The summer theater season will see a number of Suffolk students and a recent graduate in the spotlight – and behind it – polishing their craft in professional productions.
Theatre Arts alumna Raya Malcom will play Juliet in Saratoga Shakespeare Company’s Romeo and Juliet this summer and will return to Boston in the fall to perform in two Central Square Theater productions: The Happy Prince and Matchless, an adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s “The Little Match Girl.”
Malcom received the Theatre Department Recognition Award for Sustained Academic and Artistic Excellence shortly before her graduation last month. She had cocreated, designed, and directed a senior thesis production, Re-Evaluationland, which Theatre Chair Marilyn Plotkins described as “bursting with imagination and inspired theatricality and very, very, funny." In February, Raya was featured as Daisy in Professor Wes Savick’s adaptation of Rhinoceros, a professional alumni production.
This summer, Elektra Newman, ’17, and Kseniia Kamalova, ’18, are working as summer production interns at the Wellfleet Harbor Actor’s Theatre, a professional theater on Cape Cod. They secured their internships through mentorship by Professor Richard Chambers.
“My job includes a variety of responsibilities…set construction, lighting hangs, board operation, and anything pretty much tech related (although there are administrative Interns here as well),” writes Newman. “Everyone here is funny, kind, welcoming, and willing to teach new things. There is a Suffolk connection going on with several professors and alumni, and I am so proud to be a part of it.”
Sarah Vasilevsky, ’17, has received a Theatre Department Professional Development grant to support summer work as an acting apprentice with the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, which presents the large-scale Shakespeare on Common production each summer in Boston.
Writing from London, where she studied this past semester, Vasilevsky said: “Anticipating my return to the states, I am looking forward to bringing my newfound love for England, acting, and traveling all home to Suffolk, where I hope to continue and grow my career. …Had it not been for Suffolk and the push I received from many of my professors within the Theatre Department, I would not have gained the confidence and connections I can proudly say I have today.”