A blend of realism and fantasy

Knight Theatre will open its production of the Broadway musical Big Fish on Thursday, Jan. 29, in St. Norbert College’s Webb Theatre.

“This show is kind of hard to describe,” said Tyler Blom, the show’s director. “It’s a sort of coming-of-age type of story mixed with a fantastical sort of element. The show is basically about a son who is trying to learn more about his father who is about to pass away. The father always told all these crazy stories and the son is trying to figure out which parts of them were real and which parts of them were fake. I think the show really excels in a lot of different ways — it blends realism and fantasy in a very interesting way where you’ll go from something really cartoonish to something really down to earth, really quickly.”

Because of the way the show blends realism and fantasy, Blom said it’s up to the audience how they interpret its message.

“I think everybody can kind of take away their own sort of message from this show,” Blom said. “This show has a very open ending and so there are a lot of questions left unanswered. I think it’s up to each audience member to kind of draw what they want to from the ending of the show just because so much of the show is left as question marks. We don’t know what was real and what was fake… I think it’s up to each audience member to kind of determine what was the message behind all of those stories, even if they might not have been real.”
One thing Samantha Czekala, the show’s producer, hopes audiences take away from the show, though, is an appreciation for the work that’s gone into it.

“I really hope that they appreciate and acknowledge the talents that we have,” Czekala said. “Not only the actors on stage, but it’s all students that are directing it and students did the design work, the set design, costume design, props, sound, lighting — that’s all done by students. I hope audience members can see that and really appreciated it, especially with Knight Theatre being the only theater opportunity left at St. Norbert.”

Despite St. Norbert no longer offering a theater major, there are still many students interested in participating in theater during their time on campus. As a student organization, Knight Theatre offers that opportunity.

“There’s people who come here and maybe they were in theater in high school and they really enjoyed it or they made friends doing theater and they learned skills,” Czekala said. “To have this opportunity still, even though the theater program is no longer, it’s really super valuable to have the opportunity to still put on a show.”

Work for the show takes place outside of class time, while many students are home for winter break.

“Between the end of the fall semester and the start of the spring semester, the month of January is pretty much spent putting on the show,” Czekala said. “ Rehearsals, blocking, learning the music, learning the choreography and working costumes and props — that all happens in the month when we have a break from classes.”

Working on such a tight timeline, though, can create some unique challenges.

“With directing on that fast of a time scale, it means probably the two biggest challenges are one, the cast really has to get into their rules fast and they have to get really immersed into their characters really, really quickly…” Blom said. “And two, there’s just a lot of planning up front because there’s not a lot of time that you can change things, so you really have to know what you’re doing before rehearsals actually start.”

But Blom said the students involved in this year’s show have stepped up to those challenges.
“We really want to show the unique characteristics of each character, so even if you’re not necessarily a lead role, there’s still a lot that you can add by just thinking beyond the script and adding your own details,” Blom said. “One thing I was really impressed about is that the cast took really well to adding their own little spins onto difference characters — some of the ensemble characters would add their own names they would have family members that they came up with or little backstories, that sort of thing — that really adds to the show.”

Performances of Big Fish will take place Jan. 29-Feb. 1 at St. Norbert’s Webb Theatre, 315 3rd St., De Pere.

Learn more and purchase tickets at my.snc.edu/knighttheatre.