Cubiculo Hosts Tony-winning Play

Dalton Matz ’16 and Sam Neagley ’14 starred in RED, directed by Laura Colleluori ’14, at the Cubiculo on High Street over the weekend of Feb. 14-16.

“And then art happened. You couldn’t help it. It’s what you do.”

Dalton Maltz ’16, in the role of Mark Rothko’s assistant, left the audience with this sentiment in the closing of this past weekend’sa performance of RED at the Cubiculo on High Street.

RED, a Tony Award winning play written by John Logan, was directed by Laura Colleluori ’14 and starred Sam Neagley ’14 as a part of the Theatre and Dance Department and Mermaid Players’ Senior Projects series. The show ran three times over the weekend of Feb. 14 – 16 at the Cubiculo on High Street.

Colleluori and Neagley have been working on the play together for several months, and it functions as a capstone project for their Theatre Arts majors.

“We’ve both been working hard to make the whole show dynamic and engaging, and I think we’ve managed to create something pretty special,” said Colleluori. “Working with Sam has been absolutely wonderful. It’s been a lot more of a collaborative director/actor relationship than I think people usually expect.”

RED is the story of American Abstract Expressionist artist, Mark Rothko, played by Neagley, and his assistant Ken, played by Maltz, working on a set of murals for the Four Seasons Restaurant in New York City in the 1950’s. The play traces the artistic relationship between Rothko and Ken over a period of two years.

“The actors and director did an amazing job recreating this mentor relationship,” said Alice Ashton ’14 of the Friday Feb. 14 performance. “The portrayal was charged with authentic emotion; I was hanging on every word and moment of silence.”

The play also follows Rothko through a series of realizations about variable definitions of art, and about his own wavering position in the art world. Neagley saw Rothko as a complex and fascinating role.

“It has been a truly enjoyable experience,” said Neagley of his role. “I find him incredibly pretentious, extraordinarily intelligent and deeply tragic. He’s the kind of person we all want to emulate on some romantic level but we rarely have the discipline or arrogance to do so.”

Every scene in the play takes place in Mark Rothko’s studio at 222 Bowery in New York City. The stage crew, led by Sara Hoffman ’14, recreated this setting using mid-century props, such as record players, antique shelving and simple wooden easels. The costume crew, headed by Sherry Harper-McCombs, associate professor of Theatre and Dance, outfitted Neagley and Maltz in mid-century attire and helped transform Neagley into the sixty-year old, slightly overweight Rothko.

The Mermaid Players offer several opportunities for students to have the same kind of directing or acting experience Colleluori, Neagley and Maltz had with RED throughout any given semester. Events and workshops, such as the Ten Minute Plays, 24-Hour Plays, Freshman Plays and Lab Shows, keep the theatre arts vibrant and active at Dickinson. For more information about the group, contact Sydney Moffat ’14, Mermaid Players president at [email protected].