When the Pioneer Valley Performing Arts Charter School moved from temporary digs in Hadley—a funky, improvised assortment of rented accommodations—into a shiny new purpose-built facility in South Hadley, the students had a saying: “I used to go to PVPA, but now I go to high school.”
Five years on, despite its more conventional look, the 14-year-old school retains most of the laid-back bohemian atmosphere that has set it apart from the beginning: staff and students on a first-name basis, a non-dress-code that tolerates flip-flops, tanktops and drag, and a school culture that celebrates difference, minimizes cliques and generates profuse hugging.
It’s that environment that attracted me to the school, where I’ve taught part-time for 10 years and am now directing my eighth production. That, and the enlivening combination of adolescent enthusiasm and passionate artistic purpose the kids bring to their studies and performances in the school’s specialties—music, dance and theater—with up to 20 full productions each year.
Over the years, I’ve developed my own PVPA specialty. My spring-semester performance slot has come to be called World Theater because the scripts we’ve done are mostly from the international repertoire. They’ve included Brecht, Stoppard and Cocteau, expressionism and theater of the absurd, most of them stylistically adventurous, ensemble-based, fourth-wall-piercing productions.
This year’s show, playing this weekend, continues that trajectory, but it also illustrates one of the school’s most surprising drawbacks, as well as its flair for innovation. Although it was designed and built specifically as a performing arts school, PVPA’s theater spaces are woefully deficient. The mainstage is a narrow black box with limited seating and flexibility, and the even smaller “studio theater” is a converted classroom. The 2010 World Theater selection wouldn’t work in either of those spaces.
It’s Metamorphoses—not Kafka’s bug story but Ovid’s tales from Greek and Roman mythology, all involving changes and transformations of one sort or another. Mary Zimmerman’s playful, poignant script puts a contemporary spin on 10 of the tales, from the love stories of Orpheus and Eurydice, Psyche and Eros, to the punishments of greedy Midas, vain Narcissus and curious Pandora.
The script calls for the play to be performed by a large ensemble in and around a pool of water—the capricious, changeable element. To their credit (and my relief), the technical staff didn’t freak out at that requirement, but embraced it as an aesthetic challenge. Tech director Martin Bridge saw the opportunity to take the first step toward his dream of creating an outdoor amphitheater on the school grounds. It will be PVPA’s first official outdoor production.
While waiting for the playing area to be finished and a temporary plastic-lined pool to be installed, the cast of 15 has rehearsed with a blue tarpaulin standing in for the water, where most of the play’s metamorphoses occur. At the same time, lighting designer Emily Brownlow and her students have conducted nighttime experiments with natural and electric illumination, and costumer Leigh-Ellen Figueroa’s crew is working up the show’s 60(!) costume changes. And this weekend, PVPA will have a new theater.
Metamorphoses: May 28-30, 7:30 p.m., PVPA, 15 Mulligan Drive, South Hadley, (413) 552-1590.
