June 22, 2009 — June 26th, 2009 marks the opening of the inaugural season of the Oberlin Summer Theater Festival (OSTF), which will present free productions of the classic plays The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams and The Tempest by William Shakespeare in Hall Auditorium. This season�s company includes seven Oberlin alumni who have returned to their alma mater at different points in their careers to lend their varied passions, skills and experience towards creating high-quality theater.

According to Producing Artistic Director Paul Moser, �one of primary goals of the OSTF is to develop an outstanding intergenerational acting ensemble, composed mostly of grads, who will return to Oberlin as their summer artistic home to do meaningful work in collaboration with a supportive community of like-minded professional artists.� Moser cites famous Oberlin alumnus Nikos Psacharopoulos �51 as the inspiration for this approach. �Psacharopoulos put the Williamstown Theater Festival on the map, making long-term commitments to talented young actors who then continued to return to his theater long after they had established their own successful careers,� he says. �We see our talented Oberlin theater alumni pool as our greatest asset and we are very excited that already, this first summer, the interest of our alumni has been overwhelming. Our acting ensemble includes four Oberlin alumni returning from active careers in New York City.�

Alexis Macnab �01 will play Ariel in The Tempest and, along with Benjamin Stuber �03, is hard at work designing and building the many puppets that will help create the world of The Tempest. Macnab says Oberlin prepared her for collaborative work in theater that she now does professionally: �In the real world, if you want to make stuff, you make it yourself. And what I did at Oberlin, from day one, was make stuff by myself, and be in productions with other people where we were all just making it by ourselves. Having that experience was in college was a gift.�

�I�m really excited to develop a relationship with this summer company,� Macnab continues. �So far it�s been like the best of everything: you get all these students helping out, but it�s still a professional atmosphere.�

Stuber agrees: �Spending all day working and rehearsing with great people who seem to be working at a very high level, the bar is really set, and everyone has a really great attitude about it. Doing theater during school at Oberlin, you�ve got so many things you�re balancing. But now, to really see all the people who are Obies in the real sense of the word�they�re very smart, they�re very dedicated, they�re very opinionated�just doing one thing at a time, and being in that environment, is very, very cool.� Having graduated in May from Naropa University in Colorado with an MFA in Contemporary Performance, Stuber will play Trinculo and Antonio in The Tempest, after which he will head to New York City to continue his career there.

In addition to playing Caliban and Sebastian in The Tempest, Ben Sinclair, class of �06, is working to design video projections that will help create the emotional world of the characters in The Glass Menagerie, having gotten into film production while creating a reel of his own material for use in auditions. Lisa Maley didn�t do theater before she came to college, but after graduating in May 2008, she acts in New York and is now back at Oberlin to play Miranda in The Tempest. �I think I pretty much owe all my theater background to being here,� she says. �It�s amazing to be back and be working on a really quality production for something that will be good for the community.�

Justin Emeka graduated from Oberlin in 1993 with a double major in theater and African-American studies, and has been a visiting assistant professor in both of those departments since spring of 2006. �I can�t think of really any other place that�s comparable to Oberlin,� he says. �There�s not too many small towns in America where you this progressive diverse population. It�s a very unique blend of intellectualism and Midwest and blue-collar sensibility, and African-Americans, Latinos. You have a lot of different very strong influences with deep roots stretching back. As a student, you always hear about Oberlin�s progressive legacy, but I just didn�t internalize it until I came back and lived in the community twelve months out of the year. You really feel this sense of depth and roots and the history of the town. The ideal that Oberlin�s history reflects is an ideal that you can always refer to and believe in. For me, I latch on the to progressive part, this kind of constant inspiration.�

This summer with OSTF, Emeka will play Tom in Tennessee Williams� The Glass Menagerie. �I�m interested at this point in my career in looking at classic theater work and incorporating unique cultural legacies and perspectives,� he says of the process. �I was very fascinated by the idea of playing Tom as a biracial human being, whose father is African-American, who has abandoned the family in St. Louis, and what layer that adds to the piece. I am interested in exploring the modern, untold stories in the American consciousness that may not be at the forefront of the mainstream�s mind. But at the heart of the story, it remains a tragic look at the American family which transcends time and cultural distinctions. This is one of my favorite of Williams� plays because it is so resonant and powerful in its depiction of the family struggle.�

Mike McGee, class of �08, is designing the lights for both shows and collaborating on video projections for The Glass Menagerie, and Aaron Mucciolo �02 will play Stephano and Alonso in The Tempest.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams will run from June 26 through July 18. The Tempest by William Shakespeare will run July 3 through July 18. These free performances in Hall Auditorium are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday at 7 p.m., Friday at 9 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Click here for dates and times. To make ticket reservations, call (440) 775-8169 or e-mail [email protected].