BLOOMINGTON, Ill. – Although the workload for an Illinois Wesleyan student can be heavy even without extracurricular activities, some opportunities are too good to pass up. For members of the School of Theatre Arts, the Phoenix Theatre offers this kind of opportunity, which allows the students to put on plays of every genre or style, to work independently of IWU professors and to put to practical use their abilities in acting, directing, design and stage management.
Founded over 20 years ago, the Phoenix Theatre houses about 20 productions each school year, about four of five times the amount of productions that took place five years ago.
Located in the “Underground” next to the coffee shop in the Memorial Center, the Phoenix Theatre is a small “black-box” theatre which seats only 50 people at the maximum, equipped with lighting instruments, a lightboard, furniture and prop pieces. Every semester, students are allowed to put in an application to the Phoenix committee, a group of eight students and faculty led by Phoenix Coordinator Charles Haugland, a senior theatre arts and English major from Aurora, Colo. If the proposal is accepted, the student will be allowed to use the theatre space for rehearsals and performances as needed and will also be provided with a small stipend upon request.
Each semester, students put on a wide variety of plays and performance pieces ranging from light-hearted musicals as in I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change to classical drama as in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus. Different clubs and groups have also used the Phoenix as a place to perform including the Musical Theatre Society that put on a full-length musical, Zombie Prom in the fall of 2006 and the Shenanigans theatre group who performed Death… or Something in the fall of 2003. Approximately 20 productions take place every school year, about four or five times the amount that took place just 5 years ago.
Since first-year theatre students do not perform in department plays or musicals and instead focus on production aspects of a performance, the Phoenix offers these students an outlet to act during their first year on campus. Also, the theatre gives all students the opportunity to be exposed to a large number of plays of a variety of genres at no cost.