KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Nov. 7, 2019 \u2013 When the 溏心vlog免费B站 Theatre Department drew up its schedule for the season, one play was in high demand among theater students. That demand will be met when the comic, fantastic romp \u201cShe Kills Monsters\u201d opens Nov. 14 in Robert E. Will Theatre.<\/p>\n
Qui Nguyen\u2019s \u201cShe Kills Monsters,\u201d which debuted off-Broadway in 2011, details the journey of Agnes Evans, a school teacher who is mourning the death of her little sister, Tilly, who was killed in a car crash along with their parents. Agnes had never gotten to know her geeky, 15-year-old sister. Tormented with grief, she discovers the playbook Tilly created for the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons.\u00a0Agnes enlists a nerdy student, Chuck, to serve as dungeon master as she re-creates Tilly\u2019s final quest, sending Agnes on a heart-pounding crusade through a world of monsters, killer fairies, evil elves, and \u201890s pop culture to reconnect with her sister.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe play is wildly popular among college students for multiple reasons,\u201d says director Madison Cook-Hines. \u201cIt can have a cast of fewer than 10 or you can have a ton of people. So, it’s great for an educational environment where you want everyone to have a chance to participate.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s also a very keenly adolescent show,\u201d she adds. \u201cThe playwright does a singularly heartfelt job of portraying these teenagers in a way that’s completely authentic to their behavior and the nuances of their sarcasm and stupid witticisms, but also doesn\u2019t diminish them. He finds a real wisdom to youth that the adults learn from. It’s also a spectacle piece. It\u2019s gigantic and I think lots of people my age just want to pick up swords and fight giant dragons.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Cook-Hines, who graduated from 溏心vlog免费B站 last spring with a bachelor\u2019s degree in fine arts with a concentration in directing, this is her first professional directing job. Since graduating, she has apprenticed as an assistant director at the Gloucester Stage Company. Perhaps her best preparation was the independent play she wrote, cast, directed and staged in Will Theatre last spring.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Daughters of Lavinia\u2019 was really a great way to prepare because I worked at every single level of production to see it through,\u201d says Cook-Hines, of Coventry<\/strong>. \u201cIt parallels this play quite nicely.\u201d<\/p>\n She also created numerous puppets for \u201cDaughters of Lavinia\u201d \u2013 and puppets play a big role in \u201cShe Kills Monsters.\u201d More than a dozen large puppets, representing monsters from Dungeons & Dragons lore are part of the play, including a Tiamat, a 17-foot-tall, five-headed dragon. They lend to the play\u2019s chaos \u2013 along with a parade of warriors who battle their way through fairies, elves, goblins and other monsters in fight scenes choreographed to \u201890s hip-hop.<\/p>\n Shannon Donnelly \u201821, who plays Tilly, was attracted by the play\u2019s technical and fantasy elements. But she also appreciated its representation of lesbian and gay characters. \u201cThis show is really a nice step in that direction,\u201d says Donnelly, of North Providence<\/strong>. \u201cIt takes place in the 1990s when the conversation about gay people was a lot less open. My character was bullied in school because she was the stereotype of a dorky lesbian, even though she hadn\u2019t come out. She creates this Dungeon & Dragons world where she is accepted because everyone in it is gay.\u201d<\/p>\n Lecturer Max Ponticelli has designed a set that clearly distinguishes the play\u2019s two worlds \u2013 with the reality appearing washed out and two dimensional and the fantasy world full of texture and color. That\u2019s important in a 90-minute play where scene changes happen on the fly and the action never slows.<\/p>\n \u201cThe play moves at the speed of fantasy,\u201d says Cook-Hines. \u201cThe characters are popping back and forth between worlds. It\u2019s a jarring transition for Agnes. As much as she wants to get to know her sister, this isn’t her world.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s how Erin McGowan \u201821, who plays Agnes, feels. \u201cI\u2019ve never read a show like this before, especially how it jumps around,\u201d says McGowan, of Zionsville,<\/strong> Pennsylvania<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s almost jarring to read. But once you\u2019re in it, it makes more sense. It\u2019s something where you really have to have a cast that\u2019s willing to communicate, and a director who\u2019s able to clearly articulate her vision.