For Summer Rep, the shows go on

When Dave McGraw last saw the David Thayer Theatre at the UI Theatre Building, thousands of costumes hung from the rigging, mute witnesses above the vacant stage. “When we closed up the space, it was a little eerie, but also kind of serene to see that wave of costumes stretch up to the ceiling,” he says.

Theatre students, faculty, and staff had just cleared costume and prop collections from the basement in four and a half hours—30 minutes quicker than back in the summer of 1993. The Department of Theatre Arts’ experience with the earlier flood had taught them to think and move fast once the river started to rise.

The creeping waters also forced the question of whether Iowa Summer Repertory Theatre—the department’s annual series showcasing the work of a featured playwright with full-scale productions and staged readings—could go on.

“We were at odds about whether we should continue,” says McGraw, a lecturer and production manager who has worked on Summer Rep for five years. “We knew it would be hard to go to rehearsal knowing everything that was happening outside.”

But tonight “Wonder of the World” opens at Iowa City West High School, the substitute site that’s welcomed Summer Rep. Performances of the play and other works by featured writer David Lindsay-Abaire continue through July.

West High also played host to several hundred National Guard troops who bunked in the gym, as well as the congregation of Parkview Church, who continue to share the auditorium with the UI theatre company. (“We've been spiffing up their lighting a little bit, I think,” McGraw says.)

The overnight move to a new venue was fairly seamless. “Many of us come from touring backgrounds, “ McGraw says. “It was a huge group effort, but it hearkened back to the days when you’d put everything on a truck and away you’d go, not sure where you’d wind up next.”

Of course it hasn’t all been easy. Some cast and crew rushed out to sandbag in the morning, then came to rehearsal. Many know folks who’ve been displaced from their homes. Though guardedly optimistic, none are sure what they’ll find once they return to the Theatre Building.

All are determined to put on a show, however, if only to offer weary, worried audiences a break. Last night, they performed a free preview open to the public.

“When we started rehearsals in May, our artistic director Eric Forsythe said all these shows concerned people coping with extraordinary circumstances, people just trying to get through the day,” McGraw says. “It’s an appropriate season for this year, because our world seems pretty messed up. But the sun keeps rising.”