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MILLIGAN COLLEGE, Tenn. (Nov. 20, 2014) — A group of theatre students at Milligan College are putting a creative twist on a senior project, turning their research on theatre into a humorous play about their college experience.
Last year, senior theatre majors Adam Derrick, Darcie DeLong and Tess Evans-Shell, as well as junior theatre minor Laura Mixon, wrote a paper for a group research project on devised theatre, a form where the script is usually improvised from a group of performers, not written.
“We wanted to take that research and put on a show about Milligan and the humanities program, about students who learn life lessons as they go through college,” said Derrick, who’s from Boone, North Carolina.
That idea became “Devise and Conquer,” a show the students will perform on Friday and Saturday, Nov. 21 and 22, at 7 p.m. at the McGlothlin-Street Theatre located in Milligan’s Gregory Center for the Liberal Arts. The performance is free and open to the public.
The group, who also goes by the name “Devise and Conquer,” will transform the space into a black box theatre, a small, enclosed performing space, with the audience seats up on stage near the actors.
One humorous scene in “Devise and Conquer” involves the students stressing about a humanities test. While writing on a board, they hear a bird chirping.
“We start running around looking for it like we’re going crazy,” said Derrick, who based the scene on a real occurrence. “It turns out there was no bird. It was the marker squeaking on the board.”
The students each play fictional characters, but with a lot of autobiographical elements, according to Derrick.
“I play Will Grossman,” said Derrick. “He’s a Bible major, loves Vespers and his whole family went to Milligan. The hardest lesson he learns in the play is that he doesn’t know everything. He has to learn to be a little more humble.”
The play will feature a lot of inside jokes about Milligan, like references to art slides from humanities lectures.
“The play will be really fun for people who know Milligan,” said Derrick, who plans to pursue acting after college and eventually graduate school.
The project is required as part of Milligan’s humanities program, which requires students to complete a research project as seniors. Fine arts majors can choose to either exhibit their work or research a chosen topic with the help of faculty mentors.
“These students have created a piece of theatre which is totally unique, refreshingly original and something exclusively owned by them,” said Richard Major, professor of theatre at Milligan and one of the mentors on the project. “It has been a bold step for this quartet of actors, and I think the audiences who come to this play will be entertained in an extremely gratifying manner.”
The biggest lesson Derrick has taken away from his Milligan experience, though, comes back to the same themes he explores in the group’s play.
“I learned how to be vulnerable with a group,” said Derrick, “and share hard experiences.”
To learn more about Milligan’s arts events, visit www.milligan.edu/arts.