UMass Theater is a significant driver of the Western Massachusetts creative economy, delivering excellent art that highlights our student-artists, creative work by faculty and staff in addition to their teaching, and quality entertainment and artistic experiences to audiences.
This is true of companies that operate mainly during the summer, such as Chester Theatre, which is currently headed by the Co-Artistic Team of alum Michelle Ong-Hendrick ‘95 and Theater Chair Chris Baker, as well as year-round organizations such as Play Incubation Collective, which fosters new work and has featured several plays written by UMass Theater students and alums, as well as performers and creative team members with UMass Theater affiliations.
To prove our point, we’ve collected some examples of UMass Theater representation in Western Massachusetts.
We hope you can join our artist scholars for a performance!
CHESTER THEATRE COMPANY
Last summer, Chester Theatre Company included Resident Lighting Designer Lara Dubin ‘97G and undergrad Lucas Musgrave, a current undergrad, as the company’s Master Electrician.
This spring we got word that the new leadership of the company was very close to home indeed: Michelle Ong-Hendrick ‘95 and current Theater Chair Chris Baker were announced as Co-Artistic Directors of the Company, and Lara Dubin ‘97G returned as Resident Lighting Designer, while undergrad Kyra Maegher was one of the company’s interns. Furthermore, their daughter, Hero Marguerite, a frequent collaborator-performer over the years, took the lead role in A Hundred Words for Snow. Margo Caddell ‘06G lit that particular show. James McNamara ‘05G created sound designs for several Chester shows including Magdalene.
PLAY INCUBATION COLLECTIVE
The Play Incubation Collective’s spring Development Workshop featured In Clinic, written by student Julio Nogueira Varella about 3 pediatric cancer patients as they go through weeks of treatment. Dramaturgy was by student Meena Cunniffe, and performers included alum Gabriel Cifuentes, MFA student Pedro Eiras, and students Aracelli Sierra and Aaron Mancaniello.
SHEA THEATER/REAL LIVE THEATRE
Last summer Real Live Theatre, a company founded by a group including UMass Theater alums, made a home at the Shea Theater, run by alum Linda Tardif ‘11 for When the Mind’s Free, a show about a contemporary lesbian couple and their adult daughters as they navigate Alzheimer’s disease and addiction, and seek light in their darkest times.
The team included MFA directing alum Toby Vera Bercovici as Director/ Creator, and MFA alum Mikayla Reid as Costume Designer. Tardif acted, and her husband, fellow alum Samuel V. Perry, was Composer/Sound Designer. Alum Annelise Nielsen, actor and Choreographer, came from Denmark to work with her former UMass collaborators and classmates.
SILVERTHORNE THEATER COMPANY
Silverthorne Theater Company, founded by the late Lucinda Kidder, an alum of the Directing MFA program is one of the most “UMass-connected” companies around. The company board includes several UMass Theater folks: Professors Harley Erdman and Gina Kaufmann, Managing Director Willow Cohen, MTC alum Sabine Denise Jacques, and current MFA student Kyle Boatwright.
Last summer’s Smart People, which featured UMass graduate students Kyle Boatwright and David Keohane among the performers. The stage managers were UMass undergrads Lindsay Forauer and Kyra Meagher, and the lighting designer was recent grad Drishti Chauhan.
Also last summer, Bulrusher, in which three actors were current UMass Theater students (Aaron Mancaniello, Aracelli Sierra, and Imani Bibuld) and one was an alum (Jasmine Goodspeed). Director Michelle Ong-Hendrick was also an alum, costume designer Malory Rojas Grillo had just finished our grad program and UMass undergraduate Lindsay Forauer took on multiple roles as dialect coach and scenic and props designer. MFA student Rose Schweitz Malla was the assistant director!
February’s Season Opener Cabaret featured undergrads Aaron Mancaniello and Tahmie Der, as well as MFA student Rose Schwietz Malla as performers. Managing Director Willow Cohen and Professor Gina Kaufmann were also on the bill.
Professor Harley Erdman’s The Birds The Birds The Birds was presented in a Thursday reading. The work also featured music by alum Greg Boover.
