As the saying goes, the show must go on, and UNC campus theater had no trouble following that advice in 2013 — taking students, faculty and community members on a journey into foreign and usually controversial territory.
From Jan. 1 to Dec. 3, more than 20 shows were performed by campus groups alone. That number does not include the variety of outside performance troupes and student-written play performances that were hosted throughout the year.
The PlayMakers Repertory Company kicked off the year with “And God Created Great Whales” on Jan. 9 , softening no blows as they welcomed students back with a play about a character’s obsessive desire to finish “Moby-Dick” before losing his memory forever.
The trend toward the dark, provocative and sometimes controversial continued, manifesting itself in various forms of student theater: an exploration of prejudice in PlayMakers’ January shows “Raisin in the Sun” and “Clybourne Park,” Company Carolina’s March discussion of sexuality in “The Vagina Monologues” and LAB! Theatre’s October show about a dysfunctional family in “Crimes of the Heart.”
However, perhaps the most notable manifestation of student expression was the formation of the Rogue Players student theater group.
In April, the group formed to perform “Titus Andronicus” in response to Company Carolina’s decision to drop the show for “Shakespeare in the Quad” because of the production’s violence. In response, the formerly sponsored group of students broke away from Company and set up the gore-filled show in the backyard of a house, providing ponchos to audience members in the first row to protect them from fake blood and body parts.
“It’s really nice to see that because censorship is a thing, it’s going to be a thing, it’s always been a thing,” said junior dramatic art major and Rogue Player Daniel Doyle.
The group went on to perform “Pelleas et Melisande” — another edgy show with performances held in a backyard — in October.
Kenan Theatre Company also formed in 2013, comprised of the undergraduate production department of the dramatic art department, creating an environment for students to implement what they learn in class. “9 Parts of Desire,” a show about the lives of Iraqi women, showed Oct. 10 to 14 and was its first production as a company.
