Theatre Marks 70 Years with Imaginative STEM Plays

Marking its 70th season – a noteworthy feat in any form – Saint Louis University’s U Theatre promises an array of inspired plays. In Xavier Hall, audiences will meet those who formally and informally question, study, consider, calculate, hypothesize, experiment, process, analyze and resolve, only to question again.

At the same time, the season honors production teams and players who for seven decades have shown up to “strut and fret their hours upon the stage,” while imparting valuable lessons to SLU audiences and students, alike.

“Our students need to be trained in creating and collaboration – it is one of our superpowers,” said Nancy Bell, assistant professor of theatre and voice and speech. “It is at the heart of Jesuit education – to understand and invite inquiry with compassion – we prepare our students for life’s challenges, help them to stand in others’ shoes and to see that they can be a force in our changing world.”

Department of Fine and Performing Arts coordinator Meme Wolff, who attended SLU in the 1970s, said the Jesuit approach to education has played a significant role in the U Theatre’s legacy.

“It speaks to the role of the arts at this entire university,” Wolff said. “We draw students from all over campus – a wide range of majors – and we always have.”

Over the 70 years, the program has had quite a following from students who want to be involved in various ways, Wolff said. They build sets, work as ushers, work behind stage and on tech crew and yes, they act, she said.

“We have students in bio-med, psychology, history and a wide range of majors, and we always have,” she said. "I think it is because we welcome them. There are so many students from all sorts of majors who did theatre in high school. They loved it and still want to be a part of it.”

We can experiment and fail and still meet our goals in education. We can push the boundaries of art.”

Alyssa Still, senior in the College of Arts and Sciences

For Alyssa Still, a senior from Phoenix, Arizona, majoring in theatre management by combining theatre curriculum and business courses, the U Theatre occupies a special time and space in the theatrical realm.

“What we do here they cannot do in the real world of theatre,” Still said. “We can experiment and fail and still meet our goals in education – it is a learning experience. We can push the boundaries of art.”

Wolff recalls a number of long-gone venues that were performance spaces, including the Studio shows that were performed in the Snack Bar, which is now the Grill on the lower level of the Busch Student Center; the Laclede Theatre and shop, which occupied a portion of what is now the Laclede garage; the main stage theatre in what was the School of Law building that once stood north of Pius XII Memorial Library; and the historic Samuel Cupples House, which was known as Chouteau House.

History is only one marker of the strength of the program and this year’s productions. All of the plays speak to a field within the realm of STEM: science, technology, engineering and mathematics. And that is a lesson in context, compassion and collaboration, noted Bell.

“These plays are in direct response to the strategic plan,” Bell said. “We want to make work that is specific and relevant to our students, our audience and the SLU community.”

More than that, the season opens the door into personal frustration and compassion of those trying to understand STEM issues.

“The art that we produce here, the work that we do, is significant,” Bell said. “We focus our education on the Jesuit mission of the University. Each of these plays is a lesson in cura personalis; each of these plays puts the individual into stories that are science and math – we show the compassion of science, engineering, technology and math, the core values of the person living in that world.”

The 2016-17 Season

The season opens with Distracted, the poignant, yet comic, story of a nine-year-old boy and the adults around him, particularly his mother, trying to determine if he is suffering with Attention Deficit Disorder or simply marching to the beat of his own drum. The production runs Sept. 30 to Oct. 1 and Oct. 7-9.

“The role of the mother is so complicated and devastating – I have come to understand so much about the nature of science and medicine, its strengths and its limitations,” said Claire Cunningham, a sophomore from Chicago, who is majoring in theatre and political science. “These plays take us beyond left brain or right brain. All of these plays give us the time and space to understand science and math and to appreciate it in human terms.”

From there, the spotlight shifts to what is arguably Tom Stoppard’s finest play, Arcadia. Set in an English country home, the production juxtaposes modern scholars and residents from the previous century facing challenges of love through a labyrinth of science and mathematics that considers concepts of order, certainty, time and space. It runs from Nov. 17-20.

In the spring semester, Silent Sky tells the historic story of Henrietta Swan Leavitt, a brilliant deaf woman – a flesh-and-blood “computer” employed at Harvard’s Observatory – who struggles within the male-dominated world of science to make her discovery known to the world. The play at once illuminates human limitations against a limitless backdrop of space. The play will be presented March 2-5. The closing performance will offer American Sign Language interpretation.

Finally, the season wraps with Neal Bell’s Monster, a bold retelling of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which explores the folly of humans and hubris. It offers insight into a man operating without it. Here is a scientist, flush with intellect, intent and imagination, who discovers the tragedy of science that is void of humanity. Monster will be performed April 21-22, as well as April 28-30.

Without question, this is a decidedly smart, and particularly fitting, season for Saint Louis University theatre. Recognizing its role in the time and space continuum, the drama department has developed a series that celebrates the vital role of STEM within our world and even more so, stresses the critical part the humanities play within that context.

Ultimately, audiences will come away with a better understanding of human frailty and capacity, a new appreciation for those toiling in the realms of STEM, as well as a recognition that “the play’s the thing” that puts the flesh on the bones of biology, the empathy in E=MC2.

“I think that is why we have had a program that has endured over 70 years,” Bell said. “Acting is a performance of compassion.”

Season and individual show tickets are still available. For more information, check out the U Theatre website.