By Danielle Marano
Staff Writer
On Friday, Oct. 9, the Post Theatre Company had their opening night of “Venus,” written by playwright Susan Lori-Parks. The show was directed by Melissa Crespo, an outside director the PTC brought in, and Ben Brinton, a junior Theatre major, served as assistant director.
The show have received positive response, but also made some people upset because of its sexual content. This is believed to be the reason to why several promotional posters on campus have been torn down by an anonymous person.
Photo: Post Theatre Company/Facebook.com
The cast and crew of “Venus,” who have been rehearsing the show since the very first day of fall semester, were excited to show audiences how hard they’ve been working.
The show premiered at the night of Pep Rally. “Problems we fixed in rehearsals were applied on stage, but there are always things that can be improved,” Brinton said. According to Brinton, audiences reacted positively after seeing the performance. “Everyone loved it! And despite the fact that it was Homecoming weekend, we had a pretty good turnout,” he said.
Emily Banks, a junior Musical Theatre major who was in the show, had similar feelings about opening weekend. “It went well! We have more shows next weekend, so we’re really going to push the bar to the next level and do things bigger, better, and bolder,” she said.
Banks added that though there was almost a week between the two show weekends, they would have a rehearsal to keep the material fresh. “It was really interesting to have an audience’s opinion. We could tell they were unsure about how to react, but we knew that going in. We knew that people were going to feel uncomfortable because of the material in the show, [which] has a decent amount of sexual content. People are pushing boundaries, it’s hard to take it all in,” Banks said.
However, there has been speculation that “Venus” has affected some students, to the point that made them uncomfortable. There are rumors stating an anonymous student felt so uncomfortable that they have torn down several promotional fliers for the show.
According to both Brinton and Banks, a student, or possibly multiple people, have been going around to each building and taking the Venus posters off the wall because they found them “offensive.”
“We think we know who it was,” Brinton said. “Because an unnamed student commented on one of the cast member’s Facebook status’ expressing how upset and angry he was about the show and that Post Theatre Company was using the main character’s misfortune to make money and sell tickets.”
Due to this expression of disappointment, the “Venus” company believe the same person may have torn down their posters, although this is just a speculation and has not been confirmed by Public Safety.
“I think this person should come see the show before they make an opinion,” Banks said.
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