AUDITIONS
Everybody by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins
Faculty Directed by Tim Dugan
January 15 & 16, 4:15 - 7pm
Gannett Theater

SYNOPSIS

Branden Jacobs Jenkins' modern riff on the fifteenth-century morality play Everyman follows Everybody as they journey through life's greatest mystery--the meaning of living.

God, displeased with humanity’s moral blindness, summons Death to call Everybody to account for how they’ve lived their life. Everybody freaks out when Death comes calling and begs to be allowed to bring along a companion on their journey to the great beyond. Death grudgingly agrees, and Everybody visits, in turn, Friendship, Kinship, Cousin, and Stuff, all of whom rebuff Everybody’s pleas. Eventually, Love arrives and agrees to accompany Everybody on their journey. As Love and Everybody approach the grave, Beauty, Strength, Senses, and Mind desert them, setting the scene for Everybody’s final, poignant confrontation with the raw fact of their mortality. 

Everybody, a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize, is a "very meta and saucy adaptation...." Gannett Theater will transform with the magic of design elements such as projection design, original music, and in-the-round staging. 

CASTING NOTE

All roles are open to being portrayed by performers of all personal and gender identities and expressions. The core cast will play multiple roles within the entire production. Roles have been primarily divided into 10 tracks, final tracks may be adjusted during the process.

VARVARA

Solo performance by Jenna Riegel January 24, 7:30pm

Schaeffer Theatre

Varvara, an evening-length solo choreographed and performed by Jenna Riegel, is a response to both Alexander Rodchenko’s photograph “Performing Furniture” (1922), which features his artistic collaborator and life partner Varvara Stepanova, and to Stepanova’s body of creative work. One of the prominent Russian Constructivist artists, Stepanova’s endeavors included textiles, visual poetry, costumes and set designs. Konstantin Rudnitsky, a Soviet theater critic of their time, wrote, “The human body was perceived as a machine: man had to learn to control that machine. It was the theatre’s function to demonstrate the fine tuning of the human ‘mechanisms’.” Varvara draws on Stepanova’s artwork as inspiration for movement making and comments on this Constructivist view of theatre’s function by exploring the body’s reaction to considering it as a mechanization versus perceiving and allowing it to be its own unruly, chaotic mess of expression. The work weaves together the worlds of Stepanova and Riegel through an interplay of what is real and what is imagined and speaks to themes of brokenness and rebirth. Collaborators include director Anna Adams Stark, lighting designer Kathy Couch and stage manager Alex Davis.

Bates Student tickets are free, but you must reserve in advance and bring your ID to the performance.

Photo courtesy of the artist

Amy Huang

Many congratulations to Amy Huang on her published preface The Chinese Lady in the newly released publication Once in the Countryside: A Collection of Plays (Methuen Drama Play Collections).  There is a copy of the book in the Pettigrew 204 Mellon Library, available for anyone to check out and read!

Tristan Koepke

On sabbatical during Winter and Short Term 2026

Congratulations are also in order for Tristan Koepke, who's article Emotional Tofu: Speculative Masculinities in Post Malone’s Dancing was published in Popular Culture Studies Journal, Vol. 13, Issue 2, 2025. Folks can read it online on Popular Culture's webpage. 

Additionally, Tristan has been awarded at Faculty Research Fellowship at Jacob's Pillow! Tristan will spend a portion of his sabbatical immersed in the Pillow's renowned Archives.

Alfonso Cervera

Repertory Artist

Alfonso Cervera (He/They/El) is a current Assistant Professor of Dance at the Ohio State University where he shares his research interests and movement practices grounded in Mexican American themes. Being a Queer first generation Mexican American practitioner and choreographer who received his MFA from the University of California, Riverside, Cervera is certified in Asana Yoga, Pilates, and Reiki Healing. His research and specialization focus on the conversation between queerness, Ballet Folklorico, and Afro-Latine social dances in a contemporary auto-biographical embodied experience that he calls Poc-Chuc. Poc-Chuc, an emerging and inclusive dance technique developed by Cervera, weaves these techniques as a pedagogical tool to adhere to the current times and to create representation for marginalized communities. Cervera is a founder and collaborator of Primera Generación Dance Collective in the Los Angeles area creating works that represent Mexican American identity and social justice. Among other things, he has been awarded grants from the National Endowment of the Arts, Artist Trust in Seattle, and Department of Cultural Affairs in Los Angeles, and is now one of the four Executive Directors of Show Box L.A.

