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Video: Thesis in Bloom

  • Paul W. Gillespie
  • Paul W. Gillespie
  • Paul W. Gillespie
  • Paul W. Gillespie
March 07, 2016
Nicole Capobianco’s discovery of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds is what she calls a “happy accident.”

Wandering among rows of books in a Barnes & Noble, the theatre and English major saw a volume wedged between two bookshelves. Capobianco pulled the book out and discovered it was a script of Marigolds, winner of the 1971 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the 1970 Obie Award for Best American Play. So began the journey of Capobianco’s Senior Theatre Thesis.

Capobianco cast the fully-staged production in November, and her all female-cast (including a bunny named Molly), true to the play’s characters, spans three generations. Polly Sommerfeld, a professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance, plays Beatrice, the matriarch of the Hunsdorfer family. A woman from the Chestertown community plays the elderly silent woman who is Beatrice’s charge. Fellow students play the young women of the play, including Grace O’Connor ’16 as Tillie Hunsdorfer and Abbey Wark ’18 as her older sister Ruth.

Capobianco has experienced everything from design to directing and technical theatre to stage management during her time at Washington College, and credits her college education for preparaing her to collaborate with designers, actors, and crew members in professional theatres. “I got to use everything I learned at WC to guide and direct my play,” Capobianco said. “My education has prepared me to be a teacher as well as an artist.”

Her time in the theatre department has reaffirmed her belief in the importance of art. She credits this to the faculty of the department. “They inspired me, each in their own way, to be a better artist and human being. For that, I’m forever grateful.”


Last modified on Mar. 25th, 2016 at 11:48am by Marcia Landskroener.