Have you ever been to a bad meeting? A really bad meeting? A meeting so terrible you couldn’t think about anything but that level, endless mental drone of “God, please let this be over soon”? Never fear: the Ursinus Theatre and Dance Department production of playwright Savannah Reich’s A Series of Meetings is here.
In A Series of Meetings, six facilitators – played by Tre Dunlap ‘25, Kaya Eller ‘25, Spencer Toth ‘25, Yadi Padilla ‘26, Calista Baechtold ‘26, and Kat Carey ‘27 – have gathered once a week for an entire year to prepare for the meeting of a lifetime to teach you how to run a good meeting, but the heart of the show spills beyond its stated goal. As director AZ Espinoza puts it, it’s “an earnest yet absurd look at what makes groups happen and succeed…[I]t applies to everyone who cares about something.” Living together is hard; talking to each other is harder – A Series of Meetings is a study in overcoming that, much in line with Ursinus’ Four Questions.
The show’s quirks have presented some unique challenges in directing and acting: A Series of Meetings includes audience participation, which is a sort of “wild card” that can be difficult to account for during rehearsal. In the end, Espinoza finds that their actors’ performances are even better for it, the uncertainty of what an audience member might say or do inspiring “collaborative rehearsals” and an intense focus on ”the fundamentals of acting…and inhabiting the perspective of [the] character,” to prepare for how each actor’s character might react to any given choice by the audience.
Audiences are encouraged to buy into the premise of the show, and A Series of Meetings offers the opportunity for deep immersion – Espinoza suggests walking into the theatre in the same headspace with which you’d approach a meeting you’re excited to attend. He points out, too, that the show offers “a lot of opportunities to reflect on what it means to be a member of a community,” and, so, the cast suggests bringing your community with you, whether that means seeing the show with classmates, teammates, friends, or club members, especially if you’re a leader among them.
A Series of Meetings is a show of firsts. It being a world premiere, the Ursinus community will be seeing the first ever iteration of the show, and the cast and creative team is the first ever to put on a production of it. Espinoza sees this as a wonderful privilege: “It’s probably one of my favorite things to do … I’m a playwright, and I think [the world premiere] is when you can see the play and it’s…freshest.” This is Espinoza’s first time directing at Ursinus, too, though they’ve previously worked with every member of the creative team; they’ve enjoyed working with these designers and comment that there’s a “great momentum” and “shared understanding.”
Tickets for A Series of Meetings, available on the Ursinus website, are $5 for students and staff, and $8 for general admission, and the show dates are February 27th, February 28th, March 1st, and March 2nd; all shows are at 7:30 except the March 2nd ASL-interpreted performance, a 2:00 matinee. The show will take place in the Black Box Theatre in the Kaleidoscope.