Martin Andrucki – News

Beloved and brilliant Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor Emeritus of Theater at �ֲ��ý, dies at age 80

Jay Burns — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 17:56:37 +0000

Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus of Theater Martin E. Andrucki, a beloved and brilliant teacher and scholar who secured a seat at the liberal arts table for �ֲ��ý theater, died Feb. 8, 2026, at age 80. A faculty member for 47 years, Andrucki was among the longest-serving �ֲ��ý professors in the college’s history.

Martin Andrucki was a �ֲ��ý professor for 47 years, among the longest service by a �ֲ��ý faculty member, from 1974 to 2021, when he retired as the Charles A. Dana Professor Emeritus of Theater. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Raised in the Bronx, N.Y., Andrucki earned a bachelor’s degree in English, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Columbia University and a doctoral degree in English from Harvard University.

Andrucki’s arrival at �ֲ��ý for the 1974–75 academic year coincided with theater becoming a major for the first time. Yet the department, which at the time housed both theater and rhetoric, was at a low point due to retirements and departures. “It was on the verge of expiring,” recalled Andrucki in 2021. Some at the college were openly questioning the legitimacy of theater as a liberal arts discipline.

Martin Andrucki Service and Memorial Gifts
information about his funeral service in Lewiston on Friday, Feb. 13; family and survivors; and a memorial gift designation to �ֲ��ý. The service will be .

As with other young professors who joined �ֲ��ý in the 1970s and 1980s and helped to build academic programs, Andrucki arrived brimming with gusto; an early student described him as bringing “a fierce intellect and a wise-ass New York City sense of humor” to �ֲ��ý.

The task before him 50 years ago, Andrucki recalled, was to “create a curriculum that emphasized literature and theory and producing serious drama on our stages. We wanted our majors to be broadly educated in theater and drama and to see theater as one of the liberal arts.”

Martin Andrucki gazes at the Schaeffer Theatre stage in this circa 1980 photograph. Andrucki devoted his 47-year career to giving theater a place at the liberal arts table. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

During retirement events in 2021, proof of his success resounded in the words of theater alumni. Theater at �ֲ��ý “equipped me with hands-on experiences I apply nearly every day in life,” recalled Bobbi Bell Birkemeier ’78. “Time management and making deadlines, thinking quickly on one’s feet, improvisation, how to take criticism and direction in a positive fashion, how to direct and delegate, and how to ‘play nicely with others’ in working collaboratively.”

And from his first days on campus, his students felt Andrucki’s intellect and generosity, his lofty standards coupled with a belief in their potential for success. “Marty was completely invested in our work in the classroom and onstage,” Sarah Pearson ’75 said in 2021. “Marty made me believe that anything was possible, and his confidence in me — in all of us — was invaluable and gave me the boost I needed to face the next stage of life.”

In this clipping from the The Daily Argus of Mount Vernon, N.Y., teenaged Martin Andrucki (center), who had recently graduated from Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx, practices swordplay to prepare for his role as Hamlet in a Croton-on-Hudson production of the play in July 1963. (The Daily Argus/Newspapers.com)

“He always seemed to focus on the big picture, the big idea, if you will. Plot. Character. Thought. Diction. Music and spectacle,” said James Lapan ’86. For Amanda San Roman ’17, Andrucki was a “steady and grounding force in my �ֲ��ý experience. His subtle humor, wealth of intelligence, and supportive nature never went unnoticed by anyone he interacted with.”

Andrucki rose swiftly through the academic ranks. In 1975, he was promoted to assistant professor and that year began his decades-long service as department chair. He earned tenure in 1983, was promoted to full professor in 1990, and in 2001 was appointed to a Dana Professorship, one of the most prestigious faculty honors at �ֲ��ý.

With stage manager Ben Cuba ’16 at the ready, Martin Andrucki directs a rehearsal of Little Egypt in Schaeffer Theatre in 2014. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Though �ֲ��ý theater was ripe for renewal in the mid-1970s, Andrucki was building on a firm foundation. Two years before his arrival, �ֲ��ý had named its theater on College Street in honor of Lavinia Miriam Schaeffer, who retired in 1972 after leading the �ֲ��ý theater program since 1938.

As Andrucki noted in 2021, Schaeffer was a champion of the Little Theater Movement that emerged in the early 1900s in the U.S., which emphasized authenticity over grandiosity, “aiming to produce challenging drama in an intimate atmosphere,” he said. The vibe always resonated with Andrucki. “Let’s remember Lavinia and those values as we move ahead,” he said in 2021.

Students of Martin Andrucki, seen teaching circa 1985, felt both his intellect and generosity, his lofty standards coupled with a belief in their potential for success. (Muskie Archives and Special Collections Library)

At �ֲ��ý, he taught courses on theater history, dramatic literature, directing, and playwriting. He directed more than 50 theatrical productions at �ֲ��ý, in the U.S., and abroad. His directing ranged widely: classical and Shakespearean works such as Antigone, Hamlet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream; European modern and political theater including Three Sisters, Endgame, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle; American and contemporary plays such as Bus Stop, The Skin of Our Teeth, Eurydice, and Love/Sick; as well as original and experimental projects including his own Marie and the Nutcracker and the radio-play production Radio Waves.

Cael Schwartz ’19 (left) as Lord of the Underworld and Sukanya Shukla ’20 (right) as Eurydice in Martin Andrucki’s 2018 production of Eurydice. “It’s a wonderful synthesis of the traditional and the new, and therefore a great vehicle for doing theater in the liberal arts context,” said Andrucki. “Since our students’ default mode is realism, this is a good opportunity to jog them out of their aesthetic habits.” (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

His can-do spirit inspired his students. In 1981, he scoured local junkyards to find the right prop for a production of Sam Shepard’s The Unseen Hand: a busted-up 1957 Ford sedan, hauled straight into the Schaeffer Theatre carpentry shop, where Andrucki chose to stage the avant-garde play.

