By: Lindsay Martin | Staff Writer
After a trying last few years in Salve Regina’s theatre department, we finally have a new theatre professor and director. Mosaic’s Faculty Spotlight for the month of October is Tara Brooke Watkins, a woman who is no stranger to the world of theatre. Signature bandana in her hair, she sat down with me on a Saturday morning in her cozy office, which she describes as “theatrical and yet homey.” Vintage couches and chairs adorn the space, while playbills hang on clothespin lines from the ceiling, and a clock with pictures from Broadway shows ticks on the wall. Any theatre person would feel right at home here.
Originally from Oklahoma, Tara started professional theatre when she was just twelve years old. At fifteen, she watched a performance by four- and five-year-olds and thought to herself, “They could do so much more.” She approached the director and bravely asked if she could teach them instead, and the rest is history. Now, several years later as a college theatre instructor, she continues to believe that every student actor can be exceptional if they are given the skills necessary to get there.
“I feel like my entire life is theatre,” she said. “I’ve loved every part of it. To choose to focus on just one aspect is very hard for me.” She she soon realized that she didn’t have to choose: “I’m just going to do it all until I can’t.” Indeed, Tara wears many hats in the theatre business: acting, teaching, directing, and playwrighting, to name just a few.
“How can theatre be an act of mercy? How can theatre step into people’s lives and help them feel less alone?”
She received her master’s in theatre education from Emerson College in 2013 and her Ph.D. in theatre and performance studies from Tufts University earlier this year. Along with establishing a children’s theatre company nearly twelve years ago, she is also the president of a social justice theatre company, and she herself has written three plays, one of which has been touring throughout the United States and Canada for the last few years.
She is certainly accomplished in the art of theatre, to say the least. So, when I asked her what brought her to Newport and Salve, she said she “knew” that this was where she was supposed to be after reading our Mercy Mission: “It’s everything I believe in.”
Tara often asks herself, “How can theatre be an act of mercy? How can theatre step into people’s lives and help them feel less alone?” She said that her own mission, which aligns perfectly with Salve’s, is to “help people feel less alone in the world.”
As theatre director at Salve, one way Tara hopes to accomplish this is by diversifying the theatre curriculum. There are great works of theatre from all over the world, she said, from Asia, Africa, Brazil: “I want to make sure our students are learning the art of performance and theatre from all of these cultures. I have and continue to work hard toward racial justice,” she promised, “and I know the ongoing work has to be in my own education.”
She continues to have the tough—yet important—conversations. She recognizes that she is a white woman at a predominantly white university in a predominantly white geographical region, but as she pointed to a poster of Black acting theorists hanging next to her desk, she said: “I respect this. You’re going to learn from people of color as well.”
In terms of Mainstage Theatre here at Salve, Tara and a cast of eighteen talented Seahawks are already deep in the rehearsal process for this fall’s production of Spoon River Anthology. But the performance format of this show is rather nontraditional.
Tara explained that the play is based off of poetry by Edgar Lee Masters: “every character in the show is dead,” and they are “coming back from the grave to share something: how they died, what they went through in life, a secret they never shared with someone, accusing someone of murdering them.”
What makes this show unconventional is that it will be performed in the style of outdoor immersive theatre on Gerety Lawn. There will be three clusters of actors in three different settings: a home interior, a schoolyard, and a brothel. Upon arrival, audience members will be put into groups to see the show in a different order, so that “everyone will have the same experience, but also a different experience.”
When I asked her why she chose to perform this play in this manner, she said that it is important to her to be able to “bring people together during this time of isolation through the art form that has always been known” to do so. Indeed, the dark theaters all throughout the world over the last year-and-a-half has been heartbreaking for theatre personnel and theatre-goers alike. Because of this, Tara wanted the show to be “open to everybody.” It’s all about “trying to connect to the community,” she said.
“If we could care for people like they’re art pieces…”
One of the times she was “most moved, empowered, [and] inspired” while watching a show was several years ago in New York City at a performance of the one-woman play, The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe. At the end of the play, the character Trudy takes a group of aliens to see a show. Only after this show is over does she realize that the aliens had been watching the audience instead of the actors the whole time.
The aliens’ reasoning? The play may be reality, but the audience, their reactions, and everything else around them is the true art.
“That moment, I’ve never forgotten,” Tara says. “If we could care for people like they’re art pieces…” She couldn’t find the words to finish her sentence, but anybody who has ever loved theatre knows how to fill-in-the-blank. Theatre is powerful.
At the end of our interview, I asked Tara if there was anything final that she wanted to share. She offered, “Theatre is more than a major, and it’s more than just doing shows. It’s responding to people’s needs, and it’s trying to bring people together.”
If you, too, would like to feel a sense of community in these times of isolation and uncertainty, please join Tara and Mainstage Theatre at their production of Spoon River Anthology, October 21 at 7:30pm, and October 22 and 23 at 8:00pm on Gerety Lawn. There is no ticket entry; just come and enjoy the show.
