A spacious stage sweeps out to a sea of red chairs. A velvet curtain conceals fantastical realms and characters bolstered by the dedication of faces lurking in black folds behind the wings.
For audience members, the theater is an escape. For players, it is home.
Senior Caitlyn Hubbard will say goodbye to her home of four years with her final performance in Markel Auditorium this Sunday.
“It’s the last hurrah for a main stage go,” Hubbard said. “This is the last time.”
Hubbard will play the role of John Rugby in the Tower Players’ production of “The Merry Wives of Windsor” by William Shakespeare. Rugby is a clown character, a dunce, and a man. Playing a man can be challenging but fun, Hubbard said. She also plays opposite her best friend, sophomore Kyra Moss. Moss also plays a male role: Peter Simple.
“We got to be men together, and that was so much fun,” Moss said.
Hubbard and Moss met while they attended high school at Hillsdale Academy. Moss was a sophomore and Hubbard was a junior.
“We were not friends at first because I thought she was rude and blunt, and she thought I was weird and eccentric,” Moss said.
The two eventually became best friends the following summer, but they were involved in the theater together before then.
Hubbard had just transferred to the Academy from a high school in Onsted, Mich. When she arrived in Hillsdale, she was disappointed to learn the school had no drama department.
“The school that I had come from, I was waiting to be in a high school position, so I could be a part of it. It was a really strong [theater] program. So I was like, ‘Well…I’m just not going to give up on that. I’m going to make my own,’” Hubbard said.
And she did.
“I obtained a faculty adviser, [and] I chose the show. I had a class the whole first semester and taught improv, basic acting skills, warm-ups and things like that,” Hubbard said.
“Bye, Bye Birdie” would be the first musical Hubbard helped to put on at the Academy, and Moss worked as her stage manager. The show ran for only one night in the school gym. The music was also changed the night before the show premiered. Despite the obstacles, the Academy now has a theater program.
The next year, a new director stepped in to work with the faculty adviser on a larger, grander show — “The Sound of Music.” Hubbard earned the role of the lead, Maria, and Moss was her stage manager yet again. The show ran for three nights and was performed in Hillsdale College’s own Phillips Auditorium.
“It really legitimately came together, and the program is still going strong over at the Academy. They’re doing Cole Porter’s ‘Anything Goes’ this year,” Hubbard said. “Everyone still talks about ‘The Sound of Music’ and how great that was.”
Hubbard’s passion for theater may have begun before her collegiate career, but her goals did not always include becoming an actress. She first wanted to attend Michigan State University to row crew. After President Larry Arnn accosted her, however, she decided to come to Hillsdale.
“I was really passionate about it [theater]. Coming into college, I didn’t ever think it could be a career choice,” Hubbard said.
After she completed her theater minor at the end of her sophomore year, Hubbard decided to pick up a theater major along with her economics major. It was only last year that she decided to pursue acting professionally.
“I realized just how much I loved it [acting] and just how much I was not willing to give it up in the real world,” Hubbard said. “So here I am. I’m graduating as a theater major.”
Hubbard has played seven different roles as a Tower Player with great memories of each, she said. One role in particular she said she looks back on with the most fondness: Pasquala in “Fuente Ovejuna.” This was the character she used as her senior project.
“It was actually not a role I was trying to get. I was trying to get the lead, but George [Angell] had decided to ‘reverse cast,’ which is putting everyone in a role that is not their type cast,” Hubbard said. “He knew he was working with really talented people, and he wanted to give us a little push outside our comfort zone. Everyone really rose to the challenge.”
Hubbard said she did not initially like the character, but in an effort to master Pasquala, she created an extensive background story. The more Hubbard began to immerse herself into the role, the more she came to love Pasquala and playing her.
“You have to find a justification for her actions, for her words. To be able to identify with her, to use a façade within yourself, to become her, have that empty palate there that becomes her and shines out of you,” Hubbard said. “I ended up just really coming to love her and love myself as her.”
As Hubbard prepares to step onto the stage of Markel for the final time, as all senior theater majors eventually do, her professors and peers reflect on her impact as an actress, person, and friend.
Professor of Theater James Brandon taught Hubbard in her first theater class at Hillsdale and cast her in her first play, “Biederman and the Firebugs.”
“She’s very driven,” he said. “It’s not just that she knows what she’s doing, she knows why she’s doing it. I like Caitlyn quite a bit. She’s very not a kid — wise beyond her years.”
Hubbard’s drive and spirit is leading her toward good things in her future. She is applying to the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago for an intensive theater internship. She has also obtained a summer job teaching drama at an all-girls camp.
From the Theatre Department faculty and to the friends she has made within the program, Hubbard says she is grateful for the challenging and rewarding experiences she has been given performing as a Tower Player.
“When you’re vulnerable on the stage, when you’re portraying a true character, when you’re having a living moment on the stage, it’s you,” she said. “It’s not some name you’ve given yourself temporarily. It is you, your moment, and your emotional roller coaster that is being put on display for everyone to see. It’s just really personal, and I never would have gotten that opportunity anywhere else.”
rturnbull@hillsdale.edu
