By Wela Mbusi

Last week, we had the pleasure of being the first international theatre company to participate in a week-long theatre programme with Grace College. The college is a small-sized school ensconced in the heart of the predominately religious state of Indiana.

The classes were very differently from what we were used to, as they were academically led, but it meant clarifying that our approach as actors was performance-based regardless of the text. Luckily, the students were very receptive, and were happy to work on some of the scenes from the play. A lot of the questions about the play were in relation to the religious aspects of it; the moral dilemmas were viewed by the students and the faculty from a very specific Christian framework. Sometimes, as an actor, it’s hard to view the character you’re playing from a single prism, but we did glean some unique perspectives about the world and its motivations.

The audiences in Grace College were amazing — we had full houses for nearly every performance. We hadn’t performed the play for a nearly a full week, and that fueled our need to do it. The beautiful lake of Warsaw became a place we went to regularly, but the town itself was quite conservative, and that meant most outlets were closed by eight in the evening.

Very much looking forward to Tennessee, as that’s our next stop, and hoping to see more of the autumn as the weather begins to change.