Acute Care: Performing Emotional Labors

Two actors wearing scrubs stand facing each otherTwo actors wearing scrubs stand next to a third, who sits in a wheel chairAn actor in scrubs hands a small object to a seated actor in scrubsSeveral actors wearing scrubs stand around a gurney with another actor on itAn actor in scrubs sits and a second in scrubs stands in the backgroundSeveral actors wearing scrubs sit in a circle, some in chairs and some on the floorAn actor in scrubs pushes a wheelchair with a second actor wearing a hospital gownActor wearing a hospital ground stands on stageSeveral actors wearing scrubs stand all around the stage

Acute Care: Performing Emotional Labors

Based on Oral Histories with Nurses
Directed by Beth Cleary 

April 6-9. 2017
MainStage Theater, Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center

The Macalester College Theatre and Dance Department presents Acute Care: Performing Emotional Labors, directed by Beth Cleary.

Acute Care is an oral history-based performance, using the words and stories of over 20 Twin Cities nurses who gave interviews for this project.  Acute Care explores how nurses became nurses; nursing specialties; the highly technical language and special expertise nurses use in their jobs; the varieties of the nursing experience, including the hectic pace, night shift work, dealing with anxious families, and helping patients both get better and die with dignity. The Macalester students performing Acute Care play nurses in ten specialty areas, from emergency to pediatrics.  They also play patients, and they play themselves.  They have been very involved in the creation of this piece, and are eager to give the nurses who interviewed for this project visibility and voice.

Beth Cleary is the director and conducted the first set of interviews in 2010.  Cleary has taught theatre history and directed at Macalester for 24 years.  Her recent productions include: The Glass Menagerie, the U.S. premiere of Naomi Wallace’s The Inland Sea, and 12 Ophelias by Caridad Svich.  She has directed in the Twin Cities through Naked Stages, the Minnesota Jewish Theatre and the Playwrights’ Center.

Ensemble of Actors

Marwan Abunura ’20 Maya Bergman-Corbet ’19
Emma Breslow ’19 Luke Brown ’19
James Cannon ’20 Jesse Claire-McKown ’20
Melissa Feinman ’17 Bailey Haas ’19
Wren Hess ’19 Marley Higbee ’20
Ming Lian ’19 Anna Mickle ’18
Joseph Rothstein ’20 Miller Shor ’19

Creative Team

Beth Cleary Director
Marley Higbee ’20 Assistant Director
Megan Reilly Scenic & Lighting Designer
Michael Croswell Sound Designer
Richard Hamson Costume Designer
Jon Dahl ’14 Movement Designer
Max Danielewicz ’20 Stage Manager
Trevor Zapiecki ’19 Assistant Stage Manager