Every other Short Term from 1999 to 2019, Andrucki and Kati Vecsey, senior lecturer in theater, led students to Budapest and Prague for the course “Central European Theater and Film,” the college’s longest-running off-campus Short Term program. “And yes, Marty learned to speak and read Hungarian,” said Vecsey, a Hungarian herself, noting the difficulty that English speakers have with the language.

Martin Andrucki (top left) and Kati Vecsey (second row, second from right) pose with their students in Budapest during the two faculty member’s long-running Short Term course, “Central European Theater and Film.” (Courtesy of Kati Vecsey)

“Marty and I watched many great, and many boring, theater productions together over the years,” Vecsey said. “When we would go to the theater, Marty always made sure to get an aisle seat, to make sure he had a quick way to escape if the show was unbearable.”

Learning Hungarian was just another example of Andrucki’s smarts, streetwise and otherwise. “There was this mysterious skill that fired his intellectual life,” Vecsey said, “a capacity to explore new territories without forgetting the old ones.” Andrucki brought “profound knowledge, wisdom, and humor into every room [he] entered, both as a director and as a professor,” said Maddy Shmalo ’19.

Marie and the Nutcracker, Martin Andrucki’s new take on the old story, staged at Schaeffer Theatre in November 2015, included Colin McIntire ’16 (left) as Drosselmeier and Brennen Malone ’17 (right) as the royal. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

While he could be the smartest person in the room, Andrucki was often the most welcoming. “He seemed an untouchable mad genius to me at times, but at the same time a friend to sit and shoot the breeze with,” Chuck Richardson ’86 said during the 2021 retirement celebration.

A course with Andrucki, recalled writer Elizabeth Strout ’77 during a 2019 visit to campus, was not only one of her favorites, but also influenced her writing as a Pulitzer Prize-winning author of fiction. In the course, Andrucki guided his students through plays by classic American playwrights like Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams. “He loved those people so much that I loved them,” Strout said.

From reading the plays, Strout learned a valuable lesson about writing authentic dialogue.

Elizabeth Strout ’77 greets Dana Professor of Theater Martin Andrucki, one of her formative �ֲ��ý professors, following her talk in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall in 2019. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“When you write dialogue in a story or a novel, there has to be a translation between what people are actually saying to the page. You can’t write what people are actually saying, because it’s too boring. You’ve got to translate it to the page in a way that sounds authentic.”

In 1979, Andrucki was named a Mellon Fellow to conduct research into the teaching of theater. In 1987 he joined a directors’ forum at Columbia University, doing advanced studies with Liviu Ciulei, Lee Breuer, Adrian Hall, and others. He was a professor of English at the Harvard Summer School from 1993 to 1996. In 2002, he earned a Fulbright Scholar award for research in Hungary.

He wrote four plays, including Manny’s War. Staged at �ֲ��ý in 2000 in collaboration with The Public Theatre of Lewiston, the play helped a local man, Murray Schwartz, reconcile his feelings of failure as a World War II soldier.

In fall 2000, Martin Andrucki posed with Murray Schwartz at his Mechanic Falls farm. Andrucki’s play Manny’s War, staged at �ֲ��ý in October 2000, helped Schwartz reconcile his feelings of failure as a World War II prisoner of war. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Schwartz, like Andrucki, was a New Yorker transplanted to Maine. He had headed to war with pride as an avenging Jew, and earned a Combat Infantry Badge, a Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts, but then felt shame when, as a prisoner of war captured during the Battle of the Bulge, he resorted to stealing a fellow prisoner’s bread. “The play caught the inner struggle,” Schwartz said. “Not the generals’ strategies, but the betrayal of the will.”

As Andrucki wrote in �ֲ��ý Magazine, the play’s opening night at Schaeffer Theatre saw Murray Schwartz “watching his wartime pain, psychological and physical, played out on stage. He was surrounded by family and friends, �ֲ��ý people and Lewiston–Auburn citizens, a full house serving witness to a fellow American’s story.” The play was nominated for the New Play Award of the American Theatre Critics Association.

In Ladd Library in March 2017, ahead of his fantastical production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Martin Andrucki quotes English writer Nicholas Rowe, who said that Shakespeare’s greatness is most apparent when “he gives his imagination an entire loose, and raises his fancy to a flight above mankind.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Andrucki was a prolific writer. He wrote a series of 15 critical essays published by the Portland Stage Company on topics ranging from love and lying in Sam Shepard’s Fool for Love to the handicap of virtue in Ted Tally’s Terra Nova. Among his hundreds of essays were 108 audience guides as a humanities scholar and dramaturge for two of Maine’s professional theaters, Portland Stage Company and The Public Theatre.

His writing appeared in Modern Philology, Theatre Journal, Text and Performance Quarterly, and The Columbia Encyclopedia of Modern Drama. In the early 1990s, he was host and writer of Wide Angle, a weekly television show on Maine Public focused on Maine filmmakers.

Not all his writing was theater-focused. In January 1981, he wrote a nostalgic essay recalling his childhood in the Bronx, and the memories of heating a home with coal, a fuel that made a resurgence during that historically cold winter. “It’s the childhood I really had,” he wrote. “For me, the rattling chute and dusty bin, the gritty ashcans and the pungent smell, are all redolent of New York in the last days of its unruffled pre-eminence, when televisions had round screens and no one had heard of the Sun Belt.”

