Fight Evil!

Company Members Carolyn Defrin and Dennis Watkins spent over a year working with students from Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois to develop an adaptation of Pinocchio. House staff and company members were busy up in Chicago opening All the Fame of Lofty Deeds, so the wonderful Pinocchio team and faculty members of Bradley hosted a special performance for us on Monday, November 9.

The fine folks of Bradley hosted a delightful reception, where House company members were able to meet Bradley theatre department faculty and other Bradley friends. We then went down to the theatre, where the chair of the theatre arts department, George Brown, gave us a warm welcome and introduced the show. Bradley student Marlon Washington gave a charismatic curtain speech in traditional House fashion, and we were off!

The cast, composed of 15 students and 1 faculty member,  worked with beautiful music and a playground of a set to tell a darker, more contemporary version of this classic tale (but not this contemporary), which focused on questions like: what does it mean to be human? Who can we trust in this life? How far will we go for love? How do we recover from deep hurt?  

Custom movable wooden arcs created all of the different locations within the play.

Intricate set pieces combined with beautiful lighting created larger-than-life silhouettes.

Like Pinocchio himself, most of the set was made of wood.

Cast Members!

 Post-show, we all joined up to celebrate at Martini’s on Water Street. While the live entertainment refused to play “Party in the USA,” we still managed to have a pretty good time. We even made friends with some cast members!

Thanks again to all the students, staff, and faculty at Bradley for this wonderful experience!