Students of acting, dance and tech theater sought

Damascus -- Farm Arts Collective is seeking student interns for Willow Wisp Organic Farm from June 16 to August 3.

Three interns are needed to join the Dream on the Farm performance project this summer. Pay is $600 and Wayne County high school and college students with an intereste in acting, singing, technical production and music are encouraged to apply.

Rehearsals take place on Tuesday and Thursday evenings at Farm Arts Collective, 38 Hickory La., from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., with an additional full-day rehearsal on Saturday, July 19. At all rehearsals, a light meal is provided at company break. Show dates and times are July 24 through Aug. 3, Thursdays to Sundays at 6:30 p.m. with a call time of 5 p.m. The pilot internship program is partially funded by The Wayne County Community Foundation.

This provides a unique opportunity for students to become involved in a large-scale professional theatre production. Farm Arts Collective is recognized for its innovative site-specific theatre experiences. This production is a theater project about the land, climate change resiliency, and environmental stewardship.

The performance is called “Paradise Lost: Scavenge Hunt.” Inspired by John Milton’s 17th century epic poem, “Paradise Lost,” it is a contemporary ecological spin on the story of the garden of Eden. The collectively created performance proposes that contemporary humans have also lost our Garden of Eden and connection to nature, and that responsibility, new choices, and revolutionary thinking is required to live in our current post-paradise world.

It is directed by Tannis Kowalchuk and begins in a style of musical Noh Theatre (an ancient Japanese performance form) to tell the well-known story. Original music by Doug Rogers uses selected texts from Milton’s.

When the characters Adam and Eve are expelled from paradise, the audience is invited to follow them on a scavenger hunt across the 25-acre farmland. There the audience encounters performances, interactive experiences, art installations, and a host of surprises that invite the scavenger hunters to face the impacts that their choices have had on paradise. Questions like: What is your Paradise? What do you fear losing most? Can paradise be re-claimed? are presented and investigated throughout the site-specific theatrical scavenger hunt.

Interested students should apply with a letter of interest to Tannis Kowalchuk, artistic director of Farm Arts Collective. E-mail: tannis@farmartscollective.org

On Saturday, May 17 at 2 p.m. all applicants will be invited to attend and participate in an introductory rehearsal session and “try-out” with the director and some company members.