Flamingo flaps to festival
Student-written production receives invitation to play

Lucia Suarez |staff writer

Students act out the epically epic play. Photo courtesy of Michelle Merola

Following its Nov. 17 production of The Summoning of the Flamingo of Love: A Epically Epic Original Comic Masterpiece, the St. Michael's College student cast and crew were invited to partake in the Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (ACTF) regional event on Jan. 28.

Flamingo, a student-written, student-produced production written by senior Jonathan Anderson and two of his friends, is staged to open the week-long festival in Fitchburg, Mass.

“It’s awesome [to be invited]. I am so stoked,” Anderson says, “It’s really cool just to be one of the shows.”

The Summoning of the Flamingo of Love presents four men in black tights and turtlenecks that change to leather pants, masks, drag and many more costumes, to play over 30 off-the-wall characters, including talking animals, wicked villains, and even trees with some rapping flavor.

“The show is a marathon,” Anderson says. “Backstage we run from one place to another, from one costume to another.”

Co-written by Jonathan Anderson with his two best friends Michael Perlman and Nisse Greenberg and directed by senior Victoria Townsend, Flamingo is performed by junior Andrew Parise, sophomore Jonathan Drummey and first-year Peter Hudson.

Where's the flamingo of love? Photo courtesy of Michelle Merola

Creating the epically epic play

Anderson and his friends began writing the play during his senior year of high school for an open mic night in his hometown of Bar Harbor, Maine.

“We wanted to write the worst and dumbest skit, and to get booted off the stage,” Anderson says. “We asked ourselves how we can make this the dumbest thing ever.”

Despite what Anderson originally thought might happen, the audience loved it, he says.

“Out come four guys in black tights and turtlenecks; the jokes were crude and out there, but they loved it,” Anderson says.

After the successful trial at the open mic night, the writers added a couple more minutes to the 10-minute skit, and presented it to their high school.

“The students loved it, but some parents were not so happy about some of the topics,” Anderson says.

After the experience at their high school, the writers continued to work on the skit, taking it from a 12-minute skip to an 85-minute play, adding more crazy characters but toning down the crudeness of the jokes, he says.

Anderson says that they wrote a more innocent, naive-like tone using ideas from their childhoods, like Michael’s Mosquito Man persona, to create the different characters of the play.

“The jokes are still there, but the innocence of how they are said creates the humor,” Anderson says.

“One of the guys, the one that did not really do much of the writing, had suggested that some substances should have been used,” Anderson says, “but we wanted to do a good job at writing the stupidest play ever.”

Behind the scenes

The costumes keep on coming. Photo courtesy of Michelle Merola

The St. Michael's College Theater Department offered Anderson a slot in the fall semester’s schedule, giving him the reins to assemble his own production team.

Associate professor Cathy Hurst had the opportunity to be the faculty adviser to Anderson and his production crew, alongside John Devlin, assistant professor of theater, helping them when possible, but allowing the show to be a student-run affair.

Townsend and Anderson held open auditions for the four men in black tights and turtlenecks, and Anderson says that it was a total coincidence that that each cast member represented each graduating class.

When Anderson first arrived to St. Michael’s College, Hurst had the opportunity of reading the play various times before it appeared on the St. Michael's College Mainstage.

“Jon Anderson is very talented. He is a hilarious comedian, a gifted playwright and an insightful director,” Hurst says, “and he always impresses me with his ability to create surprising and memorable moments on stage.”

Hurst mentions that as the adviser she attended rehearsals, giving notes and advice to Anderson and director Victoria Townsend.

“Most of my notes were vocal notes – how to maintain the fast pace of the comedy without losing vocal clarity,” Hurst says, “the staging was all created by Victoria and the cast, and I felt that it suited the action perfectly.”

The Theater Department is very proud of Anderson and his production crew and will travel to Massachusetts in January to continue to give the cast and crew of Flamingo their support, Hurst says.

To get ready for the festival, Anderson and his co-writers need to revise the play into an hour-long production and rehearsals will resume in January to ensure that the new format has a fluid progression.

The festival

“I had entered the play for the festival at the beginning of the year. It was something I wanted to do,” Anderson says. “So we knew they were coming to adjudicate.”

The ACTF is a national theater program involving 18,000 students from colleges and universities nationwide that began in 1969 as a way to improve the quality of college theatre nationwide.

Region I Chair Kelly Morgan invited the production of Flamingo of Love to the event being held at Fitchburg State College in January 2008.

“It is not a traditional invitation as we are not competing,” Anderson says. “We are there to entertain the students.”

The Region ACTF is two months away and Jon Anderson and his friends have begun the revisions to cut down Flamingo from an 85-minute play to an hour-long production.

“My friends and I got together during Thanksgiving break and started to discuss the revisions,” Anderson says. “We already cut the dance scene that is not crucial to the plot.”

Once the revisions are made, the rehearsals are all done and the men in black tights and turtlenecks present the epically epic student-run masterpiece, Jon Anderson and his friends will set aside they play and begin to write another one.

Whether it will have the success of Flamingo, with its crude yet innocent humor, Anderson does not know.

“It was an accident that people liked it,” Anderson says. “I am not sure if we will be able to recreate the accident.”