VAPA presents ‘The Glass Menagerie’ at Spyker Theater Thursday through Sunday

Posted on September 19, 2021

ULM students rehearse for “The Glass Menagerie”, which will be presented September 23-26 at the Spyker Theater. The actors are, standing, from left to right, Cherie Mialaret, Abigail Hawthorn and Callan Saldutto; and seated, clockwise from center, Abigail McClung, Kade Matkins, Gabe Wright and Rebekah Johnson. Photo VAPA

‘The Glass Menagerie’ is the first play in eight years

Live theater returns to the University of Louisiana Monroe with the Tennessee Williams classic, “The Glass Menagerie,” presented by the School of Visual and Performing Arts at the College of Arts, Education and Sciences.

The performance dates are Thursday, Friday and Saturday September 23-25 ​​at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday September 26 at 2:00 p.m. All performances take place at the Spyker Theater.

Admission is free for ULM students with ID, general admission is $ 5, and tickets are available on Eventbrite.com.

The play is directed by Mark Ross Clark, DMA, professor of music and theater. Clark said it was the first piece presented by VAPA in eight years.

“For this occasion, we chose one of the classic pieces of the 20th century, a play that has been covered five times on Broadway, ‘The Glass Menagerie’ by Tennessee Williams. We held auditions on the evenings of the first two days. class, August 15 and 16. It is a tribute to the dedication and talent of our select student comedians who, in five weeks, rehearsed and memorized this substantial 116-page play.

Cast, team and staff

The performance is twofold, with the exception of the role of Tom, played in all shows by Kade Matkins of Monroe, a computer junior.

Thursday and Saturday casting

Amanda – Abigail McClung de Monroe, second year communications student

Laura – Rebekah Johnson of Livingston, second year pre-pharmacy student

Jim the “Gentleman Caller” – Callan Saldutto from Canada, second year accounting student

Friday and Sunday casting

Amanda – Cherie Mialaret from Mandeville, a PR junior

Laura – Abigail Hawthorne de Monroe, second year presocial work student

Jim – Gabe Wright of Kansas City, Mo., senior in pre-professional health studies.

Student production staff include director Sarah Johnson, a freshman at CAES, and stage crew Jonathan Hannon, Brittany Penn and Allison Newton.

The production staff at ULM is made up of Technical Director Steven Burnside, Costume Designer Margaret Hall and Producer Derle Long, Director of VAPA.

Setting

The music reflects the sounds of the post-war years of the late 1940s. Recordings by Glenn Miller, Duke Ellington, Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and others define the atmosphere of family living in a one bedroom apartment in downtown St. Louis, Missouri.

Amanda, the mother, continues to relive her old southern past; his daughter Laura is physically and emotionally damaged, with a collection of glass figurines; and Tom, the son, is the narrator and brings home an old friend, Jim, as a blind date for Laura, who is still struck by the memories of him.

All of the scenes are snapshots of Tom’s own memories of what happened around that time in his family. It’s called “a memory game,” woven together from recordings of great swing music sounds of the time, Clark said.