Quick!
Name the last time you saw a single production featuring the talents of the theater department, SHEBA, The Dartmouth Aires and the Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra.
If you're stumped, that's likely because it has never happened, according to Amanda Ameer '04. But that's what the theatrical director has managed to do in the Harlequins' production of the classic Stephen Schwartz musical "Pippin," whose one-night-only production plays in Spaulding Auditorium.
"I know musical theater is the only performing arts forum where you could have these groups of people all working alongside each other," Ameer said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "The nature of performing arts is interdisciplinary, and this is one of its most interdisciplinary forms."
The idea of tapping the talents of seemingly dissimilar campus performing groups was born when Ameer began to think about what she would do for the choreography in "Pippin."
Having choreographed last year's Harlequins production of "A Chorus Line" in addition to directing, she knew the strain of pulling that double duty. Additionally, she had the rather large soft shoes of Bob Fosse, the director and choreographer of the original 1972 Brodway production, to fill in taking on this show.
Upon analyzing the diverse styles of music Schwarz explores in the show's songs, Ameer decided to absorb the diverse styles of SHEBA (hip-hop), Ujima (traditional African), Fusion (jazz), Steppin' Out (tap) and Jump Start (swing) and assigned members from each group a different number to choreograph.
"It was great to get the different groups involved," said Ameer. "Even the dance groups didn't know some of the other dance groups existed, so they've gotten to see what else is out there."
From then on, people from all parts of the Dartmouth arts community started getting involved in the production.
Theater majors became part of the cast and crew, Dartmouth Symphony Orchestra members could be found in the pit and even student filmmakers put together video footage to be projected on Spaulding's giant screen in lieu of sets.
But while the enthusiasm from so many creative minds was a boon for Ameer, it also presented a challenge. "A lot of my time was spent just coordinating and getting everyone to have the same vision, so it didn't look scattered, even with over 50 people involved," she said.
Ameer said she hopes this production will give way to more musical theater at Dartmouth and more sponsorship from the theater department.
She said that the reason the theater department gave for its refusal to sponsor her production was, "We don't have the money, and we don't have the staff."
Ameer laments that this is the case. "It's really disappointing. At Dartmouth," she said, "I've found in the last three years that theater majors do the theater department, and musicians do the music department, and dancers do their dance groups. Performing arts should be nothing if not interdisciplinary."
But Ameer insists her main message is not to any potential string-pullers in Parkhurst Hall, but to her fellow Dartmouth students, especially the graduating Class of 2004.
She believes the play's story, in which a young man sets out to find his calling and does everything to excess, will hit home for seniors ready to strike out on their own. "Eventually they try to get Pippin to kill himself," Ameer explained, "and the Leading Player [the narrator character played by Matt Schwartz '06] turns to the audience and goes, 'We apologize that our extraordinary young man wasn't so extraordinary after all. But if any of you think you're extraordinary and want to try our grand finale, we'll be right here.'"
It's a chord that Ameer hopes will ring true not only off the walls of Spaulding, but also in the minds of her "extraordinary" Dartmouth peers.