Terrence Karn

Dance Musician

Terrence Karn  is a dance and musical artist/composer/educator. He began his career as a dance musician in 1971 at the Minnesota Dance Theatre. During the 1980s, Terrence taught character dance at Houston Ballet Academy and was a dance accompanist for over nine years. He was a resident Dance Musician/ Composer in the School of Theatre and Dance at the University of Houston (1999-2007), Denison University’s Department of Dance (2007-2011) and at The University of Wisconsin Eau Claire (2012-2015) Terrence has performed with the Houston Grand Opera, Karen Stokes Dance, and Core Performance Company and has had a long-time affiliation with Jane Weiner and Hope Stone Dance company as an educator and musician. Terrence is the cofounder of Gypsy Dance Theatre, a Texas-based world music and dance ensemble. He was a member of Black Isles Belly Dance Theatre and The Fandazzi Fire Circus based in Minneapolis, MN 2015/2016. Currently, Terrence works in Houston, TX in the Fall, at Houston Ballet, The High School For Performing and Visual Arts, The University of Houston, Hope Stone and The Texas Renaissance Festival. In the winter and spring Terrence lives  Lewiston, Maine and accompanies dance at Bates College and Bowdoin College. Karn will return to the Bates Dance Festival for his 21^st. year as Musical Director for the Youth Arts Program. Terrence has recorded six all original music CDs. He has composed numerous works for dance companies on planet earth and has played for over 20,727 dance classes and counting.

Audrey Maclean

Applied Dance Faculty

Audrey MacLean (she/her) is a New England-based dance/performance artist. Audrey's choreographic and dance film work has been presented at theaters and festivals throughout the Northeast and internationally including as part of DanceNOW Boston, DanceNOW NYC, the Dance on Camera Festival at Symphony Space (New York, NY), the Maine International Film Festival (Waterville, ME), the Artists In Motion Film Festival (Bethel, ME), and at InShadow Screendance Festival (Lisbon, Portugal). Her most recent evening-length work was presented at the Boston Center for the Arts and at Arts on Site (New York, NY). She has been a Maine Arts Commission Artist Project Grant awardee, a Retreat Artist at Bearnstow (Mt. Vernon, ME), and a Dancemaker Laboratory Resident Artist at the Boston Center for the Arts.

Audrey has taught technique and composition classes at Berklee College of Music, The Dance Complex, The Foundry, Moving Target Portland, Moving Target Boston, Rising Tide Charter School and at pre-professional studios throughout New England. Audrey was a Teaching Artist for the Maine Alliance for Arts Education's "Building Community Through Arts" program in 2024 & 2025. She has also served in administrative roles for the Bates Dance Festival, The Dance Complex, Green Street Studios, and Moving Target Boston. She has had the pleasure of performing in work by artists including: Jimena Bermejo, Peter DiMuro, Morgan Griffin, Heidi Henderson, Grant Jacoby, Annie Kloppenberg, Betsy Miller, Ruckus Dance, and others. You can learn more about her work at audreymacleandance.com

Jenna Riegel

Repertory Artist

Jenna Riegel, originally from Fairfield, Iowa, is a dance artist and movement educator. Jenna holds an M.F.A. in Dance Performance from the University of Iowa and a B.A. in Theatre Arts from Maharishi International University. During her eleven-year performing career in New York City, Jenna toured and performed nationally and internationally as a company member of the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Company, David Dorfman Dance, Alexandra Beller/ Dances and Bill Young/ Colleen Thomas & Company. She also danced with Michel Kouakou, Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, Shaneeka Harrell, Tania Isaac Dance and johannes weiland. Jenna received a New England Foundation of the Arts NEST touring grant for her evening-length solo Varvara. Her choreography has been commissioned by the FACT/SF Company, University of Vermont, Barnard College, Virginia Commonwealth University, Colby College, University of Nebraska-Lincoln and University of Iowa and her choreography has been presented at such venues as the ODC Theater and the Dance Complex. Jenna was granted choreographic residencies at Homeport Art House, Subcircle and Creative Arts and Multidisciplinary Performance (CA+MP).  She has been on faculty in the dance departments of Barnard College, The Juilliard School and Virginia Commonwealth University and at the American Dance Festival and the Bates Dance Festival. Jenna is currently an Assistant Professor of Theater and Dance at Amherst College.

Photo by Oliver Scott

Ogemdi Ude

Repertory Artist

Ogemdi Ude is a dance and interdisciplinary artist, educator, and doula based in Brooklyn. Her performance work focuses on Black femme legacies and futures, grief, and memory. Her work has been presented at Kampnagel, The Kitchen, Gibney, Harlem Stage, Danspace Project, Abrons Arts Center, BRIC, ISSUE Project Room, Recess Art, Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Center for Performance Research, and for BAM's DanceAfrica festival. As an educator, she has taught at The New School, Princeton University, Sarah Lawrence College, and University of the Arts. She is a 2025 NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellow in Choreography, 2025 Princess Grace Honoraria in Choreography, 2025-2028 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, 2024 NEFA National Dance Project Production Grant recipient, and a Live Feed Residency Artist at New York Live Arts. She has been a 2024/2025 BAX Artist-in-Residence, 2024-2025 Leslie Lohman Artist Fellow, 2022-2024 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence, 2021 danceWEB Scholar, 2021 Laundromat Project Create Change Artist-in-Residence, and a 2019-2020 Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU Resident Fellow. In January 2022 she appeared on the cover of Dance Magazine for their annual “25 to Watch” issue. Most recently, she has published a book Watch Me in a collection edited by Thomas DeFrantz and Annie-B Parson: Dance History(s): Imagination as a Form of Study published by Dancing Foxes Press and Wesleyan University Press.