MOORHEAD – The Concordia Theater Department put on the absurdist play “The Bald Soprano,” by Eugène Ionesco from Feb. 15-18. The production, which centers around a chaotic evening involving two English couples, a maid and a fire chief, was a smash hit with students on campus.
Caden Nestler, a senior at Concordia, made his main season directing debut through The Bald Soprano, according to his Cast and Crew profile.
“(Caden) is my roommate too. So, it was very nice being able to work so closely with someone that I’m so close with outside of work. Like we didn’t need to do the barrier of like four emails back and forth. It was just simple like, ‘hey, can you set this up?’ ‘Already done.’ And so, it was very nice to be able to, like, have that relationship with the director,” senior and “The Bald Soprano” stage manager, Jackson Peterson said.
Student directed shows tend to bode well with Concordia students who want to support their peers’ endeavors, according to Peterson.
“I think such an intimate show, especially with the student director, really got people interested. You know, my tagline for everything was ‘student directed absurd comedy.’ And so, I think when people heard student and absurd in the same sentence, it really piqued their interest,” junior and box office manager Kiley Snobeck said.
The show not only sold out for the three performances that were put on, but people were on a waiting list to get into the show. Because the tickets were free, some students booked tickets but neglected to actually attend the show. Because of this, the theater staff were able to get up to twenty people a night from the waitlist into the performance, Snobeck said.
“On the Thursday, of the first show, (the cast) was sitting backstage and I was refreshing the Ticket Source page over and over. That day we had already watched two of our shows sell out, and then right before it started, we watched Saturday sell out. So, we got to watch all our shows sell out right before the show started,” sophomore and actress in “The Bald Soprano,” Megan Gunnerson, said.
Though there are many factors that contributed to the buzz around the “The Bald Soprano,” a few not only got Concordia students, but Fargo/Moorhead citizens, to get excited about the show.
“I always send out a press release, and it usually gets picked up by a couple of newspapers or whatever, but it got picked up by Valley News Live and we got to go in North Dakota Today, which was super exciting. And I think that as audience development helped us bring in more people into the show. Yeah, it helps bring kind of notice to the Concordia Theatre department,” Snobeck said.
“With (“The Bald Soprano”) being in this slot of the year, I mean it’s the beginning of the second semester, and normally the weather is cold, and people tend to be very sad and just like want kind of something to lift them up. And so, I feel like having that show in this slot was just a nice way to kind of just like, get people to smile, get people to turn off their brains for a second and just enjoy what is going on in front of them, which in this case was pure chaos.” Peterson said.
“I think having a theater opportunity to experience something like this was really great. Having a student director and experiencing a show this is weird and bizarre was really great. like encourage a lot of people just to try out for theater for fun. Just do it just for fun,” Gunnerson said.
The Concordia Theater Department’s next mainstage performance is “The Laramie Project,” by Moisés Kaufman, which will run from April 25-28.
Be First to Comment