Twelfth Night

Creative Team

Director:

Jenna Soleo-Shanks

Assistant Director:

Lou Divine

Dramaturg:

Kate Warmka

Technical Director:

Scott Boyle

Scenic Designer:

Nelson Wennberg

Properties Coordinator:

Katy Lacy

Costume Designer:

Moriah Babinski

Assistant Costume Designer:  

Archie Reed

Hair & Makeup Designer:  

Jeannie Hurley

Lighting Designer:

Maddy Uecker

Assistant Lighting Designer:

B Kelly

Sound Designer:  

Samantha Brown

Stage Manager:

Olivia Zastrow

Assistant. Stage Manager:

Regan Peterson

Accent Coach:

Lauren Roth

Choreographer:

Madison Wagner

Fight Captain:

Zac Pollitt

Cast  

(in order of appearance)

VIOLA:

Hope Davis

CAPTAIN/FABIAN:

Luke Hiland

ORSINO:

Zac Pollitt

VALENTINE / SEBASTIAN:

Jake Mathey

SIR TOBY BELCH:

Jack Senske

MARIA:

Abby Aune

SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK:

Erik Rasmussen

FESTE:

Deklan Boren

OLIVIA:

Mackenzie Ammon

MALVOLIO:

Trevor Hendrix

ANTONIO / CURIO

Billy Booth

OFFICER / PRIEST:

John Toven

SERVANT:

Cadence Neste

ENSEMBLE:

Billy Booth, Cadence Neste, and John Toven

Cast & Creative Team

Director's Note

“If music be the food of love, play on.”  -- Orsino 

“Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.” -- Malvolio

“Better a wise fool than a foolish wit.”  -- Feste

In the canon of Shakespearean quotes, Twelfth Night is well represented. In fact, as I attempted to transcribe the ones above, I only needed to type the first few words of each before Google offered to auto-fill them for me. Even if you’ve never heard of Feste, Orsino, or Malvolio, you may already know their words. Or Shakespeare’s words. After all, he is the one who gave voice to the love-sick duke, the malcontented servant, and the fool, among so many others. 

Yet, while Shakespeare is, of course, famous for his words or, more specifically, his poetry in Twelfth Night, he cannot take credit for the plot. Before Shakespeare’s play was staged in 1601 there were several English-language narratives, as well as an Italian play, that told the tale of a lovelorn noblewoman forced to disguise herself as a boy to win the heart of her true love, only to have her identity revealed (and a happy ending guaranteed) with the surprise appearance of her twin brother. 

My personal attraction to Twelfth Night came through one of those sources, the 1531 Sienese play, Gl'ingannati (“The Confused”), created by a group known as the Intronati (“The Dazed”), an academic society whose members created plays and supported one another’s artistic pursuits. In other words, this group of “dazed” friends came together not for profit or promotion, but simply for the love of creating something together. Through their collaboration they produced an inventive tale of “confusion” – lost love, mistaken identity, and the search for self. This group and their collective process reminds me a lot of what we do here at UMD Theatre: working together for the love of theatre and on the belief that no matter how “dazed” or “confused” our subject matter or selves may be, we have something to say to our audience. 

In this production we have focused on the similarities between our 16th century characters and our 21st century community. We are all a bit dazed and confused by the world around us – the difficulties of living up to societal expectations, the desire to express our authentic selves, and the fear of not being loved or accepted. Each of the characters in the play struggles with these universal human challenges, but in the end (like all of Shakespeare’s comedies), it all ends happily, even if the resolution is unexpected.  We hope you enjoy our production and thank you for taking the time to travel with us to Illyria!

-- Jenna Soleo-Shanks, Director

Dramaturg's Note

Today we think of comedy as light hearted stories that make us laugh.  This, however, doesn’t always hold true for Shakespearean comedies.  Shakespeare’s comedies follow a range of emotions, not just the laughter.  According to John Mullan, Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London, common characteristics of a Shakespearean comedy include marriage and misconceptions, often centering on disguise and gender.  Marriage , which often ends plays like Twelfth Night, upholds the status quo.  Devices like mistaken identity, however, allow the audience to know more than the characters on stage and stage confusion leads to laughter.  In Twelfth Night much of this confusion concerns Viola and her choice to disguise herself as a boy, Cesario.  Her disguise leads both Duke Orsino and Lady Olivia to fall in love with a person whose gender and identity remains muddy throughout the play.  All of this shows that Shakespearean comedies are more complex than they seem. 

