By Merle H. Klemm ’25
Staff Writer
Earlier this spring at Lake Forest College, not only did the flowers return to life, but so did live performances from the theater department! On the nights of April 7, 8, and 9, the theater department presented a refreshing program of comedy, improv skits, and music—finally back on stage in Hixon Hall.
“I think this was just a ‘We’re back, baby!’ type of show, a celebration that we’re back on stage, we are back to our ‘normal’ routine, not even COVID-19 can take that away from us. It was nice, a celebratory performance,” Bernachaly Santiago ’23 said.
Santiago, a cast member and junior at the college, smiled as she recalled the three nights in which Lake Forest College’s theater department made its return to live performance.
Totally Tolerable, a play collaboratively written by the cast, was the first in-person show the department had been able to put on stage ever since the start of the pandemic two years ago. With about two and a half hours of comedy, improv-skits, and music, the cast and audience both eased one step further into the presumed new normality.
Alex Weber ’23, also a junior at the College and a member of the cast, describes the experience of being back on stage as buzzing with motivation: “After the pandemic we are all just way more excited and the energy is just…we have so much more energy and we are all working together better.”
Director David Knoell and Stage Manager Maja Gavrilovic put out an open casting call, welcoming any member of the community to be part of the play and not requiring previous theater experience. Auditions as well as first rehearsals of Totally Tolerable took place on Zoom. Santiago and Weber both expressed relief when the production shifted back to in-person.
The comedic format of the show, consisting of short sketches, however, was a left-over of Zoom times, in which forming connections and working as a team without physical proximity was made possible through collaborative projects such as storytelling, Weber explained.
After shifting from Zoom to in-person, the cast decided to stick with the format and put together a show in which everyone’s ideas had a place.
“Written basically by us as cast members, our director just really helped us pitch in more ideas into our scenes, he guided us,” Santiago said, “What was so great about this process was that it was so freeing [that] you could just express yourself without being judged. I feel like this was the one show during this semester where you could bring in whatever you wanted.”
Santiago, a passionate member of the theater department, not only worked on the creation of the play but was also part of the tech team who built the set and organized several other technical tasks around the stage.
The set itself was designed by Bob Knuth, technical director of the theater department. Inspired by comedy sets of The Second City, a comedy and improv theater in Chicago, it complemented the needs of improvisational sketches, with its surprise windows and moving frames, Santiago elaborates.
A small team of students brought Knuth’s plans for the set to life. For some, that meant over 10 hours weekly spent on the production of the play. Rehearsals were scheduled for three days per week, one of those being an optional session.
Despite (or maybe because of) that long, but apparently worthwhile, time commitment, both Weber and Santiago passionately recommend that everyone participate in productions. In Santiago’s words: “We love people, we want you to feel welcome, we want you to express yourself, and we want you to be involved!”
