Bonny McDonald

This essay project documents the creation of an original student theater production in the Frank Hayden Theater at Southern University Baton Rouge. It describes the collective efforts of the author and a group of devoted professors and students as they worked to reopen the Frank Hayden theater after it was shut down for several years. The author served as a facilitative director, leading the group in devising a performance which paid homage to the props unearthed as they cleaned and organized the space. The props served as material and symbolic evidence of the largely ephemeral performance work created by students and professors from years past. Weaving together interviews, student writing, and photographs, the article positions the process of devising the show as a model for collaborative performance building while also serving as a partial archive of Southern University’s Theater work.