Creighton University - Bluejay Yearbook (Omaha, NE)

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Creighton has a commitment to developing values consciousness on the part of its students. In accordance with this Jesuit tradition, the Creighton Theatre program seeks to present plays which explore questions of value. This concern was a major reason for the inclu- sion of Lanford Wilson ' s 1983 play Angels Fall in our 1987-88 season. Angels Fall deals with a number of im- portant questions, including: in the face of a world which appears heading for apocalypse, what manner of persons ought we to be? What are the roles of teachers, preachers and parents? What does it mean to have vocation, or calling? What kind of legacies do we want to leave to future generations? It has been a real joy working with the cast on this show. They are all talented and dedicated performers, and they work well together-which is essential, since Angels Fall is an ensemble show. The play is an investigation of character and relationships, as each character learns from the others when they are all forced together in a crisis situation (because of a nuclear-related accident). We have work- ed with images of the angel and the fallen angel in forcing each other to confront personal issues and to grow as human beings. Angels Fall is a play about us-real human beings living in the contemporary world--and Lanford Wilson views us honestly but with com- passion and humor. To help the per- formers develop the full humanity of their characters, we have done a number of ex- ercises, including first-person character biographies (the character telling us about his her life and answering questions in character) and inner monologue (the character speaking aloud his her thoughts). I have also been working on Angels Fall in another context--in a workshop performance that I co-directed for a Kellogg Fellowship Forum on the future of education. I have a firm convic- tion that theatrical experiences are active learning experiences for both audiences and performers, and to extend those ex- periences, I have arranged a series of post- performance discussions in cooperation with the Creighton Center for Peace and Justice. Directing is always a learning ex- perience for me, as well. Each show teaches me something different. Perhaps Angels Fall has been a lesson for me, too, in coming to terms with the angel and fallen angel in myself. ' Angels Fair . Judson Jones, Amy Harmon, Brian play the main characters in the CU pro- Kokensparger, S.J., and Bill Van Deest duction of Angels Fall Zappy (Judson Jones) explains why he became a tennis player Vita and Don play a suspecting Zappy 26

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The cast watches intently as Zappy (Judson Jones) runs toward Marian

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joke on the un- Father Dougherty uses his pious charm in an attempt to convince Don to practice medicine 27