KINGSTON, R.I. – April 4, 2024 – Several University of Rhode Island students have been busy this spring preparing for an important upcoming performance. On Sunday, April 7,  “A Day In The Garden,” written by pharmacy graduate student Alex Linn, will be performed  at 7:30 p.m. in the Fine Arts Center’s Will Theatre. The play is free and open to the public. 

Aaron Adams, a sophomore theater major with a double concentration in stage design and stage management, will make his directorial debut with the production. Adams was assistant stage manager for URI Theatre’s “Into the Woods” and “Marie Antoinette,” and has that role in  the upcoming “Little Shop of Horrors.” He designed the video projections used to tell the story of “Speech and Debate,” and was the student master electrician in the more recent production of William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”

“Producing a show with [The Student-Led Theater Collective] is always a lot of fun,” says Adams. “Everyone always puts everything they can into it, and it creates this really wonderful product that has been so fun to pull together.” 

Co-director Tatiana Sullivan is a sophomore theatre major with acting, directing and management concentrations. She will play Linn’s character Winona in the production. The lead roles of Andrew, Emma and Lilith will be  played by junior Joseph Fortier, a double major in film media and criminology and criminal justice; Sydney Nogueira, a sophomore theatre major with concentrations in acting and management concentration; and first-year student Eva St-Germain, a theatre major with an acting concentration.. 

Sullivan says that, while she has yet to take any directing courses because that part of the theater curriculum doesn’t come until later, “getting my hands on a directing experience has been really special for me.”

Adams’ and Sullivan’s responsibilities include blocking for the show, which means determining staging and giving locational cues to the actors, providing notes on acting choices such as characterization, line delivery, and adapting the written script as necessary. 

“We have to turn a paper script into a real, living, entertaining show,” Sullivan says. “I think we succeeded.” 

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This story was written by Samantha Melia, a senior journalism and political science major at the University of Rhode Island and an intern in the Department of Marketing and Communications.