The Rover (ReFrame)

Part I, April 18, 2020

The live broadcast of The Rover (ReFrame) reading, adapted and directed by Prof. Maya E. Roth, took place on Saturday, April 18, 2020 on YouTube. Set during Carnevale amid the Silk Road’s crossings, Roth’s interpretation of Aphra Behn’s witty 17th-century play about English cavaliers, Spanish nobility, and Italian courtesans featured the hard work of around 20 students and alumni. The online broadcast cleverly hinted at the s/wordplay, masquerade, and physical theater that were central to the staging of the originally planned full production, scheduled for the Davis Performing Arts Center’s Gonda Theatre March 26-April 4, sharing glimpses of the world they had created together. View the reading performance directly below, and also view additional content on the YouTube channel.

Part II, May 2, 2020

In addition to extensive work on the live reading broadcast on YouTube, some students also completed for academic credit projects related to Prof. Roth’s adaptation of The Rover, including Letters from Quarantine.

Letters from Quarantine was conceived both as a creative response to the abrupt circumstances of social distancing and a way to actively preserve the design element of the show. At the beginning of 2020, Ryan Davis (C’21) began designing and creating masks for Maya E. Roth’s adaptation of Aphra Behn’s The Rover. With the onset of the pandemic, the production never made it to the stage but Davis re-envisioned his mask-making work through Letters from Quarantine, a conceptual photo series inspired by written letters from the cast, and featuring the masks he designed in conversation with Kelsey Hunt’s costume designs. Davis asked each cast member to write a letter from quarantine or create a quarantine task list as their character, informed by both the play and their own socially distanced circumstances. The content of these writings served as the inspiration for a staged photograph of each mask, all of which were shot in locations created in and around his own home. View the full photo series and letters.

The Rover (ReFrame) Part II will include additional web projects and an installation of design elements in the Davis Performing Arts Center main lobby, when the building reopens.