The lights dim in Harrison Theatre, and the audience in their seats are met with a single beam of light emanating from a large prop on center stage. As the stage lights lift, the audience sees that the beam is coming from inside the tower of a lighthouse, on which stands a pregnant girl. Her name is Widow Clack, and this is her story.
Samford University’s theatre department produced their spring musical, “Tomorrow, The Island Dies,” from April 12-14 in Harrison Theatre as part of the Michael J. and Mary Anne Freeman Theatre and Dance Series. The show followed Widow Clack and other young adults whose parents left the storm-ridden island for a better life. The young adults volunteered to stay behind on the island of Haverness and prepare the island for complete abandonment, but storms and a mysterious death thwart their plans.
Samford theatre students had the privilege of working on an original musical, one that had never been performed before. Ryan Scott Oliver, 2023 Kleban Prize recipient, wrote the book, lyrics and music for the show. Oliver worked hand-in-hand to produce the musical with the show’s director, Chelsea Nicholson, assistant professor of musical theatre at Samford.
“There are a lot of challenges in directing a piece for the first time,” Nicholson said. “I’ve acted in new work, and directed staged readings of new work, but this is my first time directing and fully producing a new work.”
Not only was this the show’s debut, but the show also brought with it its own unique set of challenges. The show contains dark themes and intense moments that had to be handled with care onstage.
“This piece was also challenging because it contains really challenging moments in the script,” Nicholson said. “There is a lighthouse. There is a storm. There is staged violence. There are ghosts. It almost rises to the height of Greek tragedy in its storytelling, so there was a constant want and need to live up to the story and to encourage the actors to do the same, which they have done so beautifully.”
Hart Madison, senior acting directing major, played Benji Clack in the show. Madison believed that the cast was able to handle the show’s heavy topic because of the way they worked together and cared for each other.
“Because this is a new musical, I’ve loved building the world with the cast and collectively interpreting the script in our own way,” Madison said. “It’s a heavy story, but I love how we’re all comfortable with each other and take care of everyone.”
Nicholson said that, despite the show’s dark atmosphere, she hopes that audiences were able to trace themes of light and hope throughout the show. She included John 1:5 in her director’s notes, which reads, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
The cast members strove to convey this theme of hope through the dark story they were telling. Jackson Griffee, sophomore musical theatre major, held onto this theme as he portrayed the character of Jacob.
“There have been other horror musicals and shows with darker themes, but one thing I know is that when we started, it was important to see the light of God in such a dark show,” Griffee said. “I think that even with its dark nature, you can see how the Lord moves in people’s lives, even fictional ones, making this show both unique and perfect to share with Samford students.”
Because this was the first time the show had ever been performed, students had the opportunity to exercise creativity as they played their characters. Via Vicary, freshman commercial music major, played the character of Kathryn.
“Playing Kathryn has been such an amazing and unique experience,” Vicary said. “The role has challenged me to take on the character of a person with a complex mind and personality. The audience should not completely discover whether Kathryn is a good soul or devious manipulator until the very end.”
Besides the student actors, another star of the show was its lighting and sound effects. Because the majority of the show takes place on an island, effects were needed to create unique scenes like the middle of the ocean, a beach in the morning and a cliffside party spot. The lighting effectively communicated all of these scenes to the audience, which was a tribute to Nicholson’s and Oliver’s direction.
“It was thrilling and liberating to not have preconceived notions of what an audience should expect from the piece like they would with a show they would be very familiar with,” Nicholson said. “In a rehearsal process, if I’m working on rich material, I tend to have a lot of late nights, or wake up in the middle of the night with what I call ‘2AM ideas’ and that happened very often with this show because it lends itself to so much creativity in interpretation and direction and relationships between characters and world building.”
Samford’s theatre department beautifully depicted the story of the Clack siblings and the other young adults on the island of Haverness, introducing Oliver’s musical to the world and ending the spring semester on a musical high note.
Staff Writer
