen, Jeannie Hurley, Finn Jackson, Natali Joachin, Tanner Longshore, Eric Mendoza, Sydney Nelson, Cadence Neste, Regan Peterson, Jake Pulkrabek, Jordyn Rodriguez, Oliver Swimley, Aristotle Taylor, Madison Wagner, Olivia Zastrow*

Costume Practicum Instructor: Alice Shafer

Light & Sound Crew: Ryan Armstrong, Kian Arnold, Madison Froehle, Ryan Hamilton, B Kelly, Elizabeth Kleis, Courtney Larson, Jake Mathey, Mackenzie Moe, Rhea Nair, Madelyn Nave, Olivia Nelson, Hunter Ramsden, John Toven, Aura West, Olivia Zastrow

* UMD Theatre is proud to acknowledge our paid student staff.

Other Information

Stupid F##king Bird runs approximately 2 hours and 15 minutes with a 15 minute intermission.

This play contains adult language, sexual content, and references to suicide. It is not recommended for audiences under 14 years of age. Please note that gunshot sound effects will also be used in this performance.

Videotaping, audio recordings, and photography of this production are strictly prohibited.

Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival

The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, part of the Rubenstein Arts Access Program, is generously funded by David M. Rubenstein.

Special thanks to The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust for supporting the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival. 

Additional support is provided by The Honorable Stuart Bernstein and Wilma E. Bernstein; and the Dr. Gerald and Paula McNichols Foundation. 

Kennedy Center education and related artistic programming is made possible through the generosity of the National Committee for the Performing Arts. 

This production is entered in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival (KCACTF). The aims of this national theater education program are to identify and promote quality in college-level theater production. To this end, each production entered is eligible for a response by a regional KCACTF representative, and selected students and faculty are invited to participate in KCACTF programs involving scholarships, internships, grants and awards for actors, directors, dramaturgs, playwrights, designers, stage managers and critics at both the regional and national levels. 

Productions entered on the Participating level are eligible for invitation to the KCACTF regional festival and may also be considered for national awards recognizing outstanding achievement in production, design, direction and performance. 

Last year more than 1,500 productions were entered in the KCACTF involving more than 200,000 students nationwide. By entering this production, our theater department is sharing in the KCACTF goals to recognize, reward, and celebrate the exemplary work produced in college and university theaters across the nation.