In 2017, Martin Andrucki decided to set A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1930s America, with Fairyland a fantastical world of Hollywood’s golden age because, he said, the play was was too often staged with “actors covered in bark or in tutus, wearing mosquito wings.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Heating with coal in his Maine home created a connection with his son, Max, then 3 years old, the young boy being dazzled by the heat that poured forth from a pile of black rocks, “a moment of connection between my childhood and his, a New York memory for my son from Maine.”

When he retired in 2021, Andrucki had served �ֲ��ý for 47 years, a tenure matched only by the late Karl Woodcock, professor of physics. To honor his career, the college’s black box theater was then named the Martin Andrucki Black Box Theater.

Emily Diaz ’23, as Sarah, confronts Rishi Madnani ’23, as Bill, in Martin Andrucki’s 2019 production of John Cariani’s Love/Sick. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Andrucki treated theater, and his teaching of theater, as both an intellectual discipline and a lived experience. “I teach because I like working in a profession and at a place where intellectual and aesthetic values prevail, where telling the truth, as one understands it, is the objective,” he said, during a retirement event. Drawing on the thinking of the late Princeton scholar and poet Michael Goldman, he went on to explain theater’s power to deliver “total education.”

For students, that meant discovering their “entire being rather than the intellect alone.” Theater, Andrucki said, “engages the whole self,” whether as actor, director, designer, or playwright, in the deepest sense of education: the Latin educare, to lead forth, to draw out what is already present and waiting to be revealed. “Which is what college is supposed to be all about.”

Martin Andrucki gives his actors notes after a dress rehearsal prior to the 2019 production of John Cariani’s Love/Sick. In a sense, said Andrucki, the play “is about disposability in relationships — there’s this sense of, you pick them up and you drop them. Everything is always on the verge of coming apart and ending.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Q&A: Andrucki directs as Maine playwright’s ‘Love/Sick’ comes to �ֲ��ý

Doug Hubley — Tue, 29 Oct 2019 16:34:51 +0000

“Bittersweet” is how �ֲ��ý theater professor Martin Andrucki characterizes the play he has chosen for the college’s autumn mainstage production.

While the laughs keep coming in Love/Sick, which was written by actor and playwright John Cariani and runs at �ֲ��ý , the underlying theme is that love really is a sickness, a malady of the heart with no known cure.

In the vignette "Destiny," "Emily" (Alex Gilbertson '22) and "Jake" (Rishi Madnani '23) reconnect at a big-box store after divorcing each other. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

"I liked the idea of a play that is not romantic about love," says Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater, on why he chose to stage "Love/Sick." (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College

Muskan Verma '21 plays "Liz" and Hale Murch '22 is "Abbie" in "Love/Sick." (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

The singing telegram delivered by Losseni Barry '22 is not what the recipient, played by Alex Gilbertson '22, expected to hear. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

In the "Love/Sick" vignette "Lunch and Dinner," characters played by Brady Chilson '23 and Sadie Basila '23 reveal that their appetites have strayed. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

In a sense, says Andrucki, the play “is about disposability in relationships — there’s this sense of, you pick them up and you drop them. Everything is always on the verge of coming apart and ending.”

Cariani uses an unconventional narrative structure to drive the painful point home. It’s a tightly concentrated adaptation of dramatic unity: Where a conventional play unfolds over a span of time, the nine short plays that constitute Love/Sick depict scenarios that, we are meant to understand, are happening simultaneously.

Those vignettes begin with the collision of an “obsessive impulsive” couple in a big-box store. Later, Andrucki says, a woman gets dumped by her boyfriend via a singing telegram. “Then there are two guys who are interested in each other but can’t quite bring it off, and a couple on their wedding day and the man backs out.” And so on.

The characters played by Brady Chilson and Emily Diaz, both ’23, are strangers irresistibly drawn together at a big-box store. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Not only that, but seven of the nine vignettes are set in different rooms of a single house, bookended by the episodes in the store. Similarly surprising, and ingenious, is the handling of character development, as each vignette features a couple who are a bit more experienced in romance (not to say successful) than those in the previous plotline. So the play’s emotional arc is cumulative, building across the experiences of 18 characters.

Muskan Verma ’21 plays Liz and Hale Murch ’22 is Abbie in Love/Sick. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Raised in the northern Maine town of Presque Isle, Cariani has enjoyed an acting career that’s included five seasons on Law & Order, an Outer Critics Circle Award for his work in a 2004 Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, and film roles alongside Robert De Niro, Christopher Walken, and Ed Asner.

But Cariani may be better-known in Maine for a playwriting career that, in addition to Love/Sick, includes his acclaimed debut, Almost, Maine. “The last time I checked, it was the most frequently performed play in American high schools, displacing A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Andrucki says. “So in Cariani vs. Shakespeare, Cariani won.”

Noah Pott ’22 and Lucas Allen ’22 are shown in the segment titled “What?!?” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Why did you choose Love/Sick?

A practical reason is that it’s a play subdivided into shorter plays, each one 10 to 12 minutes long, and each requiring two characters. So that gave opportunities for a whole bunch of students to perform that you might not get in a play with six characters, and there were a lot of kids chomping at the bit. They wanted to get involved, and so I got them involved.

How many students did you cast?

There are 12, with six of them playing two characters. And there’s never a time when the same two actors show up together, so there are some logistics to deal with there. And also you want to make sure the audience is not confused — “Is this the same couple that I saw before?” And no, it’s always different couples.

