Fredonia theatre series offers virtual presentation of dramatic comedy
The Department of Theatre and Dance will make use of virtual technology to present the next production in the 2020-21 Walter Gloor Mainstage Series.
Performances of the award-winning dramatic comedy “She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms” will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on March 4, 5 and 6, and at 2 p.m. on March 7, via YouTube Live.
A link to view the production, which is being produced via Zoom, can be found on the Rockefeller Facebook page and on its website.
Tickets for “She Kills Monsters: Virtual Realms” are being sold on a pay-as-you-can basis. The Department of Theatre and Dance has lost a full year of box office revenue due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and organizers note that financial support of productions will go a long way to ensuring future performance and production experiences for students and audiences alike.
Director Daniel Lendzian said the Fredonia production features “an amazing cast and creative and adaptable designs by our students.”
“We wanted to create a show that utilizes Zoom to its fullest capacity, rather than feeling limited by it,” he said.
“She Kills Monsters” was written by Qui Nguyen and made its off-Broadway debut in 2011. It tells of a woman who loses her parents and younger sister in a car accident. She goes on a quest to learn more about her late sister, which leads the main character into the realm of the game “Dungeons and Dragons.”
Nguyen is a playwright, screenwriter, and co-founder of the Obie Award-winning Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company of New York City. His recent awards include a 2016 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing in a Preschool Animated Program (“Peg+Cat”). “She Kills Monsters” was the winner of the American Alliance for Theatre and Education’s 2013 Distinguished Play Award.
“It’s a compelling work to produce because it is a play that uses the game of ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ to explore contemporary themes of identity,” Lendzian said. “It is an amazing mash-up of realism and fantasy, and one of the few plays where cheerleaders, fairies, and demon kings can co-exist. It takes the best tropes of a high school/teen movie and the best tropes of a fantasy quest film, combing them to create a thrilling night of theater.”
When the COVID pandemic struck in early 2020, Nguyen created an updated version of the work geared for virtual performances.
“We will be making use of the updated pandemic version, which was not available when we chose the show a year ago,” Lendzian said. “It’s really exciting to see how Nguyen has utilized the new platform to create a version of the play. Also, many ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ groups play on Zoom-like platforms, which has informed the concept of our production.”
Lendzian said the goal is to make this production an “acting and design opportunity that is rich, creative and empowering” for the students.
“The theater teaches problem solving and collaboration and I think that this experience really will sharpen those skills for all involved,” he said.
The director said it should be rewarding experience for audiences, too.
“I hope viewers will experience an amazing night of fun and entertainment that might have them consider the ‘facets of their own identities’,” Lendzian said. “Perhaps they will feel inspired to start their own quest, maybe even an online ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ game.”
