A photo of Mary Audilet, education major, Christos Patelis, marketing major and Andrea Baldwin, lecturer of communication at the "Rememberall" auditions on Jan. 31. Photo by The Signal reporter Justin Murphy.

Behind the scenes: A look into the ‘Rememberall’ auditions

By Justin Murphy On Feb 27, 2018 157 0

My name is Justin Murphy, communication major, and I am the co-president of the UHCL Storytellers. I was a part of the first student-led group that brought performance back to UHCL.

As we finished off our production of “Well;” in October 2017, the feelings of pride and happiness entered my being. I knew that what we accomplished was something special. We did it, we officially brought performance back to UHCL. However, the feeling of sadness could not be avoided either. I knew that experience had come to an end, and we would probably never be able to repeat the experience.

However, my thoughts were brought to an abrupt end as Andrea Baldwin, lecturer of communication, mentioned to us that she was in the process of creating another show. The new show is going to be an adaptation piece, one that would hopefully embody the “Harry Potter” texts. Once I heard this, I was thrilled. This meant that WE GET TO DO ANOTHER SHOW. Not only that, but this show is going to be based on one of the greatest book series in history! The excitement between Natalie Garcia, environmental science major, Andy Robb, art and design major, Christos Patelis, marketing major; and myself was uncontainable.

Flash forward to Jan. 31: The auditions for “Rememberall.” The expectation that the five of us had going in was that there would be a total of nine or 10 people showing up to audition. At the end of auditions, around 42 people showed up. FOURTY TWO. We quadrupled our expectations. After seeing the number of people that showed up, I became delighted. This many people auditioning solidified that performance matters. Performance is something that needs to be a part of UHCL.

My personal audition was very fun. I received a monologue entitled “villain #2” and acted it out. I was obviously Lord Voldemort speaking to Harry. I was able to read over the monologue a couple of times and then performed it for my audition.

Afterwards, I received my prompt for the writing audition which was to be submitted two days later. The next day I sat down and wrote my submission trying to stick to the integrity of the show’s themes: “What does ‘Harry Potter’ teach us about ourselves?” “Why is it that ‘Harry Potter’ continues to be an integral part of our lives?” “How does magic play into this as well?”

A few days later I found out that I was accepted as a writer for “Rememberall.” I knew that this was an opportunity for us to make a statement. We can show the UHCL community the power of performance. Since a lot of people at our university are aware of “Harry Potter,” and have taken their Pottermore tests, we can now show them what an adaptation of that looks like. Not necessarily an adaptation verbatim, but an adaptation of the ideas in “Harry Potter.”

You might wonder how exactly are we going to be able to do this? To find out the answer, you’ll just have to come see the show on April 19 or April 20 in the Bayou Theater. Keep an eye out for the next article in this series on the creation of “Rememberall.”