Sarah, played by Emily Diaz ’23, confronts Bill, played by Rishi Madnani ’23. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

What’s another reason you picked this play?

I liked the idea of a play that is not romantic about love. Kids who are 18 to 21 years old often have unrealistic ideas about love. And this play is quite cold-eyed in its view what love can often entail, which is a lot of pain, disappointment, and failure. So I thought it would be a useful exercise in a more mature perspective on what’s entailed by love.

As an actor, how is John Cariani as a playwright?

He’s got a very nice knack, and I’d like to expose students to his particular kind of dramaturgical skill.

You take a little play that’s 11 minutes long, you’ve got to get the job done economically. You’ve got to have all the elements in place — beginning, middle, and end, recognition and reversal, crisis, climax. All those things have to be there in a very compact setting.

It’s a little bit like making jewelry, and he does that nine times in the course of assembling short plays into a longer play. Students get to see how these nine plays actually add up to an overarching narrative.

Cariani writes with an understanding of what it means to take a pause. He writes the pauses in, provides you with scoring, the kind of scoring that an actor can read, the way a musician reads notes. So that’s all there quite explicitly in the text. And he also writes like an actor, because actors like big moments, and each little play has a nice big moment.

In the vignette “Forgot,” “Jill” (Olivia Dimond ’22) mourns the child she never had with “Kevin” (Kush Sharma ’23). (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

What’s challenging about directing nine short plays, as opposed to one longer one?

When you’re working with five or six actors, you say, “Okay, you’ve got to get it right in the first act.” Then from that, they learn to get it right in the second act, so I don’t have to [work with them] for every single strophe of the play. It’s different when you’re working with 12 actors in nine short little plays.

The opening and closing vignettes take place in the same location, but that still leaves seven different rooms in a house that you have to show. How are you and designer Christine McDowell managing that?

Everything is in place on stage, and we’re treating the locations like model rooms in an Ikea store. The play begins and ends in an Ikea-like store, and each vignette mentions that store. One person has bought a gun there. Another person has rented a movie there. We also learn that the store runs a singing telegram operation.

The singing telegram delivered by Losseni Barry ’22 is not what the recipient, played by Alex Gilbertson ’22, expected to hear. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

That’s some store. What’s the big-box store motif telling us?

It’s about disposability in relationships — there’s this sense of, you pick them up and you drop them. Everything is always on the verge of coming apart and ending. The way the thing you buy breaks.

Sounds bleak!

Well, it’s kind of funny. It’s bittersweet without being bleak, I guess. It’s easy to understand and to relate to — everybody has had some kind of heartbreak, I think. And everybody enjoys rueful laughter.

Love/Sick vignette "Lunch and Dinner," Mark (Brady Chilson ’23) and Kelly (Sadie Basila ’23) reveal that their appetites have strayed. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)” width=”1919″ height=”1279″> In the Love/Sick vignette “Lunch and Dinner,” characters played by Brady Chilson ’23 and Sadie Basila ’23 reveal that their appetites have strayed. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Q&A: Martin Andrucki on ‘Eurydice’ and the play’s reimagined Schaeffer stage

�ֲ��ý News — Fri, 02 Nov 2018 14:35:20 +0000

In Greek mythology, Eurydice is an especially tragic character. She married Orpheus, the greatest musician who ever lived — but died on their wedding day and descended into the Underworld. The love of the grieving Orpheus for her was so strong that he went, literally, to Hell and back to retrieve her. The beauty of his music was enough to persuade the Lord of the Underworld to release his bride. But there was one condition: If Orpheus looked back to make sure that Eurydice was following, she would die again — forever. And so it happened.

Sukanya Shukla ’20 during a dress rehearsal of Eurydice. Associate Professor of Theater Christine McDowell designed the set and costumes. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

Orpheus’ lost love takes the spotlight as the central figure in Eurydice, Sarah Ruhl’s 2003 adaption of the tragedy, which �ֲ��ý is presenting in a strikingly staged While her husband is mourning her untimely death, she must navigate the underworld and all the painful memories it elicits. Here’s a brief conversation with Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater, who directs the �ֲ��ý production.

How are you handling the play in terms of design?

We are staging the action — and seating the audience — entirely on the stage of Schaeffer Theatre in a space that will be surrounded by water, the River Lethe. The auditorium, which usually accommodates spectators, forms a cavernous backdrop to dramatic events on earth and in the Underworld.

Sukanya Shukla ’20 is Eurydice and Cael Schwartz ’19 is the Lord of the Underworld in the �ֲ��ý production of Eurydice. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

With poetic dialogue, elaborate visual effects, and silent scenes that overflow with emotion, Ruhl’s retelling turns a Greek myth into a memorable experience that The New York Times describes as “rhapsodically beautiful … an inexpressibly moving theatrical fable about love, loss and the pleasures and pains of memory.” Christine McDowell, associate professor of theater, designed the set and costumes. Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music Bill Matthews wrote the music, and Michael Reidy, senior lecturer and managing director in theater and dance, designed the lighting.

Why is this play a good choice for the students involved?

The play tells a classic story using the techniques of the contemporary stage. It’s a wonderful synthesis of the traditional and the new, and therefore a great vehicle for doing theater in the liberal arts context. Also, the script calls for a non-naturalistic, poetic style of production and performance, and since our students’ default mode is realism, this is a good opportunity to jog them out of their aesthetic habits.

Sukanya Shukla ’20 plays the role of Eurydice on the dramatically redesigned Schaeffer Theatre stage. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

What themes are at work here?

