College theater’s most recent one-act play was a special one.
“Lift Every Voice,” which ran this past weekend out of 248 N. Third St’s studio theater, marked the first theater department show completely led by students in Lafayette College history.
The play was spearheaded by director Ronnie Ward ‘25, who directed the production as her senior theater project.
“It all started last semester when I was talking to my advisor Professor Lodge,” Ward said. “I just told her I wanted to direct for my senior project and she was like ‘Okay, we’re gonna get the team.’”
Ward appreciated her professors for allowing her to take the reins on the project.
“They gave me advice and they were there for me, but they let me do my thing,” she said of her advisors, theater professors Mary Jo Lodge and Melissa Livingston.
“I can really say, ‘This was my show,’ and it wasn’t like me just being puppeteered by faculty,” she continued.
“Lift Every Voice” features a cast of characters who comprise the student council in their high school. The show delves into each of their complex relationships with the American national anthem.
“It takes place in an elite high school in Chicago, and battles themes of racism, different viewpoints and ideas about the Star Spangled Banner, what it means to be American,” Ward said.
Ward worked closely with stage manager Sophia Gal ‘27, as well as assistant stage manager Christine Jensen ‘25. Other students involved in the show’s production include lighting designer Lily Groff ‘25, sound designer Calum McConnell ‘25, costume designers Laura Coffey ‘26 and Emma Li ‘27, scenic designer Champe Mitchell ‘27 and production assistant Sonali Shah ‘26.
Shah noted the significance of the student collaboration during the show’s production process.
“It was cool to see how these different students were interacting with each other while the professors, who were there and were assisting, kind of took a step back and let everyone figure out their own things,” she said.
Li echoed this sentiment.
“We have a lot of really hard-working and skilled and creative artistic people, so it’s cool to be able to do that with them,” Li said of helping bring “Lift Every Voice” to life alongside other students.
Jake Salgado, an assistant professor of theater, sees “Lift Every Voice” as an opportunity “to inject more student participation in the design space.”
“This project seemed like a really ripe opportunity for that,” he said.
To those who worked on it, the project was significant not just for being the first completely student-led production in Lafayette’s theater department, but also for fostering diverse perspectives in the college’s theater productions.
Liu ‘25, who played the character of Ricky in “Lift Every Voice,” cited a positive experience working with Ward and valued her directing ability.
“The wider and probably more important part is that this is a show that was led by a Black student director, a Black woman,” Liu said. “Ronnie is a genius, like, genuinely amazing, fantastic director, dare I say, one of the best student directors I’ve ever worked with.”
Liu also appreciated “Lift Every Voice” for allowing actors of color to shine and hopes that the play inspires other students of color to step into leadership roles in theater.
“My great hope is that this empowers other students of color to direct and act and do more,” Liu said. “For me personally, this is the first role that I’ve ever done that has been an explicitly Asian character.”
“So ‘Lift Every Voice’ does feel like a momentous triumph, history-making, if you will,” Liu continued.
Ward felt honored to have been a part of department history.
“I’m happy that I could be a part of that history,” Ward said of the show’s milestone in student-led productions. “I don’t even really believe it. Still, I’m like, ‘Some of this has to have happened before.’ Like, I can’t be the first one. But I mean, I’ll take it if it’s the truth.”
Lodge also feels that this play is an important milestone for Lafayette theater.
“We are proud that she is our (long overdue) first female director of color in our season, and we are even more excited that she headed up a stellar student design team with a clear vision of how ‘Lift Every Voice’ is an important play for College students to see right now, in this political moment,” Lodge wrote in an email.
Livingston believed that Ronnie’s direction, and the project as a whole, was a success.
“I thought that Ronnie did an extremely good job and really came to the vision she had,” Livingston said. “I also thought all of the other designers involved in the show really came up with an extremely well-polished product.”
The show garnered a positive response from many who saw it, as it sold out each of its showings, according to Ward.
“If this is gonna be the last theatrical thing I do, I want it to mean a lot and I want it to have a message and reflect things that are important to me in theater,” she said. “I feel like I did that.”
