This year, the Department of Theatre, Film and Media Arts has seen tremendous accomplishments from its Graduate student body. In performance, the second year MFA actor’s solo festival Odyssey of the Soul reflected a wide range of deeply personal topics–from queer coming-of-age and struggles with addiction (Quiroz), the emotional effects of imposed language and the war in Ukraine (Steshenko), and Native Alaskan identity and modernity (Lewis), to dementia (Smith), heartbreak (Carr), the Rapture (Bennett) and divine femininity (McCarren).
However, of particular note was the work of trans artist and second year Acting MFA Francis Miller. At a time when the trans body occupies a fraught space in the media, public eye, and political sphere, Miller puts their own queer trans body on the line and into the crossfire of the binaried logics of the (US) system at large in their solo performance, Body of the State. Miller masterfully places the audience in a purposeful in-between state of complicity and empathy, requiring each audience member to fill out a ballot before the performance begins that forces choices to be made on behalf of the performer’s body. “Boy” or “Girl” the ballot demands under the “Make me choose” category; “Make me suffer” it demands as it asks for “Input” or “Output”; “Make me sing” haunts, as do “Make me move” and “Make me speak.” Beginning and ending their performance with direct eye contact, a firm handshake (or hug in some cases), and the phrase “Thank you for this opportunity” to each and every audience member, Miller causes the audience to question their role in the performance that has been created in spite of the hostile institutional systems that deny the trans body the gender-affirming care it deserves. Shirtless, chest scars proudly, vulnerably, on display, Miller stages a different iteration of this journey every night they perform.
Photo credit, Amy Pham
“I created Body of the State to express the frustration and fear I was experiencing as I pursued gender-affirming care,” states Miller. This powerful piece of theater is a testament to Miller’s artistry and activism, reminding audiences once more (with feeling) that the personal is political.
Graduate students have been working on multiple DEIJ-related initiatives this year. Fueled by the concerns of many students in the MFA Acting cohort, the Graduate Student Syndicate has been actively working to add pronouns next to names in the programs for department productions. This seemingly simple addition has proven difficult to accommodate, but has ultimately been adopted as official department policy thanks in large part to the insistence, persistence, and leadership of graduate students. Francis Miller also pushed to make changes on auditions forms and advocated for trans student actors to choose which dressing room they prefer to use during productions.
Moreover, the efforts of this year’s Syndicate President, third-year PhD student Megg Mullarkey, who spearheaded and curated the newly-instated Black Box Series (BBS) to workshop and develop new student work, deserve praise. The culmination of the BBS was a performance of Mountain, a piece written by Francis Miller and led by Mullarkey. Not only did this production have one of the most diverse undergraduate casts seen this academic year, the performance stressed the importance of student creativity, opportunity, and collaboration across academic levels and specializations.
Having sacrificed time, energy and her own money to bring this
massive collaborative effort to fruition, Mullarkey’s dedication to creating opportunities for diverse student theater should not only be commended by her fellow students but also by the department, which actively recruits students, undergraduate and graduate, with student-led initiatives like the BBS. Mullarkey will continue leading the BBS next year in the newly-minted GTA position of Black Box Series Coordinator.
Performance is not the only area where students deserve recognition. First year MA student Victoria Smith presented their work on disability and monster theory in Webber’s Phantom Duology at the Music Theater and Dance Association’s (MTDA) Winter Symposium. The Earth Matters On Stage (EMOS) Symposium, an association of artists, scholars, and activists dedicated to ecological responsibility within the performing arts, will be hosted by the Department of Theater, Film and Media Arts next year thanks to the work and organization of MFA actor Paitton Lewis and second year PhD student Josh Lewis. Third year PhD Candidate Brian Rocha recently published an article in the New England Theatre Journal titled “Dancing with the Past: (re)Performing Saudade in O Balé Folclórico da Bahia’s Herança Sagrada” that examines how saudade, a form of nostalgia, contends with both reclamation and commercialization of ancestral “authenticity” in Afro-Brazilian folkloric dance. Gabriela Trigo-McIntyre, also a third year PhD Candidate, has two chapters pending publication. One explores the decolonial possibilities for Shakespeare’s absent-yet-racialized witch, Sycorax; the other examines the intersection of performance, technology, and (marginalized) Black history in the documentary Summer of Soul. Trigo-McIntyre was also awarded the Graduate Associate Teaching Award (GATA) this year.