Sophocles tells us that nothing can stand in the late wind of death. Eurydice, her husband Orpheus, and her father all struggle to resist the force of this gale, succeed for a little while, and ultimately fail. Eurydice is about carrying on that struggle even though we know what the outcome will be. It’s also about a woman torn between romantic love for a man with whom she has little in common, and daughterly love for a father who cherishes and understands her.

What’s in this play for a local audience?

It tells a great story about love, death, and the intensity of devotion between fathers and daughters. It’s funny, moving, and beautifully clear. Not to mention short. And no prior knowledge of the myth is required: it’s all there in the script.

Shown with Sukanya Shukla ’20, at right, Ethan Winglass ’19 portrays Orpheus in Eurydice. Theater professor Tim Dugan, at rear, plays Eurydice’s father. (Theophil Syslo/�ֲ��ý College)

Slideshow: ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ meets Hollywood’s golden age

�ֲ��ý News — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 15:23:11 +0000

Martin Andrucki was asked why he chose to stage his production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream — playing at — in 1930s America and to have Fairyland evoke the fantastical world of Hollywood’s golden age.

Andrucki is the college’s Dana Professor of Theater, and he said that the reason has to do with bark, and not the canine kind. Midsummer‘s famous Fairyland has, perhaps too often, been populated by “actors covered in bark or in tutus, wearing mosquito wings,” he says.

So as Andrucki thought about his first production of Midsummer since 1995, he decided to create another type of Fairyland for Shakespeare’s tale of a wedding, a love quadrangle, theater al fresco, quarreling fairies, and magical potions.

Under a spell, Lysander (Declan Chu '17) tries to woo Helena (Audrey Burns '17), who believes he is trying to mock her. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Under a spell, Titania (Tricia Crimmins '19) lounges in bed with Bottom (Dan Kuan Peeples '17), who's been made to look like a donkey by Puck. They're attended by fairies Moth (Anna Kreitzer ’19), Mustardseed (Anne Trapp ’20) and Peaseblossom (Rebecca Kraft ’20). (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Quince (Christina Felonis '17) explains the play she's written to Nick Bottom (Dan Kuan Peeples '17). Felonis' performance is part of her senior thesis in acting. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

"Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my child," says Egeus (in hat, Theo Eagle '17) about his daughter Hermia (Azure Reid-Russell '17); at left and right are suitors Demetrius (John Dello Russo ’18) and Lysander (Declan Chu '17). (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

"If we shadows have offended, / Think but this, and all is mended," says Puck, played by Sam James '18 of Bradenton, Fla., the play's final lines. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

“I thought of Woody Allen’s Purple Rose of Cairo,” Andrucki explains, “where Jeff Daniels steps out of the screen and brings Mia Farrow into a world of beauty, glamor, and romance.”

In Hollywood’s golden age of the 1930s, “escape and magic were at the movies. Hollywood musicals were fairyland. Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers: They were fairies.” It’s a bygone world that reflects Shakespeare’s own capacity for raising “his fancy to a flight above mankind,” in the words of 18th-century English writer Nicholas Rowe.

The �ֲ��ý production, , features an original score by Bill Matthews, the Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music. His compositions include a song for the fairies and one for the character Nick Bottom, as well as music for dance sequences and what director Andrucki describes as “a sonic landscape for the whole show.”

Standing at the foot of the Schaeffer Theatre stage after Wednesday’s dress rehearsal for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, director and Dana Professor of Theater Martin Andrucki goes through his notes with the actors. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Directed by Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater

Scenic design by Judy Gailen

Costume design by Christine McDowell and Nora Dahlberg ‘18 of Arlington, Va.

Lighting design by Michael Reidy, senior lecturer and managing director of theater and dance

Original music by Bill Matthews, Alice Swanson Esty Professor of Music

Projections by Lucas Wilson-Spiro ’15

Choreography by Sam Hersh ’19 of Northborough, Mass.

Stage manager: Claire Sullivan ’19 of Montville, N.J.

Cast of Characters

Oberon/Theseus: Brian Pfohl, assistant in instruction, psychology

Titania/Hippolyta: Tricia Crimmins ’19 of Lake Forest, Ill.

Philostrate: Ghasharib Shoukat ’20 of Karachi, Pakistan

Egeus: Theo Eagle ’17 of Brooklyn, N.Y.

Hermia: Azure Reid-Russell ’17 of Northport, N.Y.

Demetrius: John Dello Russo ’18 of Revere, Mass.

Lysander: Declan Chu ’17 of Winthrop, Maine

Helena: Audrey Burns ’17 of Topsham, Maine*

Peter Quince: Christina Felonis ’17 of Athens*

Nick Bottom: Dan Kuan Peeples ’17 of Piermont, N.Y.*

Francis Flute: Erik Skattum ’19 of London

Robin Starveling: Lila Patinkin ’20 of Chicago

Tom Snout: Christine Carroll ’20 of Locust Valley, N.Y.

Snug: Madison Shmalo ’19 of Kennebunk,Maine

Puck: Sam James ’17 of Bradenton, Fla.

Moth: Anna Kreitzer ’19 of Ellsworth, Maine

Peaseblossom: Rebecca Kraft ’20 of Newton Center, Mass.

Cobweb: Amelia Green ’17 of Westport, Conn.

Mustardseed: Anne Trapp ’20 of Townsend, Mont.

Audrey Burns ’17, Christina Felonis ’17, Dan Kuan Peeples ’17 are working on Midsummer as a part of their senior theses in acting.

