PROJECT ANATOMY
A behind-the-scenes breakdown of a semester-long residency, courses, and devised production ~ built as one integrated whole.
Butler University | Guest Artist Residency
Butler University’s Theater Department invited me to be their Jordon College of the Arts artist-in-residence for the winter semester.
The residency invited participation from students across the College of the Arts ~ a first of its kind.
I designed and taught a semester-long interdisciplinary studio course that became the generative engine for the culminating performance. This wasn’t simply a residency ~ it was a full-arc structure: pedagogical, collaborative, and performative. The course fed directly into the creation of Portal 1812, an original, devised, evening-length work developed in collaboration with the students. In preparation, I built a framework of material to generate and support the arc of the process.
Learning & Making
The studio course took an interdisciplinary approach to devising performance ~ drawing from text, movement, and visual material. For many students, it was their first introduction to creating work sourced from personal experience and embodied inquiry.
They met the work with full commitment, moving through rigorous physical and conceptual challenges. Over the semester, they learned to:
• Navigate and translate ideas across multiple modalities
• Investigate thematic questions through devised tasks, creative problem sets, and structured inquiry
• Build physical presence through biomechanics, structured improvisations, and movement invention
• Develop original material, identify resonant ideas, and articulate meaning through creative practice
To open the residency to non-majors, I offered an additional semester-long course, “Body, Time, Space.” (see Art Labs)
Preparation
I began with a drawing of the set—knowing the architecture needed to hold a wide range of possibilities. With so many variables unknown (including the form of the work itself), the design had to remain open ~ an architecture flexible enough to support any event in any time or place. From that premise, the stage elements took shape.
The course I designed supported students in generating both solo and ensemble material. Through clear structures and responsive ways of working, they explored a range of creative entry points ~ building dexterity in sourcing from their own lives for the first time.
For many, it was a new experience to translate personal insight into crafted material. Over time, they collectively built a shared vocabulary ~ physical, visual, and textual ~ designing a grammar for the world we were creating.
The workshop also served as a generative source for the final production. Prompts, events, and themes developed in class became raw material for performance, allowing the line between research and creation to remain fluid and alive.
Process
The Construction
Before the residency began, I visited Butler to observe students auditioning for the Theater Department. I needed a sense of their physical presence, athleticism, and creative range.
Once on campus, I began by creating a single line of Post-it notes across the wall ~ each one labeled with a cast member’s name. It was more than just a list; it was a visual field of possibility. I was viewing each student as a world not yet expanded ~ carrying material, questions, and stories waiting to be discovered and shaped.
From there, I began building the piece ~ drawing from six months of prior research and a studio course I had designed specifically to generate material aligned with the themes of the project. The material that emerged in rehearsal didn’t happen in isolation. It was deliberately scaffolded, with the course generating material and creating a responsive bridge between exploration and performance.
As the process unfolded, scenes took shape, vocabularies evolved, and that single line of Post-its grew into a full arc: an original, devised 90-minute production. The libretto that emerged ~ fifteen pages of text, images, movement phrases, and structural cues ~ served as both call sheet and compositional score, holding the architecture of the final work.
Program Notes
For many students, this was their first opportunity to bring personal experience into a devised production ~ not only to tell their stories, but to generate ideas that could be shaped, crafted, and built into collective performance.
Portal 1812 incorporates movement, text, projected image, and sound. The ensemble performance grew from a structure I developed months in advance ~ drawing from research and a studio course designed to generate thematic material across textual, physical, and visual forms.
That structure continued to evolve in real time through our shared work over the semester. The line between research, classroom, and rehearsal remained fluid ~ each feeding the other until the final piece emerged.
Portal 1812
Who are we? On the verge of something? At the edge of something? Breaking through to something?
The cast find themselves selected by a lottery—to learn something unlearnable, ask something un-askable, and construct a system through which they ultimately find their way.
Free.
Build a semester that can hold so much more.
Bring Portal 1812 into your program ~ a course and devised production built together, shaped around your students, their material, and the work only they can make.
Running time: 90 minutes
In collaboration with the cast:
Alexander Borrello, Evie Davis, Taylor Galloway, Nathan Haston, Ariel Laukins, Emma Shafer
Alannah Walterhouse, Lexy Weixel
Conceived, designed, directed by Darla Villani
Lighting Design: Bram Sheckels & Darla Villani
Video Projection & Sound: Jeff Gooch & Darla Villani
Still Images & Sound Score: Darla Villani
Scenic Design: conceived by Darla Villani
Technical realization and construction: Glen Thoreson with Butler University students
Photographs: William Fisher, Glen Thorenson, Brent Smith