Arcadia University Bulletin

Students in the first-year seminar Beyond the Broadway Blockbuster: Exploring Thoughtful Theatre saw a performance at at the Philadelphia Live-Arts festival.

By Michael Feeney ‘10

Assistant Professor of Theater Arts Jonathan Shandell is currently teaching the first-year seminar, Beyond the Broadway Blockbuster: Exploring Thoughtful Theater, with a primary goal in mind. “My goal is to engage students with live theater that might not be familiar to them: in other words, something other than Broadway-style musicals,” he says.

The class recently saw a performance at the Philadelphia Live-Arts festival titled The Last Cargo Cult by performance artist Mike Daisey.

Shandell knew that students would find the show to be different. “The performance was highly unconventional for those students only familiar with Broadway theater,” he says. “One man sat behind a desk on a bare stage and told stories for almost two hours. The stories were tales from his own life, centered on his visit to a remote South Pacific Island where the native peoples do not use money. The performance posed serious and difficult questions about the role of money in American society and in our everyday lives.”

Alicia Colleti ‘13, a Psychology major, enjoyed the show. “Seeing The Last Cargo Cult was absolutely awesome,” she says, “Mike Daisey is hysterical. It was a really cool experience.”

Theater major Michael Gallagher ‘13 believes the seminar fits well with his major. “I chose this seminar because of its connection to my major and my interest in the theater,” he says. “I went into the show not knowing what to expect from a show that had only one performer. The show itself was very thought provoking, but it also was interesting and held the audience’s attention.”

Gallagher also has enjoyed what they’ve been learning in class. “So far we are learning about different ways a script can be written—linear or episodic (events move in a straight line or events are shown in different clips and don’t always connect to one another)—and different ways to read plays or understand them if the playwright isn’t clear on what they are writing.”

Above all, Shandell hopes his students learn about and enjoy the non-Broadway shows. “My hope is that the students enjoy seeing different types of theater and also develop a critical sensibility and some of the skills necessary to understand and analyze drama throughout our culture: on stage, in film, on television or elsewhere.”