In world premiere, ‘Marie and the Nutcracker’ updates familiar story

Katherine Courtney '16 — Mon, 02 Nov 2015 17:59:25 +0000

Keila Ching ’18 of Honolulu portrays Marie, and Sam James ’17 of Raleigh, N.C., is the Mouseking in Dana Professor of Theater Martin Andrucki’s “Marie and the Nutcracker.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

a classic holiday tale gets a modern twist in the current mainstage theater production at �ֲ��ý. Martin Andrucki, Charles A. Dana Professor of Theater, has adapted German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann’s original story about a magical nutcracker to create a play that’s set in the present day and titled Marie and the Nutcracker. Every Christmas season, audiences around the world flock to productions of the classic 1892 ballet The Nutcracker, the tale of a young girl, an evil Mouseking and the Nutcracker-turned-prince. The ballet was scored by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov.

Keila Ching ’18 of Honolulu as Marie challenges Sam James ’17 of Raleigh, N.C., as the Mouseking.

Keila Ching '18 of Honolulu as Marie consoles the Nutcracker played by Nate Stephenson ’18 of Ellsworth, Maine.

Audrey Burns ’17 of Topsham, Maine, sinks her teeth into multiple roles.

Keila Ching '18 of Honolulu portrays Marie, and Sam James '17 of Raleigh, N.C., is the Mouseking. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College)

Colin McIntire ’16 of Darien, Conn., as Drosselmeier tries to reason with the royal played by Brennen Malone ’17 of Philadelphia.

Fewer people, however, are familiar with Hoffman or his children’s story The Nutcracker and the Mouse King, upon which the famous ballet is based. (Where the ballet’s heroine is named Clara, she is called Marie in Hoffmann’s story, and Andrucki’s adaptation retains that name. In Hoffmann’s original, Clara is Marie’s doll.) Setting out to write a holiday play, Andrucki took inspiration from Hoffmann’s original tale. “I had this idea that it would be interesting if we had another Christmas play, you know, besides A Christmas Carol. And the original Nutcracker story seemed like a fairly obvious choice,” he says. Because of the ballet, it’s “familiar to everyone.” But while ballet doesn’t figure in Andrucki’s play at all, the playwright has kept much from Hoffmann’s plot that was lost en route to the ballet. As he studied Hoffmann’s novella, Andrucki noticed elements that would translate well onto the stage as a play. He saw an opportunity to tell Hoffmann’s full story and a chance to add reflection on the way that the Christmas holidays are celebrated today. Hoffmann’s story is both darker and more complex than the ballet. As in the ballet, a girl is given a nutcracker by her aloof uncle Drosselmeier just before Christmas. At night, she sees the nutcracker come to life in her bedroom, but her family does not believe her.

Andrucki’s students will learn “how important it is to have a sense of stagecraft as part of your equipment as a writer.”

The next day, Drosselmeier tells her a story, “The Tale of the Hard Nut,” explaining the history of the mutual animosity between the evil Mouseking and the Nutcracker, who was once a man. Drosselmeier’s story gives Marie the chance to change the Nutcracker’s fate. In Andrucki’s version, Marie and her younger brother are children in 2015. Her brother asks for the latest video games for Christmas, and her mother and older sister bemoan the commercialization of the holiday season. In these scenes, the play is rooted in reality. Only when Drosselmeier tells the story of the nutcracker does the play enter, as Andrucki puts it, the period of “once upon a time.” The �ֲ��ý set and lighting will reflect the shifts in the play between modern reality and timeless fantasy. What audiences will experience “oscillates back and forth, just as the script does,” says Andrucki, “between things that are pretty realistic and things that are pretty fanciful.” Andrucki also directs this production. Directing his own work, he says, creates both challenges and opportunities. “I’m finding it a challenge to try and remain objective about my own work, like a director has to be,” he says.

Only when Drosselmeier tells the story of the nutcracker does the play enter the period of “once upon a time.”

However, his double role gives his students a firsthand glimpse into the ongoing nature of the writing and rewriting process. “They learn something about how a play evolves during production, and how someone who’s a playwright changes or revises the script in order to make it work onstage,” he says. “And how important it is to have a sense of stagecraft as part of your equipment as a writer.” The cast includes Keila Ching ’18 of Honolulu as Marie and Nate Stephenson ’18 of Ellsworth, Maine, as the Nutcracker; Amanda San Roman ’17 of Belle Terre, N.Y., as Marie’s younger brother Freddy, Audrey Burns ’17 of Topsham, Maine, as her older sister Louise, Brennen Malone ’17 of Philadelphia as her father, and Sam James ’17 of Raleigh, N.C., as the Mouseking; and Mara Woollard ’16 of Portsmouth, Va., as Marie’s mother and Colin McIntire ’16 of Darien, Conn., as Drosselmeier. Michael Reidy, senior lecturer and managing director of theater and dance, is the lighting and technical directory. Associate Professor of Theater Christine McDowell designed the costumes, and Judy Gailen created the play’s scenic design. Although the production includes no dancing, Andrucki says it aims to entertain audiences who are familiar with the classic ballet production. “The more you know about the Nutcracker,” he says, “the more I think you will see the contrasts and humorous parallels between the dance and the play.” Andrucki says the play is intended for audiences of all ages. “I hope people just have a good time watching this. I hope they find it’s fun, and I hope they get a new perspective on the whole Nutcracker phenomenon and maybe a fresh perspective on the whole Christmas experience.”

Andrucki directs Shakespeare’s early ‘Two Gentlemen of Verona’

�ֲ��ý News — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:56:39 +0000

Nikhil Krishna ’13 as Proteus hears a mouthful from a Sam Metzger ’14 as Valentine. Photographs by Phyllis Graber Jensen/�ֲ��ý College.

