The Saturday night and Sunday afternoon showings of “Blithe Spirit” were canceled because of Hurricane Matthew, but earlier shows were praised by the audience.
Senior Collette Vauthier played Madame Arcati, one of the six cast members in the play. Vauthier said it was disappointing to cancel the last two shows, and that the cast was pleased with the first few performances beginning with Wednesday’s matinee.
“We were ready to go into our second performance and they said no- that we couldn’t do it at like 6:45 and our call was at 6. So we already had been 45 minutes into getting ready, so it was disappointing to cancel. Sunday we just kind of knew it would be cancelled since the power went out,” Vauthier said.
Campus lost power shortly after the Saturday night showing would have occurred, but events were cancelled much earlier due to flooding and harsh conditions.
“I still had people ready to come onto campus on Saturday night into the storm which would have been totally crazy. It’s good that they cancelled it when they did and we couldn’t have said how bad it was going to get,” Vauthier said.
Sophomore Anthony Terry, saw “Blithe Spirit” for the first time on Friday night. He had never heard of the play prior to going to see it. His roommate, Grant Bennet played the main character, Charles Condomine.
“I read lines with him a few times with him, so I had a little bit of background on the play. It was a lot better than I thought it was going to be,” Terry said.
Bennet had never been in a play at Virginia Wesleyan before, but he took the Tech Theatre course at the school in the past. He admitted that he was a little nervous about having the lead in the first play that he ever acted in at Virginia Wesleyan College
“It was stressful, this was only the fifth play I have ever acted in and I didn’t want to let anybody down because they were all counting on me just as much as I was counting on them,” Bennet said.
Even though he was nervous leading up to the play, in the end he felt very proud of his performance as well as the casts’ performance as a whole. With all of the parents, students, and faculty that came out to see the show there is no doubt that “Blithe Spirit” was nothing but a success.
Cynthia Griffin
clgriffin@vwc.edu
Rebecca Lazzeri
ralazzeri@vwc.edu
(Photo: Trey Delpo | Courtesy)
