LIU Post players presenting ‘Trojan Barbie’

This month, the Post Theatre Company at LIU Post presents “Trojan Barbie” by Christine Evans, whose work has received multiple awards across the U.S, U.K, and Australia.
The show is directed by Illana Stein, a New York-based theatre director.
The cast includes Post students Emily Banks, Melissa Bianchi, Jaeda Blair, Torun Esmaeili, Griffin Lockette, Nyla Sampson, and Diamond Essence White as the Trojans and also Gabe Amato, Paul Bakey, Aaron Cooper, Justin Dickenson, Ethan Graeme Moore Dodd, Angela Downs, Ervin Gonzales, and Christina Kroell in various roles.
“It has been wonderful working on Trojan Barbie with this talented group of students,” Stein said. They’ve become a true ensemble as they embraced the world of the play.  In the rehearsal room they have explored mask compositions, built character collages, rhythm and tableaux work. Hopefully it will all pay off in the performances they put up.” She added, “My favorite part has been the conversation in the first days of table work as we dug deeper into the themes of the play of war, gender identity, female empowerment, and rising above the constraints that society can put on people.  It is a complex play, and I’m proud of these students for rising to the challenge.”
“What I love about Trojan Barbie is a world that marries the old and the new, or in our design how we fully embraced the plastic and the stone,” Stein said.
“Trojan Barbie is inspired by the Greek tragedy “Trojan Women” by Euripides.  It represents the refugees, the voiceless, and the women who are victims to war. The hope is that the women have each other to hold on to.  
For these women in the play, Lotte, one of the characters, bares witnesses to it all and is there to bury the dead and carry on their stories so they are no longer forgotten.”     
Angela Downs, a senior musical theatre major at LIU Post, said, “Every experience is different. Seeing the trajectory of the production is one of my favorite things. To think back on table work, and talking as a cast about the meaning of the play and its bare bones, to finally dressing it with movement and space, and then costumes, sounds, and lights. Each layer puts you deeper in the world and encourages your character to come to life. It’s exhausting spending 24 hours a week in the studio and hours and hours doing outside work on your own, but it is the most rewarding and thrilling experience.”
Downs spoke about the excitement of opening night.
“Opening nights are always thrilling. You can feel the energy from the audience get stronger as more people come in,” she said. “The sound from the people talking is a very specific sound and it’s almost calming to me, but yet lights a fire that can’t exist is rehearsals or tech runs. Our company is also extraordinarily supportive and we can count on a full house and a safe audience. My hope for opening night is for the cast to come together as an ensemble like we haven’t before, and to allow ourselves to play and have fun and find new moments on stage. This is our job, and to be part of theater in any way makes me feel extraordinarily lucky.”
The play incorporates aspects of Greek mythology, which may be confusing to the audience if they have no prior knowledge of the Greek mythology and related events in its history. It may be difficult to understand why certain characters behave the way they do and why they have a certain intensity. Yet, the play offers a good sense of humor among the intense moments and makes it easy to follow the events.
The last date of the play in the LIU Post Little Theatre Mainstage  is Oct. 15 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15 general admission, $12 for seniors, and $10 for students. Tickets can be purchased at the Little Theatre box office. For more information, call 516-229-2356 or email post-ptc@liu.edu.
This article was originally published in the Pioneer, LIU Post’s award-winning student newspaper that is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2016, www.liupostpioneer.com. The article is republished by Blank Slate Media with the permission of the Pioneer