�ֲ��ý presents The Two Gentlemen of Verona, a romantic comedy considered by some to be Shakespeare’s first play, in performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, March 7-9; 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, March 9-10; and 7:30 p.m. Monday, March 11, in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Admission is $6, and $3 for seniors and students. Tickets are available at or by calling the box office at 207-786-6161.

The Two Gentlemen, believed to have been written in the early 1590s, “just captures the spirit of youthful energy,” says director Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater. “It’s a love story, a friendship story and a betrayal story.”

He says, “Audiences can expect a lively and fast-paced play, and one that’s sometimes very funny and sometimes moving.”

Silvia is played by Singha Hon ’14.

The storyline is driven by the romantic impulses of two young couples: Julia and Proteus, and Silvia and Valentine, who is Proteus’ best friend. The fickle Proteus and coy Julia stir up a colorful plot — involving cross-dressing, a scene-stealing dog and a band of woodland outlaws — that works out happily for all in the end.

The themes of romantic love and friendship found here are ones that Shakespeare would return to later in such works at Twelfth Night and As You Like It, says Andrucki.

“From my perspective as a student of Shakespeare and as a director, I’m finding it really informative to see how Shakespeare’s mind was cooking when he was still learning how to cook,” he says. “It gives me a deeper appreciation of his later work.”

Sixteen students will perform in the �ֲ��ý production. Portraying Proteus is Nikhil Krishna, a senior from Concord, Mass., who is performing as part of a senior thesis. Sam Metzger, a junior from Wellesley Hills, Mass., plays Valentine; Allie Freed, a first-year student from Magnolia, Mass., is Julia; and Silvia is played by Singha Hon, a junior from New York City.

The production features original music by Vonetta Trotter, a senior from New York City, who composed a setting for Shakespeare’s famous lyric “Who is Silvia?” Krishna will sing the piece.

Andrucki notes that his production is transposed to the late 1960s, an era marked by social upheaval that meshes with the setting of the play.

Wearing costumes designed by Carol Farrell, the cast takes a bow during a dress rehearsal.

Unlike other plays by Shakespeare, he adds, The Two Gentlemen meets college students where they are in terms of life experience and outlook.

“The characters are the same age as our students,” Andrucki says. “The kinds of emotional experiences they go through will be familiar to students — intense friendship, intense infatuation or love, and betrayal of friendship through love.

“So it’s all very accessible, and the actors can sink their teeth into it in a way that enables them to do justice to the play.”

Andrucki directs Broadway favorite Bus Stop

�ֲ��ý News — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 16:31:01 +0000

The production of William Inge’s “Bus Stop,” directed by Martin Andrucki, features a beautiful 1950s era set by Christine McDowell.

A small-town diner in Kansas on a snowy night becomes a hothouse for human relationships in the �ֲ��ý production of William Inge’s comic drama Bus Stop.

Directed by Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater, performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday and Monday, Nov. 3-5 and 7, and at 2 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 5 and 6, in Gannett Theater, Pettigrew Hall, 305 College St.

Admission is $6 for the general public and $3 for seniors and non-�ֲ��ý students. Tickets are available at www.batestickets.com. For more information, please call 207-786-6161.

A 1955 Broadway hit, Bus Stop depicts a group of bus passengers forced by weather to spend the night together in the diner.

Embellished with sexual or romantic currents among the other characters, the plot “is driven by the explosive relationship between Bo Decker, a swaggering cowboy, and Cherie, a small-time ‘chanteuse’ who resents his overbearing attempt to make her love him,” Andrucki says.

“Students in the show are learning a lot about American culture during the early and mid-1950s. And audiences will have an opportunity to observe and think about the dynamics in a variety of male-female relationships.”

Other characters include Gerald Lyman, a flirtatious retired professor; Elma Duckworth, a bright but naïve waitress; and Grace Hoylard, the wary, well-defended diner owner. She will be played by �ֲ��ý senior Jennifer Flanagan of Sherborn, Mass., as a component of her senior thesis in acting.

Bo Decker, a young rancher and cowboy played by Samuel Metzger ‘14, can’t let go of Cherie, a singer played be Devon Leaver ‘15 in William Inge’s “Bus Stop.”

The �ֲ��ý production design will reflect the play’s original era. Though the plot, too, is clearly based on American values of the 1950s, it appeals to contemporary audiences because it’s about the human need for love — a timeless concern. “Human nature is the same today as it was in 1950 or 1550,” says Andrucki, “especially when it comes to love and sexual attraction.”

Known as “the playwright of the Midwest,” Inge tended to populate his plays with isolated figures striving to make connection. Though rich in laughs, his plays are essentially dramas. Bus Stop was his fourth major play, preceded by the Pulitzer Prize-winning Picnic.

A film adaptation of Bus Stop, resembling the play only superficially, was released in 1956 featuring Marilyn Monroe in the role of Cherie.

Learned Ladies celebrates French culture, Schaeffer Theatre's 50th

Doug Hubley — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 21:53:03 +0000

The Learned Ladies, says director Martin Andrucki, is “a wonderful Molière play. It’s got all the Molière hallmarks — the wit, the elegance, both broad and refined humor.”

With intellectual pretension its theme, the play tells the story of two young lovers, Henriette and Clitandre, whose marriage is blocked by Henriette’s mother, aunt and sister. These would-be learned ladies, who embrace a bogus kind of “intellectuality,” have been captivated by Trissotin, a pseudo-scholar and mediocre poet. The ladies want Henriette to marry this fraud instead of the handsome and commonsensical Clitandre.

“It’s a good production for students because it’s about intellectual vanity, intellectual folly, true and false values,” says Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater at �ֲ��ý. “These are all issues that students wrestle with as they figure out what it means to be educated. It’s about finding intellectual balance.”

