Sergio Bardesi-Texocotitla
A&E and Chive Editor
“The show was ready to be put up. The actors were dedicating their time. [David Knoell] was directing it, he was also making set…,” Bernachaly Santiago, a third-year psychology and theater double major at Lake Forest College, said. At that point, only the technical rehearsals remained.
Yet, the following week in March 2020, the entire cast and crew found out that the show was completely canceled because the pandemic had begun. Over the past two years, Lake Forest College’s theater department faced (and continues facing) a difficult challenge that led to many disappointments and, yet, points of pride.
Benjamin Tengowski ’22, a fourth-year music major with a double minor in theater and cinematic studies, said, “With how [the department] reacted to COVID, I think people are grateful and accepting… but, it’s not what people really want.” He recognized that students and faculty may feel upset for having to wear masks but, “[the department has] no control over it… we are still in a pandemic.”
“The theater department’s been put between a rock and a hard place,” Tengowski said.
The department prepared for the academic year of 2020 through 2021. Chair of the Theater and Associate Professor of English and Theater Richard Pettengill said, “Our weekly Forester Fridays Live show had students on campus and as far away as Houston, Nepal, and Istanbul doing everything from scripted plays to improv sketch comedy to music and dance performance, etc.” These performances included student-written shows as well as staff and faculty performances.
David Knoell had left, but Knoell returned for Forester Fridays.
When asked about her experiences during that year, English major on the writing track with a philosophy minor Kyleigh Halfenger ’22 compared theater and improv, stating: “Improv weirdly works pretty well online. I’m sure people will disagree. But, I think it works pretty well.”
Halfenger recalled two connected improv episodes. In the first one, David Knoell (referred to as D.K.) “had been vacationing in the sewers… it was revealed at the end of the episode that someone had killed D.K.” In order to solve the murder, “an alum named Jamie” came on to the show to serve as a spiritual medium, allowing the group “to do, like, improv exercises to get D.K.’s spirit to tell us the truth.”
“So, there were just really silly things like that… We had a lot of fun performing them,” Halfenger said.
Last semester, for the academic year of 2021 to 2022, Lake Forest College decided to have students return to campus. In Fall 2021, Bob Knuth joined the theater department, becoming the resident set and light designer and technical director.
Subsequently, the theater department constructed an outdoor stage located outside of Hixon Hall. Here, the theater department hosted an outdoor show—in the middle of October, in the cold evenings!
“‘All the World’s a Stage’ was an enormous success,” Pettengill said. “We were close to or completely sold out every night, and sometimes we had numerous people standing and sitting all around the Hixon Grove when there were no more seats available.”
David Knoell returns, again, “to direct an [Saturday Night Live] SNL style improv sketch comedy and variety show to be shown in April.” At the time of this writing (February. 19, 2022), I am unsure if the performance will be held online or in-person. Nonetheless, as Santiago said, “the show must go on.”
