Illinois Wesleyan University’s School of Theatre Arts kicks off its 2024-25 public programming next week with Paul Slade Smith’s political satire The Outsider. Shows run Oct. 2-6 in the McPherson Theatre.
Guest director Melanie Keller makes her IWU directorial debut, but it's not her first time on campus. Keller attended Illinois Wesleyan as a theater major and went on to a successful career as a Chicago-based stage, film and television actor.
“I had not set foot on campus in—I think it’s been about 25 years,” Keller said in an interview for WGLT’s Sound Ideas. “I walked into the theater and it looked the same. It smelled the same. And I burst into tears. All of a sudden, I was flooded with nostalgia.”
The rehearsal process has been a bit of a whirlwind, with auditions, casting and the first read-through all happening within the first three days of school.
“I’m new to them and they’re new to me,” Keller said. “It’s been a really cool time of getting to know each other.”
In addition to Keller, guest designers Welsey Price (costumes), Dan Ozminkowski (lighting) and Emily Hayman (sound), join faculty set designer Curt Trout. The ensemble cast of mostly sophomores and juniors includes Ella Barrick Baldwin, Hannah Steck, Marie Santogrossi, Christian Hofmann, Sam Landt, Sage Mattson and Mikayla Preston.
“They are right in the middle of their college theater careers,” Keller said. “And for several of them, I think this is a pretty big step up from roles that they’ve had in the past. They’re really being tested and, I think, feeling very excited and confident about it.”
Keller selected The Outsider knowing the timing would run in parallel with election season. Just how good, she could not have predicted.
“I had no idea how perfect the timing would be given what’s going on in the real world and how that mirrors what happens in the play,” she said. “It was very fortuitous.”
The Outsider centers on Ned Newley, a socially awkward but very capable lieutenant governor who is called to lead his unnamed state when the governor resigns amid a sex scandal.
“Everyone in his staff has resigned because they were complicit and were helping to cover it up,” Keller said. “The former governor was handsome and charismatic but wasn’t doing a lot of governing.”
The Outsider is political but not partisan, pointing more to the machinations of political campaigns. Candidates are judged by their ability to campaign, which might be at odds with their ability to govern. Keller noted the common expression that voters want political leaders they can “have a beer with.”
“The play really asks us to say, ‘What do you mean by that?’ What does it mean to want to have a beer with somebody?” Keller said.
The Outsiders provokes viewers to ask themselves if the person you want to hang out with is the same person you want running the government. Pollsters frequently point to metrics such as “likability” and “favorability” as indicators of a candidate’s success—metrics which have spelled doom for candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Hillary Clinton, who peddled policy, plans and experience in their campaigns. Until the 2024 campaign, Joe Biden was seen as supremely likable. Impressions of Kamala Harris is generally viewed as more likeable than Donald Trump, but some undecided voters say they still don’t know enough about her.
“That’s one of the really fascinating things about doing this play at this moment in time,” said Keller. “In point of fact, the playwright, Paul Slade Smith, told me that he’s getting over 60 productions of this play this year.”
Stranger than fiction
The Outsider’s actors at IWU are primarily first-time voters, navigating the election cycle in real time while working on the play.
“For them, not only is this a play in which they get to practice their comedy chops,” said Keller, “but this is really an opportunity for us as a company to think about our place in politics.”
The group watched the Sept. 10 presidential debate together, noting parallels between real and fictional politicians' performances and preparation.
“It was fascinating how the play informed how we viewed the debate and vice versa,” Keller said. “We were thinking about the handlers for the respective candidates and how they were reacting behind the scenes to what their candidates were doing.”
Political comedy has seen a shift in the political present, moving from over-the-top, hyperbolic imitations of both George Bushes, Al Gore, Sarah Palin and Bill Clinton, for example, to now parroting something closer to what the real-life characters are doing and saying.
“We do not need to impose a layer of satire on comedy right now because the real story is just so absurd,” Keller said. “For anybody who feels like this whole political season is making them want to cry, I want to say to them, come laugh instead. Come see our play and laugh at the state of politics instead. Better to laugh than to cry.”
The Outsider runs Oct. 2-6 at Illinois Wesleyan University's McPherson Theatre, 2 Ames Plaza East, Bloomington. Tickets are $12 at 309-556-3232 and iwu.theatre.edu/season.
