Valid Crashout: THDA

My first encounters with Amherst College’s theater and dance department taught me to anticipate disappointment. Freshman year, I pitched a full-length play that I’d written to one of the cast members of “Voices of the Class,” an annual performance by upperclassmen during orientation. “Voices” gave me false hope that students had artistic autonomy at the college. The cast member, then-senior Sienna McCulley ’22E, told me that I should instead pitch the play to Green Room, a since semi-defunct collective of student theater enthusiasts who annually selected two plays per semester from a list of dozens that all students were able to suggest. I asked McCulley if I could work with the theater department to get it done, and she uttered the words that too many students have heard and internalized: “They only really care about thesis students.”

Reminder: To produce a theater thesis (i.e., a well-budgeted, well-employed, well-advertised play or musical) here at Amherst College, you must major in theater and dance (THDA), which requires the completion of 10 courses in the department. For any thespians who prefer to follow Amherst’s emphatic encouragement on the academic exploration front and major in literally anything else: tough luck.

Another reminder: here is an itemized list of Amherst College’s theatrical facilities, advertised proudly on the college’s website:

1. Kirby Memorial Theater, “a 384-seat proscenium with computerized lighting equipment, a stretch-wire lighting grid, fully equipped scenic and costume shops.”
2. Holden Experimental Theater, “a 6,000 square-foot, state-of-the-art, flexible theater with its own lobby, moveable seating, computer-controlled lighting and sound systems, catwalks, lighting grid, and dressing rooms.”
3. Webster Hall’s “four spacious studios, used for teaching and performance. Studios One and Three are equipped for performances, with flexible seating, and lighting and sound capabilities. Studios One and Two have sprung floors for dance and movement work.”

These incredible spaces must be wonderful for the incoming students to read about, but advertising them online doesn’t stop the theater department from leaving them empty and collecting dust, not to mention carefully guarded from any non-THDA-sanctioned productions.

In 2022, I wrote another play, called “Workshop,” which takes place entirely in a single classroom. I went to Production Manager Jonathan Doyle’s office to ask about the essentials: set, space, props, costumes. He told me that he and his team would be unable to provide any of these necessities. He told me that there are plenty of places outside of Webster Hall, Holden Experimental Theater, and Kirby Memorial Theater to perform a theatrical production, like a classroom in the Science Center or Fayerweather Hall. That would make more sense for me, too, given that my play took place in a classroom. After a few more weeks of searching for something that’d be available for a week of performances on EMS, I settled on Lipton Lecture Hall in the Science Center (there would be no desks in my play, despite it being about a classroom). Our “backstage” was a small nook in the corner of the room next to the emergency exit doors, where the nine actors changed costumes (collected from their own wardrobes) and waited in between scenes. A friend of mine lent me a curtain from his room to provide privacy for actors during scene changes.

This experience has defined my impression of student theater at Amherst College. Despite being proud of the finished performance, handled beautifully by my cast and crew, I have this bitter taste in my mouth whenever thinking of doing more theatrical productions here. The THDA department typically puts on one to two productions per semester for their thesis students, and attempting to reason with them to produce more plays or use their empty, cobwebbed studios for rehearsals is like talking to a brick wall. The department is a frustrating mini-bureaucracy that serves to perpetuate its own lack of Student Engagement.

My since-graduated friend, Matt Vitelli ’24, started Ghostlight Theater, a Registered Student Organization (RSO) in his junior year to produce “Workshop,” a play that would have survived the voting process of Green Room, much less the full stop denial of the department. Ghostlight’s mission to produce whatever plays, original or professional, that students are interested in pursuing has made it easier to get some stuff off the ground, such as 2023’s “We Open on a Red Desert” by Luke Herzog ’24, which thankfully found its home in Webster Hall’s Studio Three (though, notably, the cast found a dead, decaying mouse in the dressing rooms — surely the hallmark of a well-used space).

There is a plethora of passionate students pitching ideas to Ghostlight, or wanting to work tech, stage manage, or wanting to write, direct, or act. Over the years I’ve been a firsthand witness to the department’s wilful ignorance of these students. Chair of THDA Ron Bashford attended but one of the several productions per year that Herzog was a part of during his time at Amherst, even though Herzog personally invited Bashford to every single performance. It’s rare to see a department chair so unenthusiastic about students’ interests in their field, as well as being straight-up disrespectful to the craft they should presumably care the most about. I’m grateful for the opportunities Ghostlight has presented to the Amherst community in the face of limited options. Still, however, this enthusiasm for the performing arts starts and stops with the students. Doing a popular musical without the help of the THDA department is out of the question, given the complications regarding securing rights to the songs, convincing a studio band to work for no pay, or convincing your friends in orchestra to work on the production uncredited — not to mention for what is more likely to be an under-advertised event performed in the boondocks of whatever building the department has sent you wild goose-chasing to this time.

To bring us to the present day, here’s another anecdote. In trying to secure Studio Three for a production of “Twelfth Night” that fellow extracurricular thespian Tim Carroll ’25 and I directed this semester, Doyle’s reply to my email left us dumbfounded. While “Twelfth Night” is one of his favorite Shakespearean plays, he thinks we’d be better suited doing the play entirely outside, as the Webster studios were being used for classes, and he wouldn’t want us to have to tussle for rehearsal time.

Actually, there shouldn’t be any tussle for rehearsal time, even if you’re trying for one of the many plentifully resourced studios here at Amherst. Classes in Studio Three occur during the day; rehearsals for plays and musicals occur during the evening. The THDA department’s stingy denial of unused spaces during unbooked times has no basis in any organizational reality, only in the denial of students utilizing the “state-of-the-art” theatrical spaces that Amherst lets sit waiting for months for a thesis to claim them. It’s not a fight for reserving; it’s a rejection of sense.

The bureaucracy runs deeper than any other system I’ve encountered in my academic career. When I prodded Doyle about possibly performing somewhere else like Johnson Chapel (which, given its acoustics, would require microphones), he referred me to Sean Buenaventura, the lighting and audiovisual manager. I emailed Sean about when Tim and I could meet with him, and he replied that if we wanted to use Johnson Chapel, we should talk to Multimedia Services. Tim and I went to Seelye Mudd the next morning to talk to Multimedia Services during their working hours, during which they were not there. We asked a nearby IT attendant where they were and when they would be back, and he said they could be anywhere on campus at the moment, for an unknown period of time. We asked another IT attendant, Will Fournier, if he could help us with the mic situation, and he said, “No problem, I’ll just put it into the IT to-do list and we’ll get to it very soon.” Two and a half weeks later, IT replied to our request: “This will need to be coordinated through student engagement.” Director of Student Engagement and Leadership Rachel Kremer responded to the CC, recommending that, since she had no expertise with tech in any way, we contact her colleague, Paula Mieczkowski. Paula Mieczkowski recommended that we talk to Will Fournier in the IT department to get this all sorted out.

A few months ago, with an hour to kill, I crashed a friend’s tour of the college as she showed prospective students around the campus. I mentioned at some point, riffing with my friend and her tour group, that I participated in theater and theater-adjacent activities on campus. Later, an eager prospective student from the tour asked me what opportunities were available for students on campus wanting to participate in theater. I told her the truth.