Play echoes senior students' employment concerns

Chloe McConnell Arts Editor

Vassar Students often aspire to pursue interesting and fulfilling employment after they graduate. How will our future jobs shape our lives? This query provides the underlying force driving the characters in “Typographer’s Dream,” written by Adam Block. On March 28, Philaletheis will open their spring season with the modern play, directed by Allison Kelly ’08.

“I write about lots of different things,” Block said in an interview with the Encore Theatre Company. “About waking up, about choosing how to live in the world, about love, about gay men growing up, about how we use the resources available to us. I like hearing stories that aren’t usually placed in the center. ”

Block, a Canadian playwright who now resides in New York City, often addresses issues of homosexuality in his plays.

“Typographer’s Dream” is a short, simple and emotional play in which a typographer (Sofia Gans ’09), a stenographer (Matt Leonard ’11) and a geographer (Danielle Morvant ’10) humorously and self-reflexively discuss their professions in a panel at a career fair. In the process, they examine the boundaries between art and business and they discover the relationship between their jobs and their lives.

Kelly chose to direct the play in a classroom in Sanders Physics with minimalist set and light design to heighten the show’s realism. “I wanted to stage the play in a classroom because I don’t want it to feel like a performance,” Kelly said. “I want it to feel like an event that Vassar or any other college might put together, inviting people to come talk to students about their jobs.”

The realism of the show is reinforced by Block’s stereotypically discrete and overlapping discourse. “I was drawn to the language used in the show,” Kelly said. “It’s very natural, full of stops and starts, interruptions and awkward pauses.”

The three-person cast allows for strong character development, which buttresses the connection between actor and audience. “There is more time to develop individual character relationships,” Gans said, “and it makes for a more intimate theatrical experience.”

“Working with such a small cast has been fantastic,” Kelly said “When the actors began to give voice and action to the characters, we discovered new moments, new connections and new tones that weren’t obvious when it was just a written text.”

The show’s plot echoes the anxieties of Vassar students, namely the issue of finding appealing employment after graduation. “As a senior, I could relate to the anxiety the characters feel about their jobs—wondering whether they’ve picked the right field and whether they’ve become defined by what they do for a living,” Kelly said.

“This show is definitely relevant to a Vassar student, as we are all at the age where thoughts about the future are looming,” Gans said. “We all have these passions that we’re pursuing, but we’re all afraid on some level that we won’t be able to find a job where our passions play a part.”

“This show features three really passionate characters with diverse interests who are dealing with that exact problem, each in different ways,” Gans continued. “I think that struggle will really resonate with a Vassar audience.”