Check Out These Five New Student Theater Productions

With in-person events on hold, Princeton’s student theater productions have been reshaped in the 2020–21 academic year. PAW looks at five recent releases. 

Unbecoming, from the Program in Theater

This filmed theatrical production of a new play by Emma Catherine Watkins ’18 served as the creative thesis for certificate students Paige Allen ’21 (dramaturge) and Eliana Cohen-Orth ’21 (director), who also performed in leading roles. The cast of six students lived as a quarantine pod off campus during the fall semester. 

bit.ly/theater-unbecoming

All Her Power, from the Lewis Center for the Arts

This collection of eight one-act plays features stories of Princeton women in the early days of coeducation, created by students, faculty, and alumnae. Performers were already rehearsing for an April 2020 premiere when the pandemic moved students off campus last March. The team regrouped to create a virtual production, released in December. 

allherpower.princeton.edu

All Underdogs Go To Heaven, from the Princeton Triangle Club

Triangle’s January show, a musical spoof of sports movies, features the Partham Pollawogs, a hapless but beloved squad in the fictional sport of “ball.” Triangle president John McEnany ’21 says it has “emotional, dramatic moments — maybe more so than some other Triangle shows.” The production was a remarkable logistical achievement, with about 100 students involved on screen and behind the scenes and some 600 shipments of costumes and props to students’ homes in the U.S. and abroad.

triangleshow.com 

As You Like It, from Theatre Intime and the Princeton Shakespeare Company

The Shakespearean comedy was planned as Intime’s 100th-anniversary production, but with students dispersed and learning remotely in the fall, director and sound editor Naomi Park ’21 pivoted to an audio-only format. The play was a BBC Radio hit in the early 2000s, and the student production incorporates radio-quality sound design.

theatreintime.org/as-you-like-it

Things We Missed, from Princeton University Players

The group moved its annual all-freshman cabaret online, with newcomers performing Broadway favorites and riffing on the pandemic. T.J. Rickey ’24 sings “Empty Chairs at Empty Tables” (Les Miserables) as a melancholy high school class president trying to muster enthusiasm for his virtual commencement speech. 

bit.ly/things-we-missed