Andrucki has reset the play into the 1920s, an era with its own brand of intellectual absurdity. But, he adds, “the play is surprisingly modern in tone at times. One project that the ladies want to do is to create a body of forbidden words that may not be uttered because people may find them offensive.”

In the cast are three students whose performances form part of their senior thesis, a distinctive capstone experience in the �ֲ��ý education. Playing Henriette is Alina Volobuyeva, a senior from Kharkiv, Ukraine. Schuyler Rooth of New Orleans portrays Armande, the sister who is bent on keeping Henriette and Clitandre apart. Both are doing yearlong honors theses in theater.

For her one-semester senior thesis, Sarah Dice-Goldberg of Matawan, N.J. is designing costumes for the production, under the direction of Christine McDowell, assistant professor of theater.

Andrucki chose Molière to honor the 50th birthday of Schaeffer Theatre, home to most theater and dance productions at the college. The first piece presented in the 324-seat theater was also by that playwright: a December 1960 presentation of Tartuffe by the Robinson Players, the student theater company at �ֲ��ý.

Built as the Little Theatre in 1960, the space was renamed in 1972 to honor Lavinia Schaeffer. Retiring that year after 38 years on the �ֲ��ý faculty, Schaeffer was a moving force behind both the construction of the state-of-the-art venue and, more broadly, of the �ֲ��ý theater program as it stands today.

She was an advocate at �ֲ��ý of the “Little Theater” movement — “a movement to create smaller theaters that would be suitable environments for the serious and realistic plays that came along after Ibsen,” Andrucki explains. (Hence Schaeffer Theatre’s original name.)

“These were intimate spaces for probing psychological dramas,” he says, in contrast to the gaudier, more spectacular entertainments dominating commercial theater for much of the 20th century. “Lavinia was very much attuned to that spirit. That was the cutting edge of her generation.

“She wanted to be part of it and make �ֲ��ý part of it.”

Ethics and Public Policy Center

As �ֲ��ý marks Schaeffer Theatre's 50th, March plays look at French culture, U.S. sexual politics

Doug Hubley — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 19:21:20 +0000

March is a month for theater classics at �ֲ��ý College.

Elizabeth Castellano, a �ֲ��ý junior from New Suffolk, N.Y., directs the college’s production of David Mamet’s Oleanna, a highly charged story of sexual politics in the halls of academe. Performances take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday and Sunday, March 10 and 13, and at 2 p.m. Saturday, March 12, in Gannett Theater, 305 College St.

Meanwhile, the theater department honors French culture and marks the 50th anniversary of its mainstage venue, Schaeffer Theatre, with a production of Molière’s 1672 satire The Learned Ladies. Martin Andrucki, Dana Professor of Theater, directs. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, March 11-12 and March 18-19, and 2 p.m. Sundays, March 13 and 20. Schaeffer is also located at 305 College St.

Admission to Oleanna is free and first-come, first-seated. Tickets for The Learned Ladies are $6 for the general public and $3 for seniors and students, and are available at . For more information, please call 207-786-6161.

Schloss '12 directs dark comedy 'Fuddy Meers'

�ֲ��ý News — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 18:08:59 +0000

�ֲ��ý College junior Michelle Schloss directs Fuddy Meers, the story of an amnesiac who must learn the facts of her existence anew each day, in performances at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Oct. 15-16, and 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 17, in the Black Box Theater, Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Admission is free; there are no seat reservations. For more information, please visit or call 207-786-6161.

Fuddy Meers, a dark comedy by David Lindsay-Abaire, depicts a wild day in the life of Claire, who awakens each morning with her memory an empty slate. On the day of the action, she is whisked away into a tumultuous world where she encounters an array of eccentric characters and seeks to discover the truth about her life.

Fuddy Meers won raves in its debut at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 1999, sustaining a sold-out run. New York Observer reviewer John Heilpern called Lindsay-Abaire “some kind of comic genius.”

The play explores themes of communication, family dynamic and the construction of femininity. “The main theme is the struggle for communication. Every character has a block they can’t seem to get through to realize or to reveal their truth,” says Schloss.

“So we find out some characters aren’t who they say they are. And eventually Claire realizes the whole truth.”

Schloss, an English major and theater minor from Unionville, Conn., is directing the play as an independent study. She had no academic requirement to direct a play, but was so inspired by Lindsay-Abaire’s play that she proposed the project.

Part of her fondness for Fuddy Meers stems from what it offers Schloss as a director. “There’s so much to play with, and so much for me to write about and to think about,” she states. In the play’s comedic elements and its darker currents, her actors, too, find plenty to sink their teeth into.

Schloss has embraced the obstacles she has encountered. One complication is spatial: what to do with the limited space in the Black Box Theater, as the characters demand interesting and constant movement. “It’s really challenging to decide what kind of imaginative space you have and then to define that concretely in the beginning, and not take it too far.”

Schloss also faces a tight timetable. Due to construction in the theaters, she was given a month to bring the play to fruition. “It’s been a scramble,” she says, “It’s taken a lot of dedication.”

Schloss calls her adviser, Dana Professor of Theater Martin Andrucki, an essential force in the project, because he has kept her focused and the more absurd elements of the play in check.

The cast includes junior Nora Brouder, of Westminster, Mass., as Claire; sophomore Ethan Brooks-McDonald, of Schenectady, N.Y., as Richard; and sophomore Max Arnell, of Maplewood, N.J., as the Limping Man.

The production will be nominated in the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival.

— story and photograph by Elizabeth McKean ’12