Gen­e­sians Per­form­ing Dur­ing Spring Break

Gen­e­sians, Bethel’s the­atre troupe, will be trav­el­ing dur­ing spring break to per­form shows to a va­ri­ety of au­di­ences. They are pre­sent­ing “Click, Clack, Moo” and “Ten Miles to Jeri­cho” to schools and churches lo­cally and be­yond.  

Matthew An­der­son is a mem­ber of the act­ing group. 

“It’s a com­pletely dif­fer­ent kind of the­atre ex­pe­ri­ence,” An­der­son said. “In­stead of per­form­ing here, you’re go­ing out and you have to ad­just to every dif­fer­ent en­vi­ron­ment that you go into.” 

With the di­verse en­vi­ron­ments they face, An­der­son said one of the biggest dif­fi­cul­ties is the fluc­tu­a­tion of stage size.  

“[We have to] fig­ure out how is it go­ing to work now,” An­der­son said. “You have dif­fer­ent size stages, you have to ad­just how your set is go­ing to look, just based on the stage you’re given.” 

The stage is just one of the chal­lenges they will face dur­ing spring break; they must also be able to think on the fly and ad­just to prob­lems as they come.  

With these chal­lenges, there is a level of flex­i­bil­ity the en­sem­ble nor­mal­izes for them­selves; ac­cord­ing to Anne Gar­rett, an ac­tress in the trav­el­ing troupe, they prac­tice be­ing flex­i­ble in the re­hearsals so they can then put that in ac­tion on the road.  

“There’s a lot more free­dom in it and we take more charge as ac­tors be­cause we are in dif­fer­ent spaces,” Gar­rett said. “We kind of have to make de­ci­sions for our­selves with what­ever area we have to at­tack at each per­for­mance.”  

An­der­son said that the group learns to im­pro­vise be­cause they must make de­ci­sions them­selves; they get to take charge of what­ever needs to be taken care of at any given mo­ment dur­ing the per­for­mance. They find a sense of ur­gency when it comes to per­for­mances be­cause they are re­spon­si­ble for what hap­pens on the stage, be­hind the stage and in the house of the per­for­mance. 

An­drew Cora has acted with Gen­e­sians in the past, but he has a new role this year: he is stage man­ag­ing the troupe. He will be con­tact­ing venues and sort­ing out prob­lems; he will be the go-to per­son when any­thing needs to be fig­ured out. 

Cora said he is ex­cited about his new re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. An­other thing he is ex­cited about is meet­ing new peo­ple when they travel. 

“We get to be some­one’s fam­ily for a night,” Cora said. “It’s a lot of fun.”  

The Gen­e­sians will cap off their spring break with a per­for­mance at Bethel Uni­ver­sity in the au­di­to­rium at the Ever­est-Rohrer build­ing. They will per­form “Click, Click, Moo” on Sat­ur­day, March 7, at 10 a.m. You can pur­chase tick­ets on­line at tick­ets.bethelu­ni­ver­sity.edu or in per­son at the ticket of­fice in the lobby of the Ever­est-Rohrer.