Podculture: TWIST grows student theater community

Ingrid Smith, Assistant Audio Editor

January 14, 2025

The Daily Northwestern · Podculture: TWIST grows student theater community

Student theater members discuss how the TWIST newsletter informs the community about available positions and upcoming shows while bringing people together.

WYLDE LADEN: Hey guys, it’s really cold outside. It’s not even that cold, just, it feels really cold, like in my soul, you know? I hope that your quarters are going well so far and that you are keeping up with your classes. Me, personally, I’m already behind, and I don’t know what to do about that exactly. So, good luck.

INGRID SMITH: That was Communication junior Wylde Laden giving her Co-chairs’ Corner digital diary entry.

Laden, along with Communication junior Kate Horton, are the Student Theater Coalition co-chairs. They begin their weekly newsletter, TWIST, with Co-chairs’ Corner.

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INGRID SMITH: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Ingrid Smith, and this is Podculture, a podcast about arts and culture on campus and beyond.

Every Wednesday, Laden and Horton send out the TWIST newsletter about everything going on “This Week In Student Theater.”

WYLDE LADEN: TWIST is a weekly newsletter which aims to keep everyone in the student theatre community in the loop with what’s going on. We sort of automatically enroll all theatre majors so that they have access to the weekly updates, and we post ads for films and plays and other jobs that aren’t acting in those things.

INGRID SMITH: Communication freshman Alex Heid signed up for TWIST during Wildcat Welcome. Now, he said he reads the newsletter every week to learn about opportunities in student theatre, such as casting calls and callbacks.

ALEX HEID: To be involved in a show or a process, I think it would be very difficult to do so without TWIST just because it provides you with all of the appropriate information and who to contact. If I want to be involved in something, it’s my main source of info.

INGRID SMITH: Heid said TWIST makes it easier for freshmen like him to get acquainted with the theatre community. Last quarter, he used TWIST to apply for an assistant lighting position for “Bonnie & Clyde.”

ALEX HEID: I didn’t know many upperclassmen right away and wasn’t totally aware of everything NU theatre had to offer, so being added to it really opened my eyes to all that there was.

INGRID SMITH: Weinberg sophomore Ellie Panko said the ads section in TWIST features many positions open to people who aren’t theatre majors. Last quarter, she used the newsletter to secure an assistant stage manager position for “Sunday on The Rocks.”

ELLIE PANKO: Theatre here can kind of feel intimidating, especially since there are so many rules about lining up for shows and you don’t really know how to get involved.

And I think that the TWIST makes it really easy for you to try new things, to reach out for positions, to just learn about shows and be able to go and see theatre and interact with theatre at NU.

INGRID SMITH: But, Panko said the newsletter is not well-known outside of the theatre community.

ELLIE PANKO: I had a friend who was in (economics) and she asked me, “You’re always so involved in theater. How do you find out about things?” And I was like, “Through the TWIST,” and she was like, “What’s that? I’ve never heard of that.” I had to walk her through it and I helped her sign up.

And now she’s literally doing projects in theatre, but she had no idea that the TWIST even existed, and I think that that’s a general experience for people who aren’t in theatre.

INGRID SMITH: In order to convey the week’s information in a way that’s digestible, Laden said the co-chairs spend hours filtering through ads and formatting the newsletter each week.

WYLDE LADEN: Kate and I get together either in person or over FaceTime and we have a template which has the sort of things that we always have — the slogan, which is “putting the best in asbestos since 2004.” I don’t know where that came from, but that is the slogan. We go to the ads that we were sent first, and we start just filling them in into each section.

INGRID SMITH: Laden said the newsletter also includes more lighthearted segments like games and a mystery link.

WYLDE LADEN: We have a name scramble where Kate and I pick some people and we give little hints, and then we scramble their names and whoever responds fastest gets a shout-out in the next TWIST. We try to keep it fun, and it’s a nice way to reach out to people.

INGRID SMITH: Heid said his name was featured in the newsletter’s Connections game once in Fall Quarter.

ALEX HEID: That was surprising to play Connections with my own name in it. And the category I was in was “Alexes in Theatre,” so I filled that niche.

INGRID SMITH: Laden said that as co-chair, a big part of her job is reaching out to people and building community. And there’s no better way to do that than the TWIST.

WYLDE LADEN: This is the way that we really help student theatre the most, by just making sure that everyone has as much information as possible and sort of encouraging everyone to continue to participate in the community.

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INGRID SMITH: From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Ingrid Smith. Thanks for listening to another episode of Podculture. This episode was reported and produced by Ingrid Smith.

The Audio Editor is Anavi Prakash. The Multimedia Managing Editors are Kelley Lu and Jillian Moore. The Editor in Chief is Lily Ogburn.

Our theme music is “Grand Panda” by Modern Monster, used under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

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