Ithaca College

Directed by Claire Gleitman (Professor, English) and assistant directed and choreographed by Jordy Diaz (student, Theatre), TWELFTH NIGHT will feature a cast of faculty members (Chris Holmes, English; Chrystyna Dail, Theatre), students (Fiorella Fernandez, Maddie Stengel, Will Champion, Anastasia Remoundos, Adrian Abel Amador, Patrick Maruffi, Dhruv Iyengar, Conor Shatto, Tate Tran, Elias Husiak and Caleb Robbins) and a returning Ithaca College alumnus (John D’Arcangelo), who will reprise the role of Sir Toby Belch, which he performed on the IC stage 20 years ago. The reading was stage-managed by Isobel Duncan (student, Theatre) and its dramaturg is Eliana Hood (student, English).

TWELFTH NIGHT, whose sub-title is “What You Will,” explores the fanciful idea that a person can be whatever she or he ‘wills,’ merrily impervious to the socially constructed imperatives that structure so many aspects of a human being’s life. The gleeful fluidity of selfhood, class, sexual identity and desire that the play unleashes is rendered possible, its main title suggests, by the Twelfth Night holiday, though it is never referred to within the pages of the play. Twelfth Night takes place 12 days after Christmas and, in Shakespeare’s day, was celebrated with a liberating suspension of the rules governing social life. Thus, the play occurs within a temporary atmosphere of license that grants its characters the freedom to reveal what is ordinarily concealed. For a brief and magical period of time, love is permitted to take whatever form it wishes, and characters are set loose to transgress the usual, strictly policed boundaries of both heteronormativity and class. The result is much giddy experimentation, numerous comical misunderstandings, and, for some characters, at least a twinge of regret when "order" in the end is restored.