Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater & Music Theater
at the very bottom of a body of water
by Benjamin Benne
Run Time
Approximately 110 minutes, no intermission.
Program Notes
Time and place: The present. Hacienda Heights, California.
“If each day falls
inside each night
there exists a well
where clarity is imprisoned.
We need to sit on the rim
of the well of darkness
and fish for fallen light
with patience.”
– Pablo Neruda (tr. William O’Daly), The Sea and The Bells
Content Advisory
This play contains adult language and themes and deals with topics of grief and loss. Theatrical haze will be used during performances.
Special Notes
Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones and watches, and refrain from text messaging for the duration of the performance.
Accessibility
The Wallace Theater is an accessible venue with an assistive listening system. The performance on Friday, October 3, will feature open/live captioning (CART). Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information about our various locations.
Cast
Marina: Rubi Larancuent ’27*
Rosa Luz/Lulu: Olivia Gonzalez ’28
Hiroshi: Nick Pham GS
Yoko: Tomoka Ohmori ’27
Production Team
Director: Elena Milliken ’26*
Set Designer: Annalise Schuck ’26*
Costume Designer: Keating Debelak
Lighting Designer: Emily Yang ’26*
Sound Designer: Grace Wang ’26*
Stage Manager: Louise Sanches Barbosa ’27*
Assistant Stage Manager: Isabella Bustos ’27*
Assistant Stage Manager: Pixley Marquardt ’27*
Run Crew: Amanda Ho ’29, Lily Raphael ’28
Costume Stitchers: Charlotte Young ’27, Naomi Gage ’29, Tara Moriarty
*denotes a student minoring in the Program in Theater & Music Theater
Faculty Advisors
Tess James, Faculty Advisor
Chesney Snow, Co-Producer
A Note from the Project Proposer
Last July, I visited Hacienda Heights on my last weekend in Los Angeles. It was a quiet afternoon. The shopping mall signs rose up in Mandarin, Japanese, Spanish, and English, blanketed by a blue summer sky. I lit incense at the monastery and even went to an open house or two in the name of “research.” It reminded me of something my summer internship supervisor said about a home she’d lived in over the years in L.A. She’d called it “a version of what America could be”—where neighbors from different cultures and languages could share part of the lives they lived in parallel with each other.
I chose this play because I wanted to center a diversity of perspectives on stage—at the very bottom of a body of water, which directly calls for both Latine and Asian voices, was immensely exciting to me. I also wanted to explore theatrical design for a contemporary play. Benjamin Benne writes characters who are full of life, joy, and exuberant laughter—and full of loneliness, dwindling dreams, and grief with nowhere to go. When his characters’ interior thoughts and emotions grow too large to be contained within themselves, they begin to manifest in the physical world around them—in the theater, this is the world of design. This is a play that is both wonderfully magical and wonderfully rooted in characters and circumstances that feel real.
At the beginning of this process, I described at the very bottom of a body of water as a play about “wishes, fishes, ghosts, and soup.” Of course, these are all still a part of the show you’re about to see. But over the course of the last few months (under the leadership of Elena Milliken, our incredible director), it has crystallized into a story centered around connection—and how we can move through our personal circles of grief, together.
A thousand “thank you’s” ensue. Thank you to Elena, whose combination of design sensitivities and infectious competency is so unique; watching you direct such a generative and fun rehearsal room has been awesome. You get it. You’ve been a grounding force in this production; I’m so glad that you’re directing another show in our time at Princeton, and I’m so grateful that it’s this one. Thank you to the amazing cast of Rubi, Nick, Tomoka, and Olivia, who dove into rehearsals at the beginning of the semester and have dedicated so much time to bringing their characters to life with such care, attention, and openness to discovery. Thank you to our outstanding team of designers—Grace, Annalise, and Keating—whose creativity, collaboration, and generosity as designers and as people astounds and inspires me. Thank you to our stars of a stage management team—Louise, Isabella, and Pixley—for your expert navigation of all the cues, transitions, and information throughout tech and rehearsals. You are the pillars of communication that this production rests on, and I’m so impressed and thankful for the humor, kindness, and skill you bring to everything you do. To Amanda and Lily, thank you so much for jumping into this process during tech week as part of run crew; we wouldn’t be able to run this show without you! To Allie, whose props tell the story so well and bring so much joy to the room: thank you for your wisdom in van trips over the years. To Giao, whose friendship I treasure dearly: thank you for coming back to contribute your artistic talents to the beautiful background of the poster. Special thanks to Althea Aguel for recording and producing the curtain call music. (For more music, find her on Spotify and Instagram!) To all: Thank you for taking a chance on this project, and thank you for making this show your own. I am so lucky to work with each of you, and I’m so excited about the world we get to make together onstage. I can’t wait to see what you do next!
