Presented by the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater.
Play
Directed by Aaron Landsman
Co-directed by Ogemdi Ude ’16
Run Time
Approximately 50 minutes, with no intermission.
Content Warning
Sensory warning: sudden loud noise (repeated loud whistle)
Special Notes
Please silence all electronic devices including cellular phones and watches, and refrain from text messaging for the duration of the performance. No video/audio recording, photography or flash photography permitted.
Scenes
- “First Day Flow State Response,” written and performed by Grace Wang
- “Flow States Colliding,” written by Grace Wang, performed by Tate Keuler and Violet Prete
- “Flow State Campus Map,” created and performed by the ensemble
- “Tigers, We Came to Win,” created and performed by the ensemble
- “Coach, Part 1,” written and performed by Frank Maranje
- “Who!” created and performed by the ensemble
- “Water Polo” written by Nick Hovsmith, performed by Zach Lopez
- “Superstitions,” written and performed by Sydney Hwang and the ensemble
- “Two Athletes, Two Interviews” created and performed by Eman Atta Maan and Tate Keuler
- “Lacrosse on Sundays,” written by Nathalie Charles, performed by Mutemwa Masheke, Sam Haviland and James Kontulis
- “Coach, Part 2,” written and performed by Frank Maranje
- “Advice,” created and performed by Sydney Hwang and Bethany Villaruz
- “Dialogue Three,” written by Grace Wang, performed by Sam Haviland and Zach Lopez
- “Sideways Run/One More Point,” written by Zach Lopez, performed by the ensemble
- “Oh Yeah,” created and performed by the ensemble
- “Response to Glory Vs. Education,” written by Grace Wang, performed by Zach Lopez and Violet Prete
- “Coach, Part 3,” written and performed by Frank Maranje
Cast
Nick Hovsmith ’23
Zachary Lopez ’23
Frank Maranje ’23
Mutemwa Masheke ’23
Sydney Hwang ’24*
Eman Atta Maan ’24
Violet Prete ’24*
Bethany Villaruz ’24*
Nathalie Charles ’25
James Kontulis ’25
Samantha Haviland ’26
Tate Keuler ’26
Grace Wang ’26
Production Team
Director: Aaron Landsman
Co-Director/Choreographer: Ogemdi Ude
Set Designer: Aliha Mughal ’23*
Costume Designer: Kyuree Shin ’23, Keating Helfrich
Lighting Designer: Wasif Sami ’25
Sound Designer: Tei Blow
Projection Designer: Matt Pilsner
Stage Manager: Vera Fei ’26
Sound Engineer: Neil Jernigan
Assistant Stage Manager: Le’Naya Wilkerson ’25
Run Crew: Jeffery Chen ’25*, Tanéyah Jolly ’24
*denotes a certificate student in the Program in Theater or Music Theater
Faculty Advisors
Elena Araoz, Advisor
Tess James, Production/Design Mentor
Aaron Landsman, Advisor
Director’s Note
What you are seeing is the result of 10 weeks of dialogue and collaboration among a diverse and intrepid group of students — from all four years, from many majors and from many places in the world. Our process emerged out of a series of questions Aaron had from encountering several student athletes in his courses last year: what would an ensemble theater project created in collaboration with varsity team members look like? How is the choreography of a game applicable to dance? What do we give up to excel, compete and endure? What is common to both the practice of theater and the practice of playing a sport?
We think of art-making as research. Ensemble members defined their own points of departure and areas of interest, participated sometimes as performers, sometimes as writers or dramaturgs or directors, sometimes as all of the above. We asked them to interview peers and friends, to think and feel their ways through the many meanings and mentalities of performing and competition. We broke apart the choreography of the final point and the training regimen. We made lists of superstitions. We gathered our favorite flow-state songs and mapped what athletes sometimes give up to succeed.
Ultimately, we made a “devised and beautiful clusterfuck” of a piece (as lovingly described in a text from Ogemdi). Thank you for being in it.
Thank you to the Lewis Center for the Arts Program in Theater for hosting this process. Thank you to Elena Araoz for believing in Play before we knew much about it except the questions. Thank you Luke Aschenbrand, ’22 for giving us the inspirational text about flow state. Thank you Jane Cox and Brian Herrera for helming a program that puts real life and thorny questions onstage with great grace and integrity. Thank you Carmelita Becnel, Chloe Brown, Tess James and the production staff for patient mentorship and good humor. Thank you to Tei and Neal for rolling with the sounds as they emerged. Thank you to Joe Fonseca, Steve Runk, Jaclyn Sweet and the entire administrative and communications staff for clarity and generosity always. Thank you to Vera and Le’Naya for diving in deep with this piece. Thanks especially to this lovely, committed, playful and wise ensemble for their epic investment in our shared work.
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, see the websites of the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative at Princeton (NAISIP), Natives at Princeton and Princeton Indigenous Advocacy Coalition.
Lewis Center for the Arts
Chair: Judith Hamera
Executive Director: Marion Friedman Young
Interim Director of Program in Theater: Brian Herrera
Producing Artistic Director, Theater And Music Theater Season: Elena Araoz
View a full list of the Program in Theater Faculty & Guest Artists
For a look at all the people working behind the scenes to bring you this event, view a full 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 full list of LCA Supporters »
