Brandon Williams is ready to premiere a play he has been working on since his sophomore year at SIU.
“The Yard” will run at 8 p.m. on Oct. 18 and 19 at the McLeod Theatre, according to Williams, an SIU graduate from Peoria who studied journalism.
Williams said he had one act done when he graduated and finished the other two over the summer.
“I was sitting around at home and I’m like, ‘well, you know, I’m not doing anything else so why not finish the play and put it on at SIU,’” he said.
Williams said he held auditions during the first week of school. He said around 60 students showed up and he chose around 15 performers.
One of the performers he chose was Cortez Johnson, a junior from Chicago studying theater. Johnson said he has known Williams for years and helped him write the ending.
“With the cast there’s a lot of energy and a lot of potential,” Johnson said. “They came ready to work.”
Williams said the inspiration for mixing a’capella into the play stemmed from his experience with spoken word, where poetry is spoken rather than sung.
“Instead of being confined to a beat like rap is, spoken word is more…like performance poetry,” Williams said. “I called it an a’capella hip-hop musical because we’re rapping but there are no beats to it. It’s more spoken word. It’s interactive.”
Another performer in the play, Lester Hill, a senior from Chicago studying journalism, said Williams made tapes of how he wanted the dialogue to be spoken.
“It was kind of easy to hear yourself while you do it,” Hill said.
Johnson said Williams has his own genre because the play’s dialogue is not rap or singing.
“I call it poetic form because the literature is very rhythmic,” Johnson said.
Williams said the play goes from dialogue to a’capella, which is similar to musicals in how they transition from dialogue to singing. Williams said the performers trade off rhymes when they converse, which will be new to audience members but easy to follow.
“I haven’t seen any spoken word type plays or productions, so I really wanted this to be in its own rank.”
Williams said the play’s tagline, “College: mixing teenage adolescence with adult responsibility,” stemmed from a conversation with a friend.
“He was like, ‘Why does so much crazy things happen at college, like kids doing this stuff or drugs or whatever,’” Williams said.
Williams said the core of the play shows things not promoted through the university but all students’ experience, such as financial trouble, discrepancies with professors, parties, relationships and drug education.
Johnson said it was easy to connect to the play because he is living the college experience. He said he plays Steve Williams in the play, who gives the backdrops of school.
“I show what goes on with finances, what goes on behind the chair of the professor in the classroom and also things students deal with, such issues as boyfriends and girlfriends and social orientation,” Johnson said.
Williams said he wants the play to relate to students and their experience at college.
“I want them to take everything as exactly what they see…because what’s in there is educational information,” he said. “It’s ‘edutainment’ at its finest, education and entertainment.”
Tickets can be purchased at Campus Cuts Barbershop, located at 825 S Illinois Ave.
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