Thank you to the staff at the Lewis Center for the logistical, technical, production, and publicity support (and the multitudes of 3D printed catfish) that made this production possible—thank you to Chesney Snow, co-producer of shows in the Wallace Theater, for setting up a Zoom call with our team and playwright Benjamin Benne! To Tess James, my lighting advisor, and Matt Pilsner, the lighting and stage supervisor at the LCA: I can’t thank you enough for your patience and your steadfast support throughout the years, on this project and all the ones leading up to it. Tess, thank you for being an anchor at times when I’ve felt adrift; sometimes I feel like you believe in me more than I believe in me! Matt, thank you for your patience with my lighting ideas and for the original flock of origami gel cranes. Carmelita, Milan, Chloë, and Mary-Sue, thank you for the advice, care, and LCA Production Office candy—you have been pillars of my time in the Program in Theater. And thank you to Remy Garcia-Kakebeen, Tiffany Rawlston, and the many people who have folded origami cranes for this project. We’re on our way to one wish.
Thank you to the world of student theater here at Princeton. From folks I met as a freshman to people I’ve met in just the past semester, each of you has touched my life and my art. I am so proud of how much we’ve grown, and so thankful for the art we got to make together along the way. Thank you to my family, who are my foundation and a constant source of strength in my life; and thank you to my friends and teachers across the years, who are all surprised that I ended up doing so much theater in college.
Finally, thank YOU for being here at the show! I hope that it reminds you that your dreams are still in reach (or are worth naming, even if they’re impossible), and that it encourages you to reach out to the people in your life. Call someone you love but haven’t talked to in a long time. Offer what you can give—a tomato plant, catfish sushi, or something else entirely. As it turns out, fears are easier to face when you know you’re not the only one facing them. May you keep tending to the garden of your relationships—there’s a lot of love in its leaves.
And, of course, I hope you enjoy the show! Welcome to at the very bottom of a body of water.
— Emily Yang
Project Proposer & Lighting Designer
A Note from the Director
When Emily brought this play to me in April, I was immediately drawn to the language of the piece. While the dialogue felt vivid and powerful, it was actually playwright Benjamin Benne’s stage directions that excited me most as a director. Most stage directions resemble a map—a chair is placed here; an actor enters here. Instead, Benne had “elegant discomfort” and “moments of transcendence.” They were a puzzle and a challenge I knew I wanted to be a part of solving.
Working to discover the depths of this story for the last five months has been an honor. In rehearsal, I present question after question and get to watch it untangle in the performances. Each cast member lends their voice and experience to the role. I relish their zeal for discovery every time I ask them to pretend to be sea animals or lie on the floor to find their true laugh and they take my request seriously and approach it openly. I am grateful for their persistence when I ask them to chunk out a monologue or learn to fold cranes and they sit with me and work diligently. I get excited every time I see them perform.
Something must’ve been in the water (get it) at the Lewis Center in May because we lucked into an absolute all-star team. I’ve worked with every member of the design team before, and we just seemed to instinctively understand how the others worked. Something immediately clicked this time and our endless worldbuilding conversations flowed. From diligent space planning and touching soundscapes to lucid costume changes and striking visual compositions, design holds this production tightly and guides the story forward.
The backbone of this, and every, production is the stage management team. Ours brought levity (and timeliness) to each rehearsal and ensured every member of the production felt supported and prepared. They cultivated the culture for the most fun I’ve ever had in a paper tech meeting, playing with the catfish, eating sour patch kids, and scheming.
None of this could even begin to happen without the endless support of the faculty and staff in the theater program. I can be a bit persistent (pushy), and the staff were dedicated to making our vision become a reality, even when I requested 15 3D-printed catfish and faux yet edible sushi and a different orientation to the curtains and even more string lights. They give all of us little nuggets of knowledge (both about theater and life) on every van trip, costume pulling session, focus, paper tech, and shop stop. My education in theater here would be entirely incomplete without the infinite wisdom and incredible artistry of the program staff.
To Emily Yang, my fearless partner on this project: I’m consistently awed by the dedication, care, and heart you bring to everything you work on. Your lighting instincts are truly wonderful, but it is your thoughtful leadership, your considerate community-building, your patience, and your earnest drive to create something wonderful that has been my beacon throughout this whole production. Thank you.
— Elena Milliken
Director
Land Acknowledgement
An estimated 10 million Native Americans lived in North America before the arrival of European colonizers. Many thousands lived in Lenapehoking, the vast homeland of the Lenni-Lenape, who were the first inhabitants of what is now called eastern Pennsylvania and parts of New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware.
Princeton stands on part of the ancient homeland and traditional territory of the Lenape people. In 1756, the College of New Jersey erected Nassau Hall with no recorded consultation with the Lenni-Lenape peoples.
Treaties and forced relocation dispersed Lenape-Delaware to Ohio, Kansas, and Oklahoma. We acknowledge the violence of settler colonialism and pay respect to Lenape peoples past, present, and future and their continuing presence in the homeland and throughout the Lenape diaspora.
For more information about ways you can engage with and support the Indigenous community on campus please visit the website of Native American and Indigenous Studies (NAI) at Princeton University, Natives at Princeton and Princeton Indigenous Advocacy Coalition.
Lewis Center for the Arts
Acting Chair: Stacy Wolf
Executive Director: Marion Friedman Young
Director of Program in Theater and Music Theater: Jane Cox
View a list of Program in Theater & Music Theater faculty & guest artists
For a look at all the people working behind the scenes to bring you this event, view a list of LCA staff members.
The programs of the Peter B. Lewis Center for the Arts are made possible through the generous support of many alumni and other donors. View a list of LCA Supporters
