October 7, 2022
Thanks to a joint effort by Texas Performing Arts (TPA) and UT Theatre and Dance faculty, TPA welcomed students in Madge Darlington's undergraduate Performance as Public Practice course to the Bass Concert Hall to witness the Broadway Across America Tour of Hadestown.
Students, most of whom are in their first year at The University of Texas at Austin, were dazzled by the striking choreography, musical performances and design elements throughout the show's week of performances. Following their attendance, Hadestown dramaturg Ken Cerniglia and associate choreographer KatieRose McLaughlin visited Darlington's class, sparking thoughtful conversations on the development process for Broadway-bound works and the dynamic elements that are utilized to tell a story on this scale.
At the beginning of the fall semester, assistant professor of instruction Madge Darlington saw the potential impact that attending Hadestown would have on her first-year students and went to work coordinating the opportunity. She connected with Tim Rogers, Director of Education and Engagement at Texas Performing Arts, to discuss the possibility of securing tickets for her 100 students. Rogers recruited help from TPA's ticket office, who worked with Broadway Across America to set aside 100 seats throughout the run of Hadestown.
"The next step came with actually buying the tickets," shared Rogers. "Very quickly after talking to Madge, I thought that this is the exact type of experience we want students to have, and that the donors to our Texas Performing Arts Student Ticket Fund, many of whom are Broadway subscribers, would agree. Bob [Bursey] also agreed, so we figured out with our partners in Broadway Across America how to then process those so the tickets would be available and the experience would be as seamless as possible for the students."
Simultaneously, Darlington spoke with faculty in the Department of Theatre and Dance to garner further support for ticket purchases. With The Cohen New Works Festival on the horizon, she reasoned that seeing a fully-fledged production that started as a devised work would be influential for the artists and scholars taking her course. Seeing the value in this opportunity, interim-chair Megan Alrutz contributed chair funds, Charlotte Canning shared funds from her Erwin professorship and Rusty Cloyes and Christin Davis chipped in with funds from Undergraduate Studies.
Darlington and Rogers' combined efforts were a success, paving a way for students to experience the wonder of a Broadway production and participate in conversations around its themes, development and theatrical spectacle. "Many had never seen a Broadway tour and were impressed by the quality and scale of the production, " Darlington shared when reflecting on the opportunity. "We had productive discussions in class on a variety of topics concerning how the show was collaboratively developed, what parts of the Greek myth (the source material) the adaptation chose to emphasize and how the production design enhanced the telling of the story. I am sure having seen this production will influence these students' studies and work in performance for years to come."
For his part, Rogers noted that, "At Texas Performing Arts, we also consider our work to be educational and our spaces to be classrooms for the students at UT. To be able to offer all of our incoming Theatre and Dance students the opportunity to see anything in our spaces, let alone a show as amazing as Hadestown, is incredibly gratifying, and we are continually happy and excited to have partners across the College of Fine Arts and in the Department of Theatre and Dance to make these transformative experiences come to life."
Photos provided by Tim Rogers and Madge Darlington.