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MFA Student Directs Environmental Theatre
By Will Rucker, 4th year Drama major

In early December, U.Va.’s Arts Grounds played host to an exciting night of theatre featuring everything from clowns to Luther Vandross to a squirrel’s innermost thoughts to Dr. Seuess’ The Grinch.  MFA Acting candidate Laura Rikard produced and directed a day of “environmental theatre” on December 5, 2009 that took audiences by foot on an imaginative journey based on Hans Christian Andersen’s classic tale, The Little Match-Seller. 

Rikard first got the idea for an interactive theatre project over the summer while attending The Magdalena Project, International Women’s Theatre Festival at the Odin Teatret in Denmark.  “U.Va.’s funding really made that trip possible for me, so I wanted to bring a little of my experience back to Charlottesville,” she said.  Rikard said that during her weeks at Odin she was exposed to many new ways of doing theatre, including one performance that took place while the audience was on a hike in the wilderness.  “The performers would pop out of trees and start their scene,” she explained. 

Upon her return to U.Va., Rikard began work on what she calls “environmental theatre.”  She spent the Fall semester casting and directing a unique theatrical ‘experience.’ “I also wanted to give students and actors an opportunity to be making theatre without having to wait around for auditions,” said Rikard, who recruited U.Va. students as well as faculty members to work on the project with her.  She also involved several young female actors whom she met through her work with LiveArts. 

Rikard’s concept was that audience members would be led in small groups on foot from Drama Building lobby every fifteen minutes and carried through the Drama, Architecture, and Fine Arts Buildings before returning to the Culbreth Lobby for hot cocoa and homemade cookies.  Each groups were greeted at each location by a single “Little Match Stick Girl,” who invited the audience inside her imagination by striking a match – or in this case, lighting an electric candle.  

Each imagination or scene showcased original work created by the performers and Rikard herself.  The performers chose their own location, providing a “custom fit” for each scene.  Professor of Acting Richard Warner and MFA Acting candidate Daria Okugawa, for example, transformed rehearsal room B006 into a garbage-ridden alleyway for their piece, “The Best Gift of All.”  Third year students Sam Reeder and Ally Boate performed the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet using the central staircase in the Fine Arts Building as a balcony. 

As snow fell into the evening of December 5, kids of all ages from the U.Va. and Charlottesville communities met on Culbreth Road for a night of theatre that was not only creative, but created from scratch.  “I was realizing since I moved to Charlottesville that many people didn’t even know about this artistic corner of our campus,” explained Rikard, who was thrilled with the crowd that turned out for the event.  The event also helped give back to the community as admission was a canned food item or a donation to Toys for Tots.  Whether the audience was seated on benches or left standing, they seemed content watching theatre that was not only supported by but inspired by its setting.

New faces and new places characterized an evening that Rikard hopes not only drew some attention to the arts at U.Va. but also piqued the interest of students and community members who haven’t previously been involved in U.Va. Drama.  Not to mention the added plus of being able to give back to the community.

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