Mercer Theatre stages first 'in the round' production with 'Fiction'
Mercer University's Theatre Department will be trying something new with its presentation of the stage play "Fiction."
For the first time, they will stage an "in the round" performance -- meaning the audience seating will surround each side of the stage. The play debuted Thursday and runs through Nov. 22 at the Tattnall Square Center for the Arts.
"It's going to be interesting not having to put up walls for a set. It just really changes the way you have to move and how your set looks, but it's going to be fun because I've never worked with an arena stage," said Hannah Fancher, a Mercer senior and theater major.
She is joined by fellow Mercer student Nathaniel Firkus and Todd Wilson, a Mercer alumni and the play's technical director, in arranging the set for this "in the round" performance.
"The actors are actually going to be rehearsing with the seats already there, all the way around them, 360 degrees," said Director Scott Mann. "They're learning a different staging technique and they're also learning a different projection for their voices."
"Fiction" is a line-heavy play, Mann said.
The storyline depicts a married couple who are publishers. After the woman becomes ill from brain cancer, she decides to go to a writer's colony where a case of stolen material amounts to infidelity and flashbacks of a man's conversation with his wife and his mistress.
There are only three characters in the play.
"I thought staging it in the round (arena) would be a great idea to maximize the intimacy of the production," set designer Marian Zielinski said in an email. Zielinski developed the floor plan, seating arrangements and furniture placement.
"Not only is this the first production Mercer has done in an arena configuration, I've never in my 37 years as a designer worked in this configuration," Zielinski said.
The show will resemble the intimate space of the Back Door Theatre, where Mercer Theatre performances were previously held before all productions moved in January to Tattnall Square Center for the Arts.
"I think that the audience will like it because it's a lot like going to the Back Door Theatre. They're going to feel very close to the actors and the actors are going to feel like they're interacting with the audience almost directly," Mann said.
The first row of seats will be about six feet away from the stage.
"Our new space has given a lot of opportunities for different stage build ups," Fancher said. "We make a new stage every time we do a show, so it gives us a lot of opportunities we didn't have before (and) it's rewarding."
Macon resident Jeff Poulen, who attended "A Flea in Her Ear," Mercer Theatre's previous performance, said he was looking forward to seeing "Fiction."
"It's just something you don't get to experience every day and I think it would be fun, just to get a taste of something different," he said.
"Fiction"
When: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 13-14 and 19-21; 2:30 p.m. Nov. 15 and 22
Where: Tattnall Square Center for the Arts, 1096 College St.
Cost: $15 general admission, $10 with valid Mercer I.D.
Information: www.tickets.mercer.edu; 478-301-5470
This story was originally published November 12, 2015 at 4:11 PM with the headline "Mercer Theatre stages first 'in the round' production with 'Fiction' ."