Vestal's Emily West joins cast of SBU Theater's production 'Coming Home'

ST. BONAVENTURE, NY (02/14/2012)(readMedia)-- St. Bonaventure University junior Emily West appeared in SBU Theater's Feb. 12 production of "Coming Home" in The Garret Theater on campus. St. Bonaventure and other universities in its seven-state region were challenged to create a brand new piece of theater to be presented at a regional festival in January from a two-word prompt: Welcome Home. With this, West and eight other students composed and prepared "Coming Home," a one-act play about the experience of returning from military service.

West, a theater and journalism/mass communication major from Vestal, N.Y., helped her fellow students interview several veterans who had served in Afghanistan, Iraq, and, in the case of one soldier, the Korean War, in order to create an authentic script. While the play is incredibly powerful as it is, the students hope to continue to expand and evolve the project in the future with more interviews of veterans and their families.

Rebecca Misenheimer, assistant professor of visual and performing arts, said the students were eager to participate in the devised theater project.

"We wanted to talk about the experience of what coming home is; not the experience of war, which many people ask soldiers about. People don't often ask what it's like to come home," Misenheimer said.

The show, which runs approximately 20 minutes, stemmed from a new initiative proposed by The Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival last fall in advance of the organization's regional festivals.

Other than using the prompt Welcome Home, there were few parameters for the sources of the script's text: the poetry of Walt Whitman, interviews that the company themselves conducted, and original material written by the company.

Whereas the student troupe was used to starting with an existing script, this project "was a little more challenging," Misenheimer said. "You start, but you're not sure where it's going to go."

"We were always striving to do the most respectful thing," added West.

Initially, West was worried that a pro-war, patriotic agenda could overshadow the project. But the group was driven to be respectful to their sources.

"It was interesting for me to think differently about a soldier's experience. That was magnified by the fact that these are people we know," West said.

The group had just three months - amid two holiday breaks, finals and another SBU Theater production - to have their play written and ready for the stage.

At one point the group sat in a classroom with the entire script as a Word document that they had posted transcripts of their interviews into. Gradually, the characters became people, given a voice by an actor.

Misenheimer said the veterans welcomed the conversations with the students.

"Invariably, their response was, 'thank you for asking the question.' It was a great experience for our students," she said.

The theater program also had a hand from the campus ROTC program. Cadet Colin O'Donnell assisted his fellow students with a mini boot camp, teaching them how to salute properly, fold a flag, and march.

"One of the things theater does is give us an opportunity to tell a story, often by people who felt their voice hasn't been heard. Every one of these veterans expressed gratitude someone has asked them the question," Misenheimer said.

The theater project raised more than $50 to be donated to a veterans organization and was supported by a grant from Leo Keenan Faculty Development Endowment for the Improvement of Teaching and Learning at St. Bonaventure.

www.sbu.edu/theater