Student Performance Completes International Experience

UNC Charlotte study-abroad students will present both live and recorded scenes from their 2014 London production of Shakespeare’s Pericles and Cervantes’ The Sultan’s Queen on Tuesday, April 21, at UNC Charlotte’s McKnight Hall in the Cone University Center, as part of an extensive experience that involved a visit by a British team to UNC Charlotte, a study abroad experience last summer and this performance.

The performance, free and open to the public, will be from 7 to 9 p.m. and will include a question-and-answer session with a student-faculty panel.

While studying in England last summer, the students created an innovative theatrical production that combined works of Shakespeare and Cervantes, while exploring topics such as diversity, theatrical performance, language, history and the craft of theatrical writing.

They collaborated with students from Kingston University (London), British theater professionals and a UNC Charlotte scholar to combine versions of Cervantes’ The Sultan’s Queen (La gran sultana) and Shakespeare’s Pericles, Prince of Tyre. They recorded both the performance and highlights of the rehearsal process.

“The intensive focus helps the texts come alive for students,” said project lead Maryrica Ortiz Lottman, who served as the dramaturge, addressing the culture and language of the time period. An associate professor of Spanish in the Department of Languages and Culture Studies, Lottman researches early modern Hispanic literature and culture, as well as today’s productions of plays from the period.

“You can’t really understand a play unless you see it in performance, do it in performance,” she said. “It opens up all these questions for me as a scholar and for the students.”

Students also considered contemporary topics in the context of their connection to earlier times. “People think that diversity, hybridization, and intercultural issues are new,” Lottman said. “This is what Cervantes was talking about. We can represent those topics and discuss them in a really open and impactful way.”

The performance is sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, the Office of International Programs and the Department of Languages and Culture Studies, with support from the Chancellor’s Diversity Challenge Fund.

UNC Charlotte students also participated in early stages of the production process during a weeklong visit by the Kingston University team to UNC Charlotte in the fall of 2013. The team – director James Reynolds, choreographer Jon Chu and sound and lighting designer Andrew Nasrat – worked with students, some of whom also were part of the study abroad experience.

Image:  James Reynolds works with students during the team’s trip to UNC Charlotte