College to Stage ‘The Glass Menagerie’

02/19/2015 

SUNY Cortland students will portray the emotionally frail Wingfield family in the Tennessee Williams classic American drama “The Glass Menagerie” for three evening performances and one matinee production starting on Thursday, Feb. 19, at the College’s Dowd Fine Arts Center.

Directed by Mark Reynolds, instructional support assistant, “The Glass Menagerie” will be offered at 8 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 19, Friday, Feb. 20 and Saturday, Feb. 21; and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 22.

All performances take place in the Dowd Fine Arts Center Lab Theatre.

Tickets are $6 for all students and $10 for general admission and may be purchased at the door.

“The Glass Menagerie” was the first success for one of America’s most celebrated playwrights. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award in 1945 and became one of the most produced plays in the world.

“It has been my dream to direct this play since I was a stage hand for it as an apprentice at Cortland Repertory Theatre in 1984,” Reynolds said. “Tom’s spirit lives inside me. The story is so relatable to our own lives. At some point we all leave our family home to pursue the American dream.”

The SUNY Cortland production of the Tennessee Williams classic has four scheduled performances from Feb. 19 to 22.

Williams coined the phrase “memory play,” and this production explores the memory of a time in Tom Wingfield’s life that fueled him to become a writer, Reynolds said. 

“It is a story of a fragile family on the verge of something,” Reynolds said. “ Is that ‘something' the hope for the future? Is that ‘something’ the ultimate destruction of an already fragile family?”

“The Glass Menagerie” comes to the SUNY Cortland stage for the fourth time, according to Thomas Hischak, professor of theatre. He directed it in 1990 in the same space. Two earlier productions in the 1960s and 1970s both were directed by the late Morris Bogard, SUNY Cortland associate vice president for academic affairs emeritus.

The play was cast last September and rehearsals have progressed since October, the director said.

“It is an intricate piece that needed major amounts of time and effort on the student actors’ parts,” Reynolds said. “ The challenge has been met and I could not be prouder of what they have accomplished.”

The Lab Theatre was configured in what Reynolds described as a “thrust” set up, with the audience on three sides of the stage.

“It creates a very intimate setting for the audience as well as the actors,” Reynolds said. “ There are only 76 seats.”

The cast includes: Benjamin Shimkus as Tom Wingfield, Allison Tamburello as Amanda Wingfield, Camille Parlman as Laura Wingfield and Andrew Curacco as Jim O’Connor.

Taylorann Flurschutz is stage manager, Hailey Berkowitz is assistant director, Joey Gugliemelli is student costume designer, and Kevin Rayo, Samantha Chiodo and Maggie Brennan are dramaturgists.

The production’s instagram page is @cstate.the.glass.menagerie. For more information, visit the Performing Arts Department website or call 607-753-2811.