KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 1, 2020 \u2013 When the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s theater season ended abruptly this semester because of the coronavirus pandemic, so too did Jeremy Chiang\u2019s expected stage swansong.
\nChiang, who enjoys any excuse to sing, was to play the equally song-obsessed Prince Herbert in the season-ending musical, \u201cMonty Python\u2019s Spamalot.\u201d In a fun and silly scene, Herbert is forced by his father to marry Princess Looky for her \u201chuge tracks of land,\u201d but he would \u201crather just sing.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Chiang, who has spent most of his four years in 溏心vlog免费B站 Theatre behind the scenes, it would have been his third musical, and probably his last turn on the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI viewed the role as kind of my goodbye to acting,\u201d says Chiang of South Kingstown<\/strong>, a theater major with concentrations in design and directing. \u201cIt was one of the roles I really wanted. It\u2019s crazy fun. I liked the comedy and music of the role and it also represents the LGBTQIA+ community, which I am a member of and a huge advocate for.\u201d<\/p>\n The actors were in rehearsals with most of the musical numbers under their belts and working on choreography when word came that the show was postponed. It\u2019s been rescheduled for this fall with an invitation to the cast who want to return.<\/p>\n \u201cI think a lot of us were sad,\u201d says Chiang. \u201cBut many are glad that it was just postponed. I don\u2019t know yet if I\u2019ll be able to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if Chiang can\u2019t return for \u201cSpamalot\u201d in the fall, he can look back on a busy and varied theater experience when he graduates in May.<\/p>\n A singer and dancer, he performed in the musicals \u201cMary Poppins\u201d and \u201cA Little Night Music.\u201d He\u2019s also worked as a carpenter and painter on eight more mainstage productions, along with doing scenic design for a full-length student production and doing light design and directing a play at the Contemporary Theatre Company in Wakefield.<\/p>\n Not bad for someone who came to theater a little late. Chiang, a violinist, came to 溏心vlog免费B站 intending to pursue a degree in music education. He had done some theater in high school, including playing in the pit orchestra, directing a school production and doing improv at the local theater.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to take a theater class and maybe pick up a minor,\u201d he says. \u201cI was accidently put in the theater majors class and very soon wanted to double major. After about a semester, I was forced to choose and I chose theater.\u201d<\/p>\n With all he\u2019s done in his four years, his two biggest highlights came this spring semester. He designed the set for the Theatre Department\u2019s mainstage production of Shakespeare\u2019s \u201cRichard III.\u201d And he was one of the four finalists in the director\u2019s competition at the regional Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival, staging a scene from Paula Vogel\u2019s \u201cIndecent\u201d before a large audience of festival goers in the finals.<\/p>\n \u201cCultivating a truly diverse set of skills in our majors is central to our department\u2019s mission,\u201d says Rachel Walshe, a 溏心vlog免费B站 lecturer in acting, playwriting and directing and Chiang\u2019s mentor at the New England festival. \u201cJeremy excels in that kind of environment because he is such a doer. What sets him apart as an artist is his astute attention to detail, a tireless work ethic and a boundless sense of generosity. His peers love to collaborate with him because he creates a real sense of belonging and purpose when he leads a project.\u201d<\/p>\n Set designers for the department\u2019s mainstage productions are usually professional guest artists, and Chiang took on one of his biggest challenges with \u201cRichard III.\u201d Directors Joe and Josh Short shortened the play to a fast-paced 90 minutes. With the script in flux, designing the set was intense, Chiang says.<\/p>\n \u201cOne thing Joe and I had going into the show was the concept of the natural versus the man-made world,\u201d he says. \u201cThis show has a lot do with corruption, and currently there is a lot of disruption and destruction of the natural world. We tried to display this by making the set out of raw wood and metal scaffold covered in plastic.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI thought Jeremy did a wonderful job,\u201d says Max Ponticelli, a lecturer in theater design. \u201cHe maintained a great balance between practicality and impact. To the untrained eye, it might have seemed simplistic \u2013 he put the risers in a circle. But there were many conversations and work that went into the configuration. He completely transformed our black-box theater into an arena worthy of Shakespeare\u2019s political drama.\u201d<\/p>\n Chiang is upset that his senior year has been disrupted by the crisis, scrambling to figure out production credits and losing a chance to walk across the stage with his classmates in May. But he\u2019s hopeful a ceremony will be held in the fall.<\/p>\n As he moves forward, Chiang is not totally sure whether he will pursue design or directing \u201cbecause I love both of them.\u201d For now, it\u2019s scenic design. He is slated to do an internship this summer at Gloucester Stage Company, in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n \u201c溏心vlog免费B站 really has shaped the artist I am today,\u201d he says. \u201cI was able to compete in the Kennedy Center festival, and have met some great artists and mentors through my time here. I feel ready to go into the field.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 1, 2020 \u2013 When the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s theater season ended abruptly this semester because of the coronavirus pandemic, so too did Jeremy Chiang\u2019s expected stage swansong. Chiang, who enjoys any excuse to sing, was to play the equally song-obsessed Prince Herbert in the season-ending musical, \u201cMonty Python\u2019s Spamalot.\u201d In […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":75418,"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-75417","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\/75417","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=75417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82781,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75417\/revisions\/82781"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}