Aidan Fish '25
From being on the tech team to being a performer, theater has been a part of the lives of many faculty and staff at Houghton University (HU).
Many people on campus know Adam Bennett as a familiar face at the Metz pizza station, but they don’t know that he is also the Vice President of Town Theatre of Short Tract. The theatre, located in Northern Allegany County, was founded by Adam’s mother, Dr. Dawn Bennett, as a result of a need for theatre opportunities for people after high school. Ever since he was young, Bennett sat with his mother in the tech booth for the theatre’s performances.
“What are your children if they are not free manpower?” he commented.
Bennett attended Fillmore Central School in Allegany County, N.Y. and ran the tech booth. They put on the “Sound of Music” his junior year. It was the first time he ran the lights (with a new system) all by himself.
After graduation, his passion for theater brought him back to Fillmore for his brother’s production of “Les Misérables”, even while he was still taking classes at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y.
He described that to make it back from Rochester, he had to leave class early and sprint to his illegally parked car, in order to barely make the shows on time!
Another hectic story Bennett recalled was when he was both running the lights for the “Sound of Music” and performing in the Waltz on stage. He always had a lot of quick changes. Whenever his mom needed to fill a male role, she threw him in without hesitation. But Bennett prefers being in the booth to being on stage.
His favorite part of being involved in theater is “the sense of fulfillment when you get it all to work” after an “exercise in effort.” Bennett said that he would be in the tech booth for 40 or more hours outside of rehearsal times.
He described lighting as more than simply being able to see the actors. “The lighting needs to reflect what time of day it is,” he said. It needs to convey an emotional tone and direct the audience’s attention. He described it as an art where you first need to “solve the puzzle, then use creativity.”
Bennett added that you get to “solve it as a part of a community.” During a show, the tech crew becomes an extended family. He said that after the show is over and he is the last one left, “There is a sense of loss,” but also, “Oh Gosh I can sleep again!” And back to making the pizzas.
Professor of Philosophy Dr. Benjamin Lipscomb, who performs at the Town Theatre of Short Tract, said that his favorite part of theater is having the opportunity to work on a team.
“Theater enables us to be neighbors,” Lipscomb said.
When expressing his concerns with how society currently isolates itself, he stated “We let ourselves over-fill our days … don’t leave room for forms of collaborative activity that builds community … we need to intentionally make time to do things that pour into [our] community.”
He clarified that theater is just one way of doing so. “If theater is not your thing, it’s not your thing,” he said. “I’m not saying that everyone should do this thing but everyone should do this kind of thing … Like charity, not everyone should be giving to the same one but everyone should be participating using their gifts.”
When asked what prevents people from doing theater, Lipscomb talked about it being alien and scary. Now this is the case “until you do it with a community that supports you,” he said.
While many know Prof. Amanda Cox as the pianist at Chapel and the HU’s Director of Lyric Theatre, many do not know that Cox has participated in short films such as “Through Eyes of Grace”.
Most of her involvement in theater, when she was younger, was influenced by her parents, Dr. Paul and Debbie Young. As a ninth grader, Cox auditioned for HU’s (formerly known as Houghton College) “The Diary of Anne Frank” production, and was given the role of Anne.
Cox argued that theater forces actors to build empathy.
“We do the hard work of finding ways in which we can identify with a character who sometimes has a very different experience than we do,” she said. “And this requires our actors to practice and employ empathy.
“And indeed,” she added, “the work of an audience is also an exercise in empathy. We watch these characters whom we have never met, who may have very different life experiences than we do, and we understand them in a new way.”
When asked what prevents people from joining the theater, Cox said a lot of it comes down to awareness.
Theater is just one opportunity available for people to pour into the community as Bennett, Lipscomb and Cox have done. Will you take the leap of faith? ★
