The Tompkins Theatre Company has recently unveiled a new play to the public, Nevermore. Nevermore is a play based on the 1800s American author and poet, Edgar Allan Poe. As for all plays, it takes months of dedication and hard work to create and produce, which often goes unnoticed.
Unlike Tompkins Theatre Company’s past productions, Nevermore carries a darker tone. Many agree on the central theme of misery and self-reflection reflected within Poe’s work.
“I think, in my opinion, every time I see it, Poe’s just really conflicted with himself, and I think it has different themes. It’s about grief, love, and loss, and how it makes sense with what you’ve done with your life. I think those are the big themes of the show” junior, Sofia Bizzotto, said.
Although to uncover the theme of any play, there’s always the creative process that starts months before.
“One day, our first week of rehearsal we sat together with the crew and we just said, “everybody look up inspiration for all of these characters”, and we spent a whole two hours just sending pictures to each other and getting a whole kind of mood board because it’s a more dark and gloomy thing and we wanted everything to be historically accurate,” Bizzotto said.
Any play takes an absurd amount of time to produce, yet that timing can be enjoyable instead of tiresome.
“There was a lot of work to do, sure, but it was such an enjoyable process, and the fact that I was working with people I’m close with made it not difficult.” Junior Nikhila Chunduri said.
While the 80 cast members brought the characters to life, the crew handled everything from lights to sound, staying after school until 6 p.m., working diligently.
“Every single person in the crew and cast works so hard I can’t even put it into words. It’s genuinely such a good production put together in a short amount of time. It’s amazing, and we put so many hours and so much work” Bizzotto said.
Bringing Nevermore to light was not an overnight task, but a two-month-long project. Between every brutal practice, costume adjustment, and line rehearsed, our TTC deserves to be applauded for their work.
