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What Fall looks like for the Dexter Drama Club
By: Nate Borel
Fall for Dexter Drama Club means big things: the long-awaited return of plays, musicals and other DDC events. Students are returning to the theater after four months of waiting since their last show ended. This beginning of a new season is a special time in the club. New members don’t know what to expect, but seasoned veterans are ready to welcome them. Both groups and everybody involved feel excited.
This year, DDC kicked off with a production of Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, directed by David Moan, a resident member of the directing staff at DDC and also coach of the club’s improv division: Off-Q Improv. The improv group functions as a part of DDC, but puts on their own shows and is open to anybody who is interested, with no experience necessary. Some of Moan’s previous credit with DDC include directing Romeo & Juliet and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This show, however, is a different experience for the cast, crew and audience. This show features a small cast, which is a sharp contrast to the large-scale shows DDC often creates.
This show is a little more streamlined, where it’s more about telling the story than showing the spectacle of it…there’s not all of these lighting effects and big dance sequences” Moan said. He says it’s “really up to us” to keep people engaged and to tell a compelling story, “It’s about what they’re saying and how they’re say-
ing it to each other.”
The show itself is about a murder taking place on the Orient Express, a famous European train. With that in mind, Moan has coached actors to “be aware of how we are
delivering information to the audience,” so that nobody knows who committed the crime until the very end. The setting being the world-renowned train also presents challenges for the actors, both veterans and new members alike. This show heavily features accents, and every character has a different european nationality.“It’s almost like performing in a foreign language,” Moan said.
The set design for this show also incorporates new ideas for the club. Moan came into this production with the idea that the set should feel claustrophobic, like a train does in real life. It isn’t a grandiose structure with multiple levels, because the focus is on how these characters interact within the confines of one small train. The set design is not using the full stage for a massive battle scene or fantastical forest like in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but rather small rooms and narrow compartments. In Moan’s opinion, it’s “more like Shakespeare” than his previous show LWW because “theater is just story-telling,” and “we can strip back theater to just storytelling and a little bit of physicality” like it has been performed for centuries. Despite this “confined” design, the set that has been constructed is still intricate
and inviting to the audience. The rooms are ornate and filled with character, thanks to DDC’s set designer and Booster President Jennifer Moraschinelli. Along with a beautiful set, the club also is using lighting and sound design to bring this story to life. DDC is director-overseen but student-led in the tech department, with lights, sound, costumes, hair, makeup, and props all being designed and put on stage by students themselves.
“Being able to tell a story this intricately, from a technical standpoint, is pretty fantastic,” said Moan about the club students’ tech capabilities.
Murder on the Orient Express opened on Thursday, October 26 and closed after four performances on Sunday, October 29.
On the horizon, just past Murder on the Orient Express, sits a unique Dexter Drama yearly production: the “3D” series. Standing for “Dexter Drama Directed,” “3D” is an opportunity for students to direct their own plays. Some choose to write, others choose to execute their own vision of a classic piece, but either way they are making a show of their own.
3D is presented as two sets of shows, performed two days each. Thursday, November 16 is opening night for Free Penguin, written and directed by Alec Althoen; Bloodbag, written and directed by Juno Bursch; Knights of Salvation, written and directed by Noah Wiseman; and The Tribunal Zone, written and directed by Spencer Collin. This set of shows will also be performed Saturday, November 18. 3D’s second set of shows consists of two shows opening on Friday, November 17: Thorns, written, directed, and composed by Maria Demerell; and Almost, Maine, written by John Cariani, directed by Ella Smith and Kate Rossow. These shows will also be performed on Sunday, November 19. For more information, visit the dexter drama website at www.dexterdrama.org.
