Twelfth Night

Cast

Olivia: Olivia Willingham

Viola: Erin Devine

Maria/Officer: Anna Little

Orsino: Ammar Ul Haq

Sebastian/Servant: Alex Valdivia

Fabian/Captain: Ruby Stillman

Toby: Dean Criser

Antonio/Valentine: Zeke Rezzarday

Malvolio: Alex Banul

Feste: Julia Green

Andrew: Sofia Freedman

Production Team

Director: Madison Borman

Stage Manager: Ethan Hill

Assistant Stage Manager: Rose Xu

Production Manager: Jake Stohr

Dramaturg: John Cai

Technical Director: Ainsley Powers

Head of Set: Zack Gunter

Head of Sound: Paloma Juarez

Sound Operator: Elijah Robuck

Lighting Designer & Operator: Lonnie Reid

Props Master: Elijah Robuck

Head of Costume: Leah Strickland & Grace Ward

Intimacy Coordinator: Willa Barnett

Fight Scene Choreographer: Ethan Hill

Run Crew: Leah Strickland, Rose Xu & Ethan Hill

Note from the Director

Twelfth Night, alternatively known as What You Will, is a play of will and want. Filled with characters driven by a will to love and be loved, Twelfth Night explores reciprocation, rejection, and reconciliation. These themes and the feelings they elicit are universal. Everyone has been a Viola, pining in thought and smiling at grief. Everyone has been an Olivia, willing to accept a love that is sought but knowing that love unsought is better. Everyone has been an Antonio, their love for another person making danger seem sport. Twelfth Night is a play about looking these desires in the face and embracing them. It is about uncovering love’s messy underbelly and still choosing to love fiercely.

But these romantic notions were not the only reason I decided to direct Twelfth Night. This play has had an undeniable impact on my life. When I was eight, my mom signed me up for a theater program to "get me out of my shell". I was plagued by social anxiety, and she thought an extracurricular activity might distract me from the worries that kept me up late. In one of my first semesters, I performed Act 1 Scene 5 as Viola in a Shakespeare showcase. Working with the play and pouring all my energy into understanding and appreciating the lines freed me from my intrusive thoughts. Onstage I was confident and unapologetically myself.

After that showcase, Twelfth Night continued to follow me around. It was the first production I was ever a part of. It was the first Shakespeare play I read from start to finish. It was the first play I studied in college. Every time I revisited it, I was reminded of how much it meant to little eight-year-old me. This production is, in some ways, for her.

However, more importantly, it is for everyone who was involved in this process.

To the insanely talented Twelfth Night cast, words cannot express how grateful I am to every single one of you. Thank you for everything.

To the crew, thank you for your perseverance and ingenuity. You have cleared every hurdle this production has thrown at you with grace.

And to my stage manager Ethan Hill and our dramaturg John Cai, thank you for your guidance. I would not have been able to navigate this process without you.

Finally, thank you to my mom for showing up to every one of my shows, even when you had no clue what I was saying. You are the reason this production exists, and I am and always will be immensely grateful for your love and support.

- Madison Taylor Borman, Director

Note from the Dramaturg

Before Twelfth Night, his last festive comedy, most romantic relationships in Shakespeare’s plays included external factors that stand in between the couple, which usually have to do with politics: in Romeo & Juliet, it is the rivalry between Montagues and Capulets; in A Midsummer Night's Dream, it is Egeus who demands his daughter to marry Demetrius; in Much Ado About Nothing, it is Don John’s ambition and envy against his brother; in As You Like It, it is Duke Frederick’s enmity toward his brother and his niece Rosalind. When writing Twelfth Night, Shakespeare was fluent with these devices to intensify his drama, and they worked like a charm, but, this time, he decided to write a romantic comedy that has nothing to do with politics. In Illyria, nothing stands between Duke Orsino and Countess Olivia who seem to have no real trouble or conflict with each other, except themselves. It is a play about nothing else but love and pure romance.

Yet, love, as theater goes, always finds a way to create obstacles. With nothing stopping them, the problem becomes themselves: Orsino is in love with love and won’t take no for an answer, while Olivia, as Viola says, is too proud. They are two of the freest people in the world but still trap themselves in a standstill. And this time, happiness is not achieved through the striving of a hero or heroine but simply through a series of accidents, misunderstandings, disguises, and silly pranks. Time has indeed untied this difficult knot, which is the one truth of life Shakespeare wrote to us, after many years of walking the earth. 

Unlike theater, in reality, things had everything to do with politics, and Shakespeare and his theater at the time were facing an ever closing danger in politics. Represented in the play by the character Malvolio, Puritanism was on its steady rise in the later career of Shakespeare. The puritans in London, who were the fundamentalists of Christianity, had long argued against the practice of theater and threatened to burn Shakespeare’s theater down. It was only under the protection of nobles like Olivia did Shakespeare and his theater survived. But, eighteen years later, the puritans defeated the nobles in the English Civil War and closed all theaters in England. Therefore, the play is also Shakespeare’s defense of theater. He and his theater are like the Fool and Sir Toby who try to hang on in Olivia’s house and fight back against the hypocrisy of Malvolio. Shakespeare’s love for theater lies in Toby’s rebuttal against Malvolio, “Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

After Twelfth Night, Shakespeare moved away from comedy and started his endeavor in grand tragedies such as Hamlet. With this play, he seemed to finish everything he had to say on the subject of love.

- John Cai, Dramaturg

Cast Bios

Dooley's Players 2022-2023 Executive Board

Artistic Director: Willa Barnett

Production Manager: Jake Stohr

Treasurer: Sonia Karkare

Secretary: Anjali Borschel

Publicity Coordinator: Julia Green

Special Projects Coordinator: Leah Strickland

Outreach Coordinator: Kailey Albus

Mediation Officer: Sydney Webb

First-Year Representative: Ainsley Powers

International Student Representative: Aziz Hajji

Coming up...

We are accepting directing proposals for the Dooley's Players 2023-2024 season through April 21st at 11:59. 

Link:https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe4DjpM0OvBSZL5sz_C1Wx86Nd61_7NYNkRxVARQVAwGkjXoQ/viewform 

Join us for a directing application workshop on April 12 at 6 pm in Woodruff 214!