A theater troupe in medieval Europe frantically outruns the Black Death in The Amateurs, directed by Professor Gina Kaufmann, with UMass Theater alum Caleb Koval and Multicultural Theater Certificate-holder Sabine Denise Jacques performing. Also involved: Alums Sunny Nordberg as the Stage Manager, Marco White as the Assistant Sound Designer, and Sabrina Hamilton as the Lighting Designer. Scenic Artist Carl Bridge was the Mask Designer & Artisan, current MFA students Rose Schwietz Malla was the Intimacy Choreographer and department Managing Director Willow Cohen was the Production Manager.
Silverthorne’s second summer show, Branden Jacobs Jenkins’ The Comeuppance, also included UMass Theater folks: Director Cordelia Winter Dwyer (MFA student in directing); performers Kyle Boatwright (MFA student in directing), Tahmie Der and Gabe CiFuentes (both alums); costume designer Hanh Rioux (MFA student in costume design); sound designer Sean Buenaventura (alum); assistant sound designer Marco White (a very recent alum), lighting designer Lara Dubin (MFA alum), intimacy coordinator Fig LeFevre (MFA alum and frequent guest instructor) and production manager Willow Cohen (alum and current Managing Director of the department).
THEATRETRUCK
In August 2024, UMass alum-founded TheatreTruck presented The Mill Project — women, work & resistance, a play about women’s experiences in the textile mills of 19th-century New England in the Shepherd Barn at Historic Northampton at 66 Bridge Street, Northampton MA
The Mill Project remembers and embodies women’s experiences of work and resistance in the textile mills of nineteenth-century New England through a performance-collage drawn from letters, newspapers, pamphlets and etiquette books. In addition to company founders Brianna Sloane ‘14G and Elizabeth Pangburn ‘14G (who directed and designed the piece, respectively) the ensemble included undergrad Tahmie Der, and alums Emma Friend and Jess Rawling (formerly Braccia). Alum Annelise Neilsen choreographed.
WAM THEATRE
WAM Theatre’s production of Galileo’s Daughter by Jessica Dickey featured alum Sandra Seoane-Serí in the titular role. Also involved on the creative team were 4 alums: Talya Kingston, who is the company’s Associate Artistic Director and in the production dramaturg chair for this show; Malory R. Grillo on costume and prop design, Drishti Chauhan as scenic apprentice, and Jemma Kepner as master electrician. Also at WAM: The 15th Anniversary Benefit, fragments of Outside, included costumes and props from MFA alum Malory R. Grillo, as well as lighting design by Jemma Kepner.
OTHER LOCAL CONNECTIONS
The Smith College Department of Theatre’s New Play Reading Series presented MFA dramaturgy student Pedro Eiras’s play The Science of Torture, directed by fellow MFA Rose Schwietz Malla. Set in 1963 during the Red Scare and rising tensions in Brazil, the play tells the story of a U.S. agent and a Brazilian translator as they collaborate on a manual for interrogation techniques aimed at suppressing communist movements.
In February, UMass Theater was well-represented in the Hartford Stage production of August Wilson’s Two Trains Running. Professor Gilbert McCauley directed, alum Rafael Jordan appeared in the role of Sterling, and grad student Nate Akingbemi was McCauley’s assistant.
Last summer’s Shakespeare & Co. production of Comedy of Errors had a UMass Theater connection — Adriana was played by alum Madeleine Rose Maggio.
MFA Directing student Rose Schwietz Malla directed Naomi Iizuka’s Polaroid Stories at Holyoke Community College Nov. 21-23. “In society and in school, we often learn the stories from Greek mythology but not necessarily the stories of young people who are unhoused,” Malla said in an article on the HCC website. “I think the play does a beautiful job of bringing you into their world. We sense their losses and longings and get a glimpse of what they care about and what carries them forward day to day through their challenges.” She collaborated with husband Suraj Malla on Tragedy of Maili Kami. The piece, which Rose directed and Suraj is performing, ran at CitySpace in Easthampton Sept. 20-22, and had won the “Golden Lanyards” and the “Fringe-spiration” awards at the 2024 Minnesota Fringe Festival.