Shakespeare spins a web of relationships that complicate the idea of love.  It is messy and wild and painful.  While the marriage(s) that end the play may seem simply to be a comedic requirement, Twelfth Night’s ending is up for interpretation.  Not everyone ends up with those they love and there is an additional bitterness to the ending added by Shakespeare in the final song.  In the original text this song repeats “For the rain it raineth every day.”  Even though our production swaps out these lines with lyrics from more recent songs, our finale includes lyrics like “Nothing you can say, but you can learn how to play the game”  (“All you Need is Love” -- The Beatles).  This is only one example of the bittersweetness of the play. 

Another way that Shakespeare complicates the simple idea of comedy is in his use of language.  Historically, prose is used as a means to separate class, with low characters speaking prose and the upper class using verse.  While it is expected that Duke Orsino expresses feelings of love in poetry, Shakespeare breaks this mold by having Sir Toby and Sir Andrew speak exclusively in prose.  Meanwhile, Viola, who is both a woman and disguised as a servant, has some of the most beautiful verse in the play.  When switching between herself and her alias, the use of prose and verse becomes a means of survival.  As Cesario, she only speaks in verse to Olivia even though she is presenting herself as a servant.  The relationships formed between the noble Olivia and the lowly Cesario in the plot are mirrored by the text, with the language style showing their connection.

Through plot and language, Shakespeare does more than make us laugh.  This play may be more than 400 years old, but Shakespeare’s comments on society remain relevant.  It is only through the bitterness of life can we find the true joys of laughter. 

-- Kate Warmka, Dramaturg

Production Crew

Staff Technical Director: 

Sean Dumm

Master Carpenter: 

Jake Pulkrabek

Paint Charge: 

Lisa Scott

Shift Crew: 

Cody Do

Scenic Design Faculty Advisor:

Curtis Phillips

Dressers: 

Sylvia Cabak, Emmalyn Danielson, Kade Gau

Makeup/Hair: 

Courtney Larson, Elizabeth Kleis, Maggie Clark

Costume/Makeup Design Faculty Advisor: 

Caitlin Quinn

Costume Shop Supervisor: 

Laura Piotrowski

Light Board Operator: 

Alex Abdelwahed

Sound Board Operator: 

Kylee Paar

Lighting/Sound Faculty Advisor:

Ethan Hollinger

Scenery / Props Construction Crew: 

Ryan Armstrong, Kathryn Boster, Madison Froehle, Zoe Griese, Ryan Hamilton, Devyn Harris, Luke Hiland, Isabelle Hopewell, B Kelly, Elizabeth Kleis, Matthew Lamers*, Gray Paguyo, Regan Peterson*, Lisa Scott*, Jacob Steen, Ai-Rung Wang, Nelson Wennberg*

Stagecraft Practicum Instructor: 

Katie Cornish

Costume Construction Crew:  

Moriah Babinski*, Erin Christoferson, Mary Cruser, Aaron Dumalag, Emmi Dunkin, Ro Feitl*, Sandi Flahn, Kade Gau*, Elizabeth Kleis, Katy Lacy, Kenzie Moe, Madelyn Nave, Luke Pfluger, Izzy Roy, Jenna Simonson, Abby Swanson, Jessica Thanghe, Olivia Zastrow*

Costume Practicum Instructor: 

Alice Shafer

Light & Sound Crew: 

Jesse Bakken, Cody Burgoon, Shea Callaghan, Jager Christenson, Wesley Christianson, Sheridan Cornett, June Haider, Morgan James, Sophia Nelson, Regan Peterson, Jordyn Rodriguez, Courtney Schreiber, Aristotle Taylor, Louis Thiessen, Irie Unity, Nelson Wennberg

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

Educational Resource