St. Thomas University’s Most Recent Student-Led Performance: Love and Information

St. Thomas University’s fourth-year directing course recently showcased its latest student-directed play, Love and Information, in the Ted Daigle Auditorium at St. Thomas University. The play, written by Caryl Churchill, is a collection of short scenes that explore the themes of love and communication in the digital age.

Under the direction of seven student directors, the cast and crew delivered a powerful performance that captivated the audience from start to finish. The play’s non-linear structure and use of multimedia elements such as projections and sound effects added an immersive dimension to the storytelling.

There were eight acts with upwards of eight short scenes per act which upper-year fine arts students individually directed. Love and Information is fundamentally about what we know, how we know, and interpret it. The performance addresses the tensions of connection and isolation, disclosure and privacy, and the fluidity of memory. 

The talented cast of student actors brought the characters to life with nuanced performances conveying human relationships’ complexity. The 57 performances within one play occupy a concentrated two (uninterrupted) hours of stage time, with a cast of over 20 students embodying more than a hundred questioning, frustrated, fascinated characters. The play’s thought-provoking themes and relatable characters left a lasting impression on the audience, sparking conversations about the nature of love and the impact of technology on our lives.

Dillon Caldwell-Bezanson, a student from St. Thomas University and one of the directors of Love and Information, shares his thoughts on directing his first performance, “it was a lot of mixed emotions, and challenging to say the least. Although there were moments of stress, the finished product, working with an incredible cast, and having the opportunity to have people come out to watch something I’ve created was so worth it.”

The abundance of these sequences and fragmentary structure make Love and Information thrilling and demanding. These elements work together to make us consider the contradictory variation and similarity in attempting to make sense of our universe and our role within it. And each brief excerpt from a drama here makes us curious about what came before and what occurs next.

In the opening scene, a man and a woman are shown in the middle of a conversation. She hesitates to tell him her secret since she isn’t sure it’s a good idea, but she eventually wants to hear it. The nature of this secret is unknown to the audience. Yet there’s no denying that their relationship has undergone a chemical change due to what the woman said.

“The highlight of the show was the comedy and confusion for me. Although it may have been hard to follow, I found the more it went on, the more things would come together. It was just nice to immerse myself in the show and let the weirdness and funniness of it do its thing,” said Hayden McManaman, a fourth-year student from St. Thomas University. 

Overall, Love and Information was a triumph for St. Thomas University’s theatre program and a testament to the creativity and talent of its students. The production was a must-see for anyone interested in thought-provoking theatre that explores the complexities of the human experience.