Summer stage beckons for CSC theatre students
Shakespeare’s famous maxim ‘All the world’s a stage’ seems to ring true for three of the students in the theatre program at Chadron State College who have managed to land summer jobs that put the skills learned in their academic courses to use.
Jada Fisk of Rapid City, South Dakota, a 2015 graduate with a major in theatre, will spend the summer traveling the Midwest with the Dakota Players’ production of “You Look Marvelous” by C.G. Miller. Fisk will play the Suzerain, the main character in the retelling of a Hans Christian Anderson fable about the pitfalls of vanity and greed.
An outreach of the well-known Black Hills Playhouse in South Dakota’s Custer State Park, the Sioux Falls, South Dakota-based Dakota Players provides live theater performances for children in rural communities in South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.
Fisk said her work will involve traveling to a different location each week, and the role demands “a lot of costumes and singing.”
As a comprehensive theatre major at CSC, Fisk said she was involved with all aspects of play production, from acting to set construction.
“I never did theatre in high school, so everything I know is from my college experience and I am so grateful for that,” she said. “Roger Mays (theatre professor) and Scott Cavin (assistant theatre professor) at Chadron State have helped me immensely for the past three years.”
Jessica Steffen-Schepers of Sturgis, South Dakota, will be working this summer at the Post Playhouse at Fort Robinson State Park in Crawford. The popular summer repertory theater will present five different musicals between June and mid-August. Steffen-Schepers’ work-study position for the CSC theatre department the past semester, which included set construction and work with lights and wiring, has helped prepare her for the summer front-of-house job.
“CSC offers a unique theatre program, in that actors often have the chance to work in the shop for a semester and therefore have a more rounded knowledge of both sides of the stage,” she said. “Scott Cavin introduced me to the idea of working at the Post Playhouse and helped me create a theatre resume.”
Steffen-Schepers plans to graduate in 2017 with a comprehensive theatre major.
Derek Phelps of Sidney, a student in theatre education and theatre performance at CSC, will also be at the Post Playhouse this summer. Phelps has roles in the productions of “Grease,” “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” and “A Man of No Importance,” as well as jobs with the box office staff and as a technician. At CSC, Phelps performed as Huck Finn in “Big River” and Richard Hannay in “The 39 Steps,” among other roles.
—George Ledbetter
Category: Campus News, Theatre