Washington and Lee’s theater department will break from tradition to stage a play instead of a musical this April.
The Robert O. and Elizabeth M. Bentley Endowment for the Performing Arts was established in 2004 as a gift from Elizabeth Bentley to allow Washington and Lee to present a major musical or operatic production, according to the school’s website.
The endowment is traditionally used to produce three musicals from the theater department and one opera from the music department in a four-year cycle, a decision that was agreed upon by the departments.
But this year, the department is using the Bentley Endowment for a play instead of a musical. The winter term production, “The Play That Goes Wrong,” features a story about a community theater group whose show falls apart throughout the production.
The Bentley Endowment has been used to stage 20 performances, including popular Broadway musicals “Legally Blonde” and “Chicago,” the opera “Dido and Aeneas,” and the operetta “Pirates of Penzance,” according to the school’s website. “The Play That Goes Wrong” will be the first play to take the stage using the Bentley endowment.
The department chose to put on a play instead of a musical this year to give students exposure to styles of drama that they don’t often get to experience, said Owen Collins, a theater professor and the head of the music department.
“The sheer range of dramatic literature in the world makes it difficult to cover everything with only one play slot each year,” Collins said. “Using funds from the Bentley Endowment will allow students this year to gain experience in comedy and physical performance.”
For the past 20 years, the Bentley Endowment has helped Washington and Lee’s Department of Theater, Dance and Film Studies stage productions that would not be possible with department funding, according to the website.
The department typically relies on Bentley funding for musicals because of their high cost, said Jemma Levy, associate professor of acting and directing. Licensing fees for musicals are often three or four times more expensive than plays, Levy said.
“Musicals are just ridiculously expensive to produce,” she said. “We need to hire an entire orchestra or an entire band. We need to build a set that is more complex and therefore requires more labor and more materials than what we have. So that’s what the Bentley allows us to do.”
Despite “The Play That Goes Wrong” not being a musical, Levy explained that the play still requires technical coordination that justifies Bentley funding.
“It’s a much more complicated sort of technical production,” she said. “The show features choreographed mishaps, ranging from set malfunctions to actor-related gaffes that have to be both safe and perfectly timed.”
While musicals often help accommodate larger casts and draw more student interest, the theater department wanted to prioritize educational variety this year, Levy said.
“It’s hard to do everything, from Greek classics to modern drama to farce and comedy, with only one play a year,” she said.
The shift to a Bentley-funded play is temporary, and the theater department plans to continue to put on musicals for upcoming productions, Collins said. Still, the change reflects the department’s ongoing effort to shape a well-rounded program, he said.
“Production is a great opportunity to experience theater instead of just talking about it,” Collins said. “It’s always really fun and engaging to get students to work on how to interpret a play rather than just read it.”
