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Tyler Cohn ’06 (Wantagh, N.Y.) spent the first semester of his senior year researching his honor’s thesis. He spent the second semester making the thesis come to life.
The English major is directing Lafayette College Theater’s spring production The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), which is running April 19-22 at 8 p.m. in the Williams Center for the Arts Black Box. There will be a brown bag preview April 17 at 12:10 p.m.
Tickets are $2 for students, $3 for faculty and staff, and $6 for the general public. For tickets, contact the box office at (610) 330-5009. Latecomers will not be seated.
The play crams Shakespeare’s 37 plays and 150 sonnets into 97 minutes of wackiness and frivolity. Audience members will see Othello rapped, Henry IV in a football game, and Hamlet done at the speed of sound. The play contains active audience participation, adult language and themes, and the possibility of the audience getting wet.
The cast is comprised of English and psychology majors Emily Becher ’06 (Loudonville, N.Y.) and Kevin Chysna ’06 (Northborough, Mass.), and Chris Jupitz ’08 (Grasonville, Md.). Engineering major Kyle Henning ’09 (Rochester, NY) is taking care of stage management duties.
“Creatively, [The Complete Works] is very easy for a director and his cast and crew to make their own,” Cohn says. “There is room for up-to-the-minute topical references, both on the larger scale of national pop culture and the smaller scale of the community where the play is being performed. I have worked to ensure that there are certain moments in the play that will particularly resonant for Lafayette students, in the hopes of more actively engaging them.”
Early last spring, Michael O’Neill, director of theater, and Suzanne Westfall, professor and head of English, approached Cohn about directing a College Theater production as an honors thesis project.
“I chose to direct The Complete Works for a number of reasons,” says Cohn. “For one, it is an incredibly well-crafted example of postmodern comedy. For another, I think its point about canonicity and its challenge of what is accepted as ‘great’ is an important one, particularly for an audience at a liberal arts college like Lafayette. Our education here is supposed to challenge us and expand our field of vision, to encourage us to ask those kinds of questions; but how often do we really let ourselves do that?”
As for conclusions Cohn has drawn from his research, he says that postmodern comedy, like The Complete Works, uses new and different styles to mold what already exists into something new.
“They are ironic, self-referential, and topical. One of the biggest points I’ve come across in my research is that ‘comedy is criticism,’” Cohn says. “The hidden aim of the show is not to defile Shakespeare’s reputation as a great playwright. Rather, it takes aim at the reverence and sanctity with which we view him. The Complete Works shows us that Shakespeare’s works are not untouchable, nor are they above our critical scrutiny.”
Cohn has acted and directed in College Theater and Marquis Player productions and won the Audience Award and Jury Prize for the documentary Searching for Irene, andthe Gilbert Prize for English during his sophomore year. He worked on the staffs of TheMarquis and The Lafayette, the campus newspaper. He is a member of Phi Alpha Theta, the national history honor society, and is president of the Arts Society. Cohn has also studied abroad in England, Ireland, Hawaii, and Australia. In addition, he served as a campus tour guide.
Cohn says he was very fortunate to have the opportunity to direct a major college production. “It is one of those opportunities that I feel only a school like Lafayette can offer.”
Honors theses are among several major programs that have made Lafayette a national leader in undergraduate research. The College sends one of the largest contingents to the National Conference on Undergraduate Research each year; 40 students were accepted to present their research at this year’s conference.