Anne Peterson fell in love with the spotlight, but not in the usual way.
Senior Anne Peterson grew up in Minneapolis, Minn., enveloped in one of the artistic centers of the country, attending and enjoying the theatrical opportunities enough to be “the unofficial photographer” for her high school theater. Theater was always an interest, but it wasn’t till she experienced theater from the production side that she fell in love with it.
It wouldn’t be until her junior of college that she’d discover her true passion: dramaturgy.
“When I got to Hillsdale, first semester freshman year I was placed in Dave Griffith’s theatre production class — just the one-credit working backstage — and he needed someone to work the follow spotlight for ‘Company,’ and I volunteered for that,” Peterson said. “It was such a fun experience. It was so much work, so much time. I mean, the actors had been been working really, really hard before that. But it was just such a great experience.”
After working the lights for “Company,” Peterson began working in a semi-permanent capacity in the light booth. It was the first of many roles she has assumed in theatre department productions.
From her first, somewhat tentative, acceptance of the role helping with lighting, Peterson has since taken on as her senior project the role of dramaturge for Mary Zimmerman’s “Mirror of the Invisible World,” a play based on a 12th-century Persian poem, to be performed later this semester.
“I just kept continued working and took “Understanding Theatre” the semester after that. Then I decided to be a theater major. And I have devoted most of my time to it since,” she chuckled.
Peterson has since tried her hand at acting, production, lights, and much more in preparation and performance of the various shows, balancing her theatre and English double major all the while.
“One of the best things about Anne is that she is a jack of all trades,” senior Kathrine Denton said. “She looks for things to be done, and she does everything well. She’s fabulous. She sees things and says, ‘Hey, I can do that and like to! Tell me if you need anything.’ She’s been instrumental in every show that I’ve been in here. She works so hard.”
Peterson said dramaturgy came naturally when she took the dramaturgy class last year, and the class project of researching and producing Euripides’ “Medea” sparked her interest and, to a great extent, directs her future plans.
“Everything is pretty involved in the dramaturgy because not only is it the play itself, it’s also the research, the reenactments, and more for the play,” senior Peter Kistler, fellow theatre major and classmate in dramaturgy, said. “Anne got really interested in it and just came into her own and was the sole dramaturg for the performance of Eurydice.”
Peterson’s gift and interest come in part because it compounds her love of literature with her love of theatre, and though she loves acting as well, she said it lets her be just as involved and avoid revealing that she has “no idea what to do with her hands” when she meets new people.
“She really loves the scholastic end of theatre,” Professor of Theatre George Angell said. “She loves discovering the answers outside and around the theatre. The best thing about Anne as a dramaturge is that she is excited about the project and excited about telling what she found. This is important because you have to present it to the director and actors.”
Angell said Peterson has represented the Hillsdale Theatre Department in years past at the DePauw Undergraduate Honors Conference and at the American College Theatre Festival by presenting papers and reviews of productions. He anticipates her to do so this year as well.
“Dramaturgy is basically literary expertise of the script. The dramaturge is there to flesh out historical and literary allusions of the script,” Professor of Theatre James Brandon said. “It’s research. Dramaturgy brings to the table a lot of things Anne loves and is good at. Dramaturges provide a service that no one else in the theatre can provide.”
After working with Peterson in just about all of her shows, Denton said that Peterson’s humble bearing and easy-going abilities with people really make her amazing at explaining her research. According to Denton, Peterson’s hilarious and chill attitude doesn’t hurt either.
“Anne always acts very professionally, even though such tact is often very difficult at this point in our lives,” Kistler said. “It’s easy just to say ‘I’m having a crappy day,’ but she doesn’t do that, even when she’s really stressed.”
Peterson said she loves the theatre and the satisfaction of work that is both visibly complete and visibly effects other people.
“Being a puppeteer in king stag was great,” she said. “It was fun because I had never worked in such a family-friendly show before.”
She said that her favorite audience reaction came from that show, when the giant bear puppet was sneaking up behind a hunter and a small child in the front row audibly whispered “there’s a bear behind you” in warning.
“It was a glimpse of you can present something that can really grab people, even a little kid,” she said. “It is very satisfying.”
Her love of research, the audience, and the spotlight all inspire Peterson to pursue a future in the theatrical world. Ideally as a dramaturg.
“I would like to go to grad school, don’t know if I can go right away, but I’d like to get some practical work,” Peterson said. “I know a lot of theatre graduates who are working in the theatre but its scary, there’s no guarantee that we’ll be able to get jobs.”
“But if it weren’t scary,” she added, “I don’t know if it’d be worth it.”