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s a vision that\u2019s been enhanced by the designers, many of them students in the theater program.<\/p>\n Dean Hernandez \u201920 has served as puppet designer. Along with Melissa Hayes ’22, he’s created 22 puppets \u2013 Kobalds, goblins, worgs, a gelatinous cube \u2013 so many that about a dozen volunteers were recruited to help build them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fast-paced speed of this show requires that many of the creatures come and go as quickly as possible, but they still look and operate as intended,\u201d says Hernandez, of East Providence<\/strong>. \u201cMadison had an incredible vision of the duality of the real world versus the fantasy world. The real world looks almost cartoonish and fake, while the D&D world is as real as you can make it. The puppets needed to reflect this. We didn\u2019t want to go with an abstract look for the puppets, but for them to appear and operate as real as physically possible.\u201d<\/p>\n Costume designer Magenta Kolakowski \u201920, of Riverside<\/strong>, has designed about 10 costumes for the show from scratch\u2014from idea to sketch to pattern to reality. The rest of the approximately 45 costumes she\u2019s created from the department\u2019s large costume inventory. \u201cI’m trying to capture the richness of an entire world in costumes,\u201d says Kolakowski. \u201cI call them high fantasy. It\u2019s similar to \u2018The Lord of the Rings\u2019 where everything is based on this almost pseudo historical world.\u201d<\/p>\n And warriors need weapons, so there are plenty \u2013 swords, a battle axe, a club, staffs, says prop designer Lily Ferreira \u201920, of Middletown<\/strong>. Because the source material was clear, researching the weapons\u2019 design was straightforward. But Ferreira ensured they were lightweight and safe, while designing them for the large Will Theatre.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything has to be bigger and brighter because in Will the closest seat is 30 feet away,\u201d says Ferreira. \u201cThey need to be seen from all the way at the top, because those audience members deserve the same show that people up front get.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cShe Kills Monsters\u201d<\/strong> runs Nov. 14-16 and Nov. 21-23 with shows starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Robert E. Will Theatre in the Fine Arts Center, 105 Upper College Road, Kingston Campus. Shows on Nov. 17 and 24 start at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 for general admission and $15 for seniors and 溏心vlog免费B站 students, faculty and staff. Click here<\/a> for tickets or call the box office at (401) 874-5843.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/strong>The cast<\/strong><\/p>\n Character, actor, hometown (in order of appearance):<\/em><\/p>\n Narrator:<\/strong> Olivia Morrow, Plymouth, Massachusetts<\/p>\n Tilly Evans:<\/strong> Shannon Donnelly, North Providence<\/p>\n Puppeteer:<\/strong> Emma Becker, Tiverton<\/p>\n Puppeteer:<\/strong> Jenna Muldoon, Staten Island, New York<\/p>\n Steve:<\/strong> David J. Roberts, Newport<\/p>\n Agnes Evans:<\/strong> Erin McGowan, Zionsville, Pennsylvania<\/p>\n Chuck Biggs:<\/strong> Alexander Linn, Hanover, Massachusetts<\/p>\n Miles:<\/strong> Matthew Corbett, Attleboro, Massachusetts<\/p>\n Lilith:<\/strong> Jess Ring, Coventry<\/p>\n Kaliope:<\/strong> Edhaya, Chennai, India<\/p>\n Puppeteer:<\/strong> Owen Gilmartin, South Kingstown<\/p>\n Orcus:<\/strong> Colin Cleary, Harvard, Massachusetts<\/p>\n Vera:<\/strong> Lorraine Guerra, Cranston<\/p>\n Farrah:<\/strong> Alana Parrott, Webster, Massachusetts<\/p>\n Evil Gabbi:<\/strong> Mackenzie Blake, Cranston<\/p>\n Evil Tina:<\/strong> Carleigh Boyle, Hillsdale, New Jersey<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 Nov. 7, 2019 \u2013 When the 溏心vlog免费B站 Theatre Department drew up its schedule for the season, one play was in high demand among theater students. That demand will be met when the comic, fantastic romp \u201cShe Kills Monsters\u201d opens Nov. 14 in Robert E. Will Theatre. Qui Nguyen\u2019s \u201cShe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75190,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12],"class_list":["post-75189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives","tag-college-of-arts-and-sciences"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}