The Okada Project

Directed by Guest Lecturer Mallory Catlett and in collaboration with Resident Designer Maiko Matsushima, students in the Bryn Mawr College Bi-Co Theater Program’s Fall 2020 Performance Ensemble and Fundamentals of Theater Design courses gathered both in-person and virtually to investigate performance texts by Japanese playwright and director Toshiki Okada, translated by Aya Ogawa. 

The Theater Program took the opportunity offered by social distancing to question and explore performance and design across platforms. Students worked in smaller socially distanced in-person classes, outside, and remotely to generate a variety of interdisciplinary works rather than a traditional staged in-person play. 

Three Okada texts—Curtain, Eyelids, and We cannot understand each other, the way we cannot understand home appliances—served as inspiration for students to create staging, design, drawing, paintings, installations, animations, choreography, and videos. 

A collection of the student works, unable to be shown last semester, will be presented in a March exhibition and short film screening. The Okada Project blog launched along with the exhibition and includes works by both acting and design students. The exhibition and screening are available to the Bi-Co campus community in masked, socially distant, in-person, timed viewings, following the College's COVID-19 safety guidelines.

The Okada Project Exhibition*
Thursday-Saturday, March 4-6, Noon-6 p.m.
Hepburn Teaching Theater, Goodhart Hall.

The Okada Project Student Short Film Screening: "We cannot understand each other, the way we cannot understand home appliances"* (45 min.)
Saturday, March 6, Noon-6 p.m.
Screening Times: Noon, 1 p.m., 2 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 5 p.m. 
Common Room, Goodhart Hall

*Exhibition and film screening attendance is limited to Bi-Co Bryn Mawr or Haverford College community members, space is limited, and reservations are required.

The Okada Project Blog gives the viewer a behind-the-scenes look at works in process and documentation of the outdoor pieces created last fall.

For more information, contact the Bryn Mawr College Office for the Arts at (610) 526-5300 or reservations@brynmawr.edu.

The Creative Team

Mark Lord, Producer
Mallory Catlett, Director
Maiko Matsushima, Set and Costume Designer
Monet Debose ’21, Assistant Director
Abby Green ’21, Assistant Director
Lena Steinbach '21, Stage Manager
Wills Kornberg '23, Stage Manager
Justin McDaniel, Technical Director
Henry Bradford, Assistant Technical Director
Amy Radbill, Production Manager and Props Designer
Angela Dowdy, Arts Administrator

Design Students

Aha Anderson ˈ23
Molly Clark ˈ24
Emma Currie ˈ24
Nadia Kim ˈ21
Lillian Moffatt ˈ22
Isa Sainz ˈ24
Julia Smith ˈ24
Kayla Strine ˈ24
Isobel Tworetzky ˈ24
AJ Wallihan ˈ24