As the theater filled with music and sound effects, a dozen performers buzzed on stage operating puppets and displaying imagery on overhead projector screens while others either used silhouettes or themselves on screen to complete the scene.
The sold-out crowd in the University of Chicago’s Theater East was watching the first official performance of Dream Delivery Service, a play guided by Manual Cinema, an Emmy Award-winning production company. Three of the five founders are UChicago alumni, and the company’s distinctive style combines handmade shadow puppetry, cinematic techniques, and innovative sound and music.
The performance was a joint effort between Manual Cinema and UChicago’s Theater and Performance Studies (TAPS) program, as part of its twice-a-year “pro show” course, which gives students hands-on experience with those from the industry. Even still, it was safe to say the surreal, wordless show was a first-time experience for the College performers. This included fourth-year student Nina Maxin, a business economics major who added a TAPS major late into her UChicago tenure. Having already performed in two other TAPS pro shows in the past, Maxin knew how much work would go into the production—but she was “surprised” to learn how deep its roots went at the University.
“Knowing that there are creatively driven alumni like them who have paved their own way devising performances at the intersection of film, puppetry and theater is really inspiring. The nature of their work as inherently collaborative, human to human, is encouraging to me as I head towards graduation,” she said.
The show only took a few months to go from storyboard to stage, but the seeds for the idea were planted at UChicago nearly two decades ago.
From the ‘life of the mind’ to live on stage
Manual Cinema was founded in 2010 by Drew Dir, Sarah Fornace, Ben Kauffman, Julia Miller and Kyle Vegter. The group came from backgrounds in theater, visual arts and live music, but their paths could have been much different if it weren’t for the College.
Kauffman, Dir and Fornace are each alumni of UChicago and got their start in theater just as the TAPS program was being formed. Fornace originally intended to become a biology major but then shifted to English literature because she liked “immersing herself in the life of the literary mind” and she started performing shortly thereafter.
“There was a really robust theater club which was great because people were there to perform while still majoring in biology, economics and neuroscience,” Fornace said referring to her work with University Theater (UT). “But at the end of the day, we would all come together and spend hours and hours each week creating amazing productions.”
The idea that eventually became Manual Cinema came from Miller while working at the now-defunct Redmoon Theater in Chicago. She wanted to use an overhead projector as a major tool in a new piece. Dir, now a playwright but working at the time as a dramaturg, joined the production and they enlisted a local band headed by Kauffman and Vegter to score it for them. A 20-minute short piece came out of the effort, giving birth to the company.
At the start they acted like a newly formed band, performing wherever they could—bars, windows and park district facilities—just to make a name for themselves. Eventually a feature-length work took off which allowed them to tour the country and enter the international touring market, making it a full-time venture for the five.
Their pieces can be seen on television, in movie theaters and even in the newly opened Obama Presidential Center. But there was always a desire to return home.
A Unique Collaboration
Each section of the TAPS pro shows features a different scripted work, with students taught and mentored by local artists. Last fall, that featured a performance of Happy Birthday Mars Rover with Chicago director Helen Young.
When they enroll in a pro show course, each student picks a track to focus on during the production and performance process. Some decide that they want to act, others assist the costume designer or help direct.
Brianna Parry, TAPS production manager, said this year became the perfect time to pair with a group that had such strong ties to the College.
“Honestly, it’s something that we’ve always wanted to do but there was never a company that made sense before,” she said. “The relationship that Manual Cinema has with the University allowed this unique moment in the TAPS landscape to form.”
Within that relationship, Parry noted that Manual Cinema had one advantage that almost no other outside production could have if they were offered a residency at the University.
“The members in Manual ‘speak’ UChicago to a degree that many of our visiting artists don’t because they already know about the student experience,” she said. “They know these students are already overscheduled and overcommitted, but they have the type of mindset that they will always make room for one more thing if they find true interest in it.”
Fornace agreed and jumped at the chance to return to the place that she believes is responsible for her ending up with a career in theater.
“It was wild to be back after almost 20 years and to be talking with students about their thoughts, ideas and concerns as they go through the same educational experience that we did.”
The piece TAPS worked on with Manual Cinema was brand-new and in a style that had never been done before in the history of the program.
This allowed the committee to give students an experience that was completely unique while giving Manual Cinema a type of freedom they hardly are afforded anymore. Fornace said this allowed them to be more experimental while working in the academic setting.
Delivering a dream
Storyboards were offered to students at the first class of the quarter which presented the challenge that was being put in front of them—a work with no words that would require them to use paper puppets and hundreds of slides on projectors to convey a story to each audience member.
Throughout the piece, students would be asked to be in constant motion. Whether they were opening or closing a projector to display the image on the screen, bringing a puppet to life or tossing a prop to one of their castmates across the stage, the process forced individuals to work as one.
“This type of work really required a lot of trust and sense of confidence in College students, especially in working with puppets which most had never experienced before, within just eight short weeks,” Maxin said, adding that the learning curve was steep.
“We just had to keep going, to keep learning from each mistake or altering the choreography to make things a little bit easier to manage together. However, in the end the process became fun and rewarding. Each smooth execution of a sequence felt invigorating.”
True to its title, the piece is a dreamy, hour-long, three-part story that transports the audience to an alien planet, through the ups and downs of a dating app and back in time to a Middle Ages monastery where comical, mischievous characters lurked.
With a critical look at AI and technology, the play’s themes draw inspiration from the works of film director Alfred Hitchcock and television shows like The Twilight Zone and Black Mirror.Each of the five shows, including a preview on Thursday, sold out. Fornace said the process took her back to when she was discovering storytelling for the first time.
“Each crew was working as separate units throughout most of the process, but when the costumes came in and the lights turned on during the last few weeks, everything just blossomed,” she said. “All of this acting and storytelling that I had not seen before all happened at once and it reminded me of when we all started working together for the first time 15 years ago.”
Manual Cinema plans on taking Dream Delivery Service and adapting it into one of the stories that they will perform while on tour. Fornace isn’t sure what will stay and what will be cut,but assured that the version seen in Theater East will be one of a kind.
For TAPS and UChicago, the partnership proved to be a success for all involved–which might lead to other distinctive opportunities in the future.
“We spent such a long time putting the whole production together and I believe that we experienced something truly special,” said Maxin. “I can only hope that future classes get to do something as transformative as this was for me for years to come.
—This story was originally published on the University of Chicago College website.