In Too Deep: Staying Afloat While We Rock the Boat

Abstract

This performance was created as part of the Ursinus College Theater Capstone course (THEA 400: The Living Newspaper). The Living Newspaper was a part of the Federal Theater Project (FTP), which was a government-funded theater program that began in 1935. FTP productions included a wide range of genres such as Drama, Shakespeare, and original plays and adaptations. However, the Living Newspaper unit of the FTP was a new kind of theater in the U.S. These productions took issues of the time that would be found in paper headlines and brought them to life onstage in a meaningful way. The goal of these productions was for the audience to leave the theater and reflect on what they saw and inspire change. Our Capstone class has been studying The Living Newspaper and the FTP all semester, and in our own Living Newspaper, we have employed key aspects of historical Living Newspapers such as The Voice of The Living Newspaper, the everyman character, and the use of projections. We also used a show structure similar to that of several original Living Newspapers when writing and planning out this show, which focuses on rising sea levels and other changes brought about by the climate change crisis