Izik Gutkin
Correspondent
The room was abuzz as “The Festival (Not) to Die For” commenced in the Brower Student Center at 7 p.m. on Saturday, Dec.3. The show generated a lot of hype and the extremely large turnout surprised many.
A Festival (Not) to Die For kept audience members at the edge of their seats. (Tim Lee / Staff Photographer)
The show was also presented the previous evening on Dec. 2.
The event began at with an Italian dinner provided by Mamma Flora’s Trattoria. While people were eating, actors from the play walked around the floor in their character’s persona, creating a sense that these characters were real and not merely actors.
Jonathon Maclin, sophomore communications studies major, who played Sherriff Drassel in the play, enjoyed the ability to act in this interesting manner. Maclin stated “I’m expecting a big turnout … looking forward to everyone enjoying the food, sites and the fun. Just about everybody here has a natural ability to get into character … I credit the directors for getting the cast so well.”
The turnout of people in attendance allowed for an even more interesting night. The turnout even surprised the writer and director of the play, junior biology major Dan Loverro.
“It’s a lot of fun. A lot of people don’t realize exactly what they’re getting into. You know (it’s) a dinner and a show, okay, but it’s very interactive,” he said.
After the attendees had their fill of food and interaction with the actors, the show began.
The play takes place in the town of “Dead Man’s Crossing,” which has a peculiar problem; there is an extremely high number of deaths in the town, for a variety of reasons. The town is on the verge of celebrating nearly 30 days of no dying, when the mayor is murdered by some unknown individual.
Prompted by a newcomer in the town named Roger, the sheriff and the townspeople hold an investigation in order to solve the mystery of who ruined their death-free festival.
Pinpointing exactly who the culprit was proved to be difficult, as all of the characters had some reason to kill the mayor. When intermission came and dessert was being served, the audience was on edge, wondering who committed the crime.
Caitlin Gold, a freshman art and education major, believed that she knew who it was. “I think it’s Mindy because she thought it would get her closer to Tom,” she said. “But I really can’t put my finger on it, the anticipation is killing me.”
The play proved to be a success with spectators of all ages in attendance. The overall uncertainty of who the mayor’s murderer was generated a lot of debate. The crowd shared some good laughs and some startled gasps upon knowing the killer’s identity.
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This is a remarkably poorly-written review, and not just because it has a glaring grammatical error. Taking the time to get a comp ticket for the reviewer to attend the show, and then not staying for the full show AND failing to write a proper review that actually discusses the show, thus prompting the Signal to remove it from the actual paper (which far more people read than the online articles) and putting in its place a tiny picture, in which one of the characters has his eyes closed, and finally posting a review that is sub-par by every conceivable standard, is disgustingly unprofessional and sickeningly amateurish.
I have come to expect little substance to Signal reviews of student shows, but this is, by far, a new low.
To be honest, I could not agree more with Noah. Did somebody even go to see the show? Is anybody aware that there was no character named Mindy? Every single time The Signal writes a review about a show on campus, it is absolute crap. I’m a student that is extremely involved in ACT and I have made some of my best memories with it’s amazing people. Since I’ve been here, I’ve been a part of just about every show, and I feel that not a single review has yet to give any sort of credit to these incredible performances. There are an immense amount of very hard working, talented people in the shows here, and somehow they are consistently overlooked by the writers in The Signal. I would suggest that somebody look up what a real theatrical review is supposed to be, and also recommend that the idiots writing these articles actually attend the show in its entirety. The actors, directors, producers, and all others who put their heart and souls into these performances deserve a hell of a lot better than this.
I agree with the above comments. But I would like to add some additional input as well. Typically, when you write a review of a play, after you mention a character you say who played that character. You also take a playbill and make sure you are spelling the characters’ names correctly. Also, when an audience member states she thinks it was “Mindy,” you should check the aforementioned playbill to make sure there is actually a character named Mindy in the show… which there isn’t. It could not be more obvious the writer did not stay for the play, or even care to write this review. I hope they enjoyed their free dinner, and complementary ticket. I feel offended that the people who write The Signal’s articles can’t put 1/10 the heart and soul into a small review as the entire cast and crew put into this amazing production.
The Festival (Not) to Die For has had one of the largest, most varied casts of any ACT show I’ve been involved in over the past three years. This review only mentions 2 of the 17 named characters involved in the show, not to mention the 21 extras. It is also clear that the reviewer did not stay past dessert if only speculations about the murderer of the Murder Mystery are mentioned. Besides being an insult to the 30+ people involved in the show, this review is unfair to Dan, the writer and director of the show, to only comment on the “surprising turnout” of the show rather than the creative central plot and various side plots. The point of a review is to fill in the people who did not attend the show on what it was about and how it went and this review does neither of those things.
I agree with all of the above comments, and I will now extend the first comment. This is only the most egregious example of terrible writing that the signal has had to offer, the paper frequently misrepresents and short-sells ACT productions because it assumes (as an organization) that no one will care. Many of my fellow cast-members and I are offended by the lack of content in this article (this article puts the title of the Lend Me a Tenor review a shame; by the by, there was singing in that show by myself and the assistant director of the Murder Mystery). I never thought I would miss any aspect of my high school experience, but at least the articles in the Chatham school paper were never of such shoddy and insulting quality. The point is this article is not only an affront to the 30 + people who spent close to 100 hours (including production staff and outside work) but to journalism itself. Steps must be taken to ensure such work is not permitted ever again.
PS. Not all of the first letters of every word was capitalized in the article’s title… just saying.