On Saturday March 25, a student-led production of “A Room with a View” was held in a packed Munson Chapel.

The opera, based on the novel written by E.M. Foster, was written and composed by senior Music Composition Major Tori Lavan and directed by her roommate and friend Maren Plog, a senior Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) Theater Arts major. The production was the result of a collaboration between students in different departments within the College of Music and the Arts, including theater, music, graphic design, and art.

The story follows Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman of stature, that falls in love with a young man named George Emerson during a trip to Italy. Despite George’s obvious peculiarities that separate him from the social norm of the time, Lucy can’t help but develop feelings for him. Nonetheless, Lucy leaves George and returns home to Surrey. Believing that to be the end of her off-the-cuff romance, Lucy agrees to marry Cecil Vyse, a rude, awkward man that had been pursuing her for some time. The engagement seems to be going along as well as could be hoped, until George Ememrson and his father move to Surrey. Faced once again with a passion and joy that she could not find in a life alongside Cecil, Lucy calls off their engagement and marries her true love, George.

Sophomore BFA Theater Arts major Noah Castillero played the role of George Emerson, and said he prepared for his part by allowing George’s personality traits influence his day-to-day life.

“Most roles I’ve done have been a lot of research, a lot of planning, a lot of ‘putting on a mask’ as we learn in the BFA for theater, [where we’re taught to] wear that mask and be able to create that mask, and being able to take it on and put it off,” Castillen said. “And this time I didn’t really want to do that. I just wanted to embody the character because I really liked how George is just a very free spirit and knows the social norm, but knows that he’s against it and is able to be okay with himself. That’s something that I myself struggle with and I didn’t want to create a mask to put on and off; I wanted to be that.”

Lavan said that she chose this story for her opera because of its deeper messages.

“It had romantic, comical, and coming-of-age elements that I thought would translate well musically. One of the biggest reasons I chose this book was because no one else has written an opera or musical about it yet. I wanted to take the chance when I could,” she said.

Before writing any of the music, Lavan sat with the book and worked to find the key aspects necessary to depict the characters accurately.

“I used the music to try to capture each character,” Lavan said. “For example, Charlotte’s music is always chaotic and intrusive to express her dramatic, overreacting character. Cecil, the most comical character of the show, had a demanding theme in the oboe.”

Plog wanted the performance to depict Lucy’s inner journey, the relationships between characters and the time period and geographical setting of the story.

“One of my favorite quotes from the book didn’t make it into the operetta, but I think Tori still kept the theme and the meaning in her music,” she said. “It’s a scene in which the clergyman, Mr. Beebe, is remarking on Lucy’s passionate style of playing the piano, and he says: ‘If Miss Honeychurch ever takes to live as she plays, it will be very exciting both for us and for her.’ This quote speaks of learning to let one’s true self out in order to live life with passion, joy, and sincerity, which Lucy ultimately does learn to do when she finally gives into her love for George. It’s my hope that the importance of learning to love and to be loved simply as you are without fear of what others will think of you came through in the story that we told.”

As seniors at APU, both Lavan and Plog said that their lessons at university helped them achieve their goals and finish the production.

Lavan gave credit to her composition professor, Professor Mark Gasbarro, for giving her the tools and preparation necessary to compose the production’s score, as well as encouragement throughout the process. She also said that a year of studying conducting under Dr. John Burdett helped her conduct the show. However, Lavan also mentioned that the lessons she pursued herself greatly impacted her ability to create the opera.

“For the learning experience, and to be close to opera, I worked as the stage manager for APU opera for three years, and I learned so much about opera and production from that,” she said. “I learned so much from simply observing Dr. Melanie Galloway and Mr. Douglas Sumi.”

Plog said that she would not have had any idea how to direct the show without the lessons from her theater classes, and that each one had taught her something she could bring to the production.

“The most helpful classes have, of course, been my Intro to Directing class with Dr. Monica Ganas and the Advanced Directing that I am currently taking with Dr. Rachel Tracie, as these have taught me the basic fundamentals of directing as well as some helpful theories of directing and various approaches to take,” she said. “These classes equipped me with the tools as well as the confidence to be able to tackle this production. In many ways, this production was the perfect final senior project for me since it served as a culmination and practical application of so much of what I’ve learned over my four years here at APU—from acting and directing techniques, to improvisational exercises, to making prop lists and blocking charts, to experience in doing costumes and makeup.”

“A Room with a View” was entirely student-produced, with elements such as budgeting, stage managing and costuming handled by students within different majors on campus.This resulted in some extra stress that would normally not be found in a production coordinated by the university, however, Lavan and Plog both said that having APU promote more student productions would be beneficial for students looking to gain experience.

“Student productions are difficult because there is no budget and all of the performers join through volunteer,” Lavan said. “These two things bring up many challenges. It would be nice if students could run more productions, on possibly a small scale, especially if that is something they would like to do in the future.”

Plog noted the necessary teamwork when putting on a student-lead production, but said that the experience was incredibly motivating.

“There were so many little jobs to fill in—from casting the show, to scheduling and coordinating rehearsals, to finding costumes, and sets and props and reserving rehearsal rooms…it was definitely a big team effort between Tori, Michelle [the stage manager], and myself, whereas a full University production would normally have a team of a costumer, a lighting designer, a set designer, a prop master, two to three stage mangers, and so on,” she said. “Taking all this into consideration, I think it’s a given that our show was not as professional as a University production, but I think we still did incredibly well. Plus, there’s something very exciting and rewarding about putting on a production just with students, because it empowers you to realize that you really will be able to go out into the world after graduation and actually do stuff!”

Emilie Faiella, an APU alumna who played the character of Lucy Honeychurch, also noted the amount of teamwork and trust needed to create the production and keep things running as smoothly as possible.

“It really took really special dedication to each other, because we only had 2 orchestra rehearsals,” she said. “The second one was today, right before. We rehearsed before the show just practicing looking at Tori, the conductor and the composer. [We were practicing] looking at her, she was practicing making sure that she gave us the cues for our parts, because her music is not something you necessarily go [away] singing all of it. So, we had to trust that she would know the timing, we’d be looking at her, there was so much trust and connection that you had to have on stage to make something that you didn’t have a lot of time to practice on like this [come] together, to make it work. And I am very thankful for everybody who is in the production, they did that. With this the only comfort was with each other.”

Lavan and Plog were very proud of their final production, especially when they took into consideration the hiccups they had to overcome all the way up until opening night.

“Overall, I would say it went remarkably well!” Plog said. “I say remarkably because we were literally in the Munson [Chapel] the Friday night before rehearsing until 2:30 a.m.! The cast only got to have one partial run-through and one full music run-through with the orchestra before our performance! The night of our show was also the very first time that we had had a full run of the show with the orchestra, with every cast member present, in our performance space. So essentially, it was like having our first real dress rehearsal as our show night. By and large, I thought my cast did an incredible job, and it was a real delight for me to finally get to sit back, relax, and just watch the story come to life!”

Lavan said that there are still some vocal parts and orchestration that she plans on refining, but that she was very pleased with the final product.

“I am proud of the story as a whole,” she said. “I am so happy that the story ended up comprehensive and effective. I believe that I really captured E. M. Forster’s story correctly with words and music that ranged from comical to serious to beautiful. As I was watching the show, it felt like a real opera! It is hard to believe that I created that.”