HDA Maroon Gets a little Help from UK Theater Company

Rehearsals for the HDA Maroon Week original production of Boxes got a big boost this past Tuesday when professional mask actors and directors from Vamos Theatre Company led the cast in a two hour long mask workshop. Vamos is a professional theater company based in Worchester, UK who create their own original mask productions, teach workshops and do community outreach. They have also been instrumental in helping Hopkins director, Michael Calderone, devise our own Hopkins mask show. 

Boxes is a series of non-speaking, masked vignettes based on responses Hopkins high schoolers gave to a simple survey about their quarantine experiences. Some of the scenarios are serious, many are humorous and all reflect some aspect of our shared experiences over the last six months. Creating a mask show like this seemed like a natural fit since students are already wearing PPE masks all the time making dialogue difficult. Having seen full-face character masked shows at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2016 and 2017, Calderone knew it would be an interesting, creative and safe way to explore a new form of theater. 

Three members of the Vamos company led the cast through basic mask exercises in Lovell via Zoom and then split into separate rooms to fine tune individual vignettes. HDA Maroon hopes to present Boxes the week before Thanksgiving break. Stay tuned as to how you can experience this poignant show.