Tackling girlhood, teenage years and turning into an old lady can be tricky. Communication junior Grace Valaskovic chose to examine these themes in her coming-of-age rock concert, “Dissonance,” which premieres after Thanksgiving.
The band is made up of a small group of students who auditioned at the beginning of the year, including Valaskovic, who plays the saxophone.
Valaskovic describes her songs as “being in conversation with each other,” each highlighting themes of girlhood in an unconventional way. The show begins with childhood, drifts into teenage years and ends looking forward, she said.
“There’s no narrative, there are no lines, there are no characters. It’s just a super awesome band performing the songs,” Valaskovic said.
Valaskovic is one of the multiple undergraduate students who get their shows produced each quarter, many of them bringing new stories to the Northwestern population.
Sit & Spin Productions, a theatre board on campus that focuses on experimental work, produced “Dissonance.”
Multiple theatre boards prioritize bringing student work to the stage. Communication sophomore Nora James Eikner serves on one such board, Vertigo, which produces exclusively student-written shows.
Eikner said she believes showcasing original work is invaluable.
“It’s really special and so vibrant,” Eikner said. “That’s the heart of theatre to me, bringing to life new things that have never been on their feet before.”
When Vertigo produces a show, they are responsible for elements such as set design and the show’s budget, Eikner said. She added that a board’s assistance takes pressure off of the writer.
The variety of student-written productions that campus theatre boards produce creates opportunities to hear new voices and stories, as opposed to the more traditional theatre productions often performed on campus.
Last year, Communication junior Ferdinand Moscat wrote “Fan Service,” which used the members of One Direction and an entirely non-male cast to examine how growing up with the internet shapes grief. Moscat had both “Fan Service” and his second play, “Abuela Won’t Die,” produced on campus.
“For ‘Fan Service,’ it started off as me being like, ‘it would be so ridiculous to write a play about One Direction. Let’s do that,’” Moscat said.
Moscat and Valaskovic both said taking a break from more mainstream shows allowed them to delve deeper into more specific themes.
Eikner said producing student shows illustrates just how good NU’s playwriting program is.
“It’s not just Stephen Sondheim over and over — which is another good thing. I love a good ‘Into the Woods’ moment, but it’s also important to have (student) voices being heard,” Eikner said.
But writing a show as a student comes with challenges. Moscat said it required many late nights, and Valaskovic devoted both last summer and this quarter to working on her show.
Both writers credit much of their shows’ successful development to the team they worked with. Each show involved collaboration with a theatre board, director and producer.
“Something that is so beautiful and special and romantic about new plays and about new play development is that you can’t do it by yourself,” Moscat said.
Valaskovic shared a similar sentiment, saying she often tells her collaborators, “whatever you’re excited about is what I’m excited about.”
Students can see “Dissonance” Friday, Dec. 1 and Saturday, Dec. 2 in Shanley Pavilion.
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