Lights, camera, dancing!
This past weekend, the student-run theatre company Bare Bones put on the musical “Footloose” in Studley Theatre. Two different casts, Cast A and Cast B, performed; the first took the stage on Friday and the latter on Sunday.
Directors and founders Meg Rosenberg and Noreen Healy started the show by welcoming the packed audience to Cast B’s performance. According to the multi-talented sophomores, Bare Bones is a production company for non-theatre majors.
“It’s for people who love theatre and want to be heard and seen,” Rosenberg said.
Healy then added, “We give the spotlight to anyone who wants it.”
According to Rosenberg, the name stems from the fact that they only do the “Bare Bones” of a show, which consists of singing, acting and dancing. They don’t use props, costumes or a set; the actors themselves are the entertainment.
The show began with a bang as the mid-day sunlight filtered in through the towering windows of the auditorium. The light poured onto the stage bathing it in a luminescent glow as the cast belted out their opening ballad, “Footloose.” They stood there all dressed in black except for the brightly colored scarves that the girls donned and the various colored bandanas that the boys had fixed around their necks or biceps.
Each multi-colored garment correlated with the different characters. For instance, the main characters Ariel and Ren could always be spotted based on Ariel’s red scarf and Ren’s blue bandana.
This made it a little easier on the witnesses of this gyrating spectacle when the cast continuously transformed seamlessly from character to character throughout the show.
Third-year communication disorders major Victoria Calandriello, a novice to the limelight, acted in the production at one point or another as both Urleen and Wendy Jo, Ariel’s best friends.
“I gained theatrical experience, I learned that I love choreography and I learned what it’s like to work with a team and make a production happen,” she said.
A truly mesmerizing moment of the show consisted of the two leads standing on wooden boxes painted black during the song, “Almost Paradise.” The pair locked eyes and appeared to be singing into the other’s soul, while a duo in the background wearing the same colors as the leads silently glided across the dance floor in grand sweeping motions.
The audience sat transfixed in their seats as they watched the moving scene unfold before their eyes and end in a kiss.
When the show came to a close, the crowd erupted in applause and the cast stood in a line bowing until they couldn’t stand still any longer. They then proceeded to do what they do best, dance around the polished stage floor.
Meg Reilly, a third-year elementary education major attended the event and while at first she thought the changing characters would confuse her, she ultimately found this not to be the case.
“I’ve never been to a Bare Bones production before, but I’d definitely go to another one,” Reilly said. “This was fun.”