Our project for the 2016 Undergraduate Symposium on Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activity is entitled “The Tell-Tale Heart”- a One-Act Play adapted by Gerald P. Murphy. The play, involving many new aspects of technical theatre is based around a story told through narration and balletic-contemporary dance based on Edgar Allan Poe’s poem of the same name. The goal is to put on a successful production of this work that will evoke a new style of theatre from its participants.

Through the generous gift of a flash grant and the performance of this production, the creative team hopes to inspire the program to rethink theatre - To think outside the box. We challenge our audiences not be satisfied with traditional theatre. For this project we will be creating interactive thread installations, a new development in scenic design that will enhance our production value.

The hope is that this project will encourage other aspiring directors and designers to take chances and strive to work collaboratively in the future in order to progress the theatrical developmental process. We expect to incorporate a multitude of new and exciting technical advancements in our production. Mostly dealing with lighting design, we hope to introduce the school to these techniques so that they can be implemented in future productions.

On our production team, we also have a textiles liaison, Scott Ward. He will assist our technical team with the thread installations. We will all collaborate with our cast and crew to produce this new work.