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Pair of professional actors share stage, knowledge with USI theatre students in Pygmalion

February 13, 2019

Joining Forces

As a steady rain falls outside USI's Performance Center, Ron Keaton stands ready in the theatre's wings, umbrella in hand. He's waiting for his cue during tech rehearsal of Bernard Shaw's classic, Pygmalion, moments away from entering stage right and experiencing a chance encounter that will set an unlikely and incredible transformation into motion.

Keaton (Colonel Pickering) knows the plot well-and not just because he's been rehearsing five hours a day for the past five weeks. The 64-year-old has landed a major role in Pygmalion or its musical adaptation, My Fair Lady, five times. "It's a wonderful piece of work," Keaton says. "It's probably the best play Shaw ever wrote."

Keaton, who is based in Chicago and has performed on both coasts and throughout the Midwest, is one of two professional actors sharing the stage with students in this USI/New Harmony Theatre co-production. His cohort is Bryan Vickery (Henry Higgins), a West Coast trained actor now living in New York who slips out of his proper English accent to explain how much he's enjoyed working with the student cast. "It's been great to watch these kids," Vickery says. "They have so much energy, and they bring so much to the work. This really is a job, and they are training to be professional actors."

Learning on stage and off

Long before they were impressing Vickery and Keaton with their talent and enthusiasm, Ashtyn Cornett (Eliza Doolittle) '19 and Otto Mullins (Alfred Doolittle) '20 were worrying about acting alongside them. "It puts so much pressure on you to be at this higher standard than you've ever been before," says Cornett. "It's such a challenge," adds Mullins. "They're so talented that it really forces all of us to rise up on stage and try and meet them, and I think that's made the show a lot better."

"They always say acting is reacting," offers Elliot Wasserman, Pygmalion director and chair of USI's Performing Arts Department. "When you have a really skilled actor who's got a lot of training and a lot of experience making some sophisticated performance choices, and you're a student and you're watching that-you're being given a whole lot of opportunity to react."

But there have also been plenty of teaching moments off stage. Keaton says students come to him for advice "about the role they're doing" and "about professional opportunity down the road" almost every day. He loves it. "That's why I'm here. Yeah, I need the job, just like any actor would like the job," he says, "but if they don't come to me, I have not left myself open enough for them to do so. So that's my responsibility." Vickery has also found the experience rewarding. "I think it's great for the kids, and it's great for me, too, because I'm learning… more about myself as a person and as an actor."

Cornett and Mullins can't help but gush about their "extremely supportive" professional co-stars. "We're so lucky to have this opportunity," says Cornett, who spends much of the production on stage with both men. "I've already learned so much from both of them."

"I couldn't have imagined better people to work with," adds Mullins, who plans to move to New York after graduation next year to pursue acting. "The information that they have has been incredible and invaluable. We've built a personal connection with them," he says. "We have this working relationship that we would have never been able to have before."

On Display

Those bonds, developed since the start of the spring semester, will be on display during four performances of Pygmalion, February 14-17, in USI's Performance Center, a venue Keaton and Vickery compliment as "luxurious" and "state of the art." Adds Keaton, "If every theatre I worked in was like this, I'd be in heaven."

"We've done some really strong theatre. I think we've had one of our best years ever, but this is an extraordinarily challenging play requiring a really specific skillset," Wasserman says. The difficulty, particularly involving the varied dialects in the production, is part of the reason he's never before tackled Pygmalion in his 28 years of teaching and directing at USI. But now, he, and his cast, are ready.

"Our audiences, when they come and hear Bryan Vickery open his mouth to speak, they're going to hear a voice that will have the ability to, I think, not just impress them, but in some instances, in certain moments, thrill them," reveals Wasserman.

The Takeaway

Entertainment aside, the audience will also learn an important lesson that still applies more than 100 years after the curtain first rose on Pygmalion. "I love the story of this show," says Cornett. "It is relevant to everybody."

"I think that is the most interesting thing and the most applicable thing anybody on campus could gain from this show-the consequences of judgement and making assumptions and what actually happens when you do that," Mullins explains.

So, whether you go for the message, the high level of professionalism or to support a student or faculty member - go.

"Even though people don't think that we see people in the audience, we do," Mullins says. "It means a lot." 

Every seat that's filled builds energy and confidence. And that can make all the difference for an actor at any age.

Pygmalion: When to Go

See a list of upcoming USI and New Harmony Theatre productions

Take a behind-the-scenes tour of the Pygmalion set being created

Watch this video to learn more about the show and cast members Ashtyn Cornett and Otto Mullins

Hear more from Ron Keaton and Bryan Vickery in this video

Check back with USI Today on Friday, February 15 for an inside look at "Life as an Understudy," a profile on female understudy Perci Hale, a first-year theatre student from Montgomery, Alabama.

         

        

Top left: Ashtyn Cornett (Eliza Doolittle), Paige Murray (Mrs. Pearce) and Ronald Keaton* (Colonel Pickering)
Top right: Ronald Keaton* (Colonel Pickering)
Bottom left: Bryan Vickery* (Henry Higgins)
Bottom right: Ashtyn Cornett (Eliza Doolittle), Kaitlyn Kearschner (Clara Eynsford Hill)

*indicates member of Actors' Equity Association

Photo credit: Maya Michele Fein, lighting professor/designer

 

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