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EtCetera Actress gets ready for 'Arcadia' opening night by Mackenzie Craven Assistant etCetera Editor At 8 p.m. tonight in Drayton Hall, Mardi Sykes will join Benjamin Fitch to open the final USC The atre spring production, “Arcadia.” “Arcadia” is a comedy written by Tom Stoppard, who also wrote “Shakespeare in Love.” The show will be one of the first major roles at USC for Sykes, who will play Thomasina. Sykes is a theater junior from Charleston, S.C., and she has been acting since elementary school. She first thought she wanted to be an actress at the age of 9 after seeing Ingrid Beigman in “Casablanca.” She auditioned for the role of Thomasina at the end of last semester. All actors go’to Longstreet The atre to see the dates of the auditions. All participants must choose two monologues to leam, and each piece must be slightly different. For the first two acts, Thomasina, a child prodigy, is 13 years old. She is the smartest character in the play. In the final act, Thomasina is 16 years old. Sykes said the main difference between acting out a char acter who’s 13 and one who’s 16 is the body move ments. “I’ve been working on everything I say - how does that make me feel, what am I feeling at this moment - and getting it in my body,” Sykes said. In the second act, Sykes will be showing how 16-year-old Thomasina tries to hold back her emo tions. Sykes had to learn a British accent for this role. Vocal coach Erica Tobolski has worked with her since the first rehearsal. She plans on using the accent after the play with friends, just for fun. “I think I could fool somebody,” Sykes said. She said the cast has learned to work well to gether, too. “You develop a support system. You have those days when you are just not getting it,” Sykes said. Sykes admits that acting isn’t easy. “It’s not just about memorizing lines and running around on stage,” she said. “For every step forward, there are three steps back.” She said she has no doubt that by opening night, the play will come together. She believes that every one’s role is equally important. “Everyone has a twist and turn in the story, in a certain way. It’s just that some have more lines than others,” Sykes said. Fitch plays Thomasina’s tutor. During one of the scenes, they kiss. It is Sykes’ first onstage kiss, but it isn’t anything she can’t handle. “It’s wonderful at the point of the play it happens. It’s sweet, it’s touching, it’s a nice moment when it happens,” Sykes said. She said she has a good relationship with every one on cast. Sykes believes the relationships are es tablished so things run smoothly on stage. “It’s not TV. You can’t go ‘cut.’ It’s happening right there, right in front of your eyes.” According to Sykes, the director plays a crucial role in the production of the show. “He directs you, he lets us make our own deci sions in regards to the story and everything,” Sykes said. “But he’ll encourage us to try different ways (of acting),” Sykes said. “He has an idea of what the sto ry should be for the audience.” Sykes sometimes gets frustrated during rehearsal. “About two or three nights ago, I was working on this scene. I had this little speech I was giving, and he was trying to hint at what he wanted me to inflect,” Sykes said. “I pretty much had it, but I kept inflecting on the wrong word,” Sykes said. “Some things you just can’t get from doing it so much. They [the lines] are engraved in you a certain way. You just need to take time outside of rehearsal to go over the speech again and again until you get it the way it’s supposed to be,” Sykes said. Overall, Sykes thinks this show is a success. “I feel like this has been a real successful show for me because I feel like I’ve learned a ton from the fel low actors in the show, from the coaches, from the di rector, especially,” Sykes said. Sykes has learned a lot from being a part of the the ater department at USC. “I think since I have came here, I have learned more in my two years here then I have learned since I have started my career,” Sykes said. Special to The Gamecock Mardi Sykes as Thomasina and Ben Fitch as Septimus Hodge are in “Arcadia,” which will be performed at 8 p.m. tonight in Drayton Hall. Integrated worship gaining popularity by Deb Richardson M oop e The Associated Press • As cliches go, it’s been a true one: The most segregated hour in Ameri ca is 11 a.m. Sunday morning. But integrated worship opportu nities and interracial pulpit switches are cropping up, and if they’re not tak ing place on routine Sunday mornings, they’re occurring on Sunday nights and Easter dawns, Friday evenings and steamy summer nights. “We’re seeing an increase in the form of true integration within our worship services,” said Dr. Luonne Rouse, the pioneer African-American minister who took over the 99-per cent white Disciples United Methodist Church in 1994. “We’re no longer looking at the whiteness, the blackness, the red ness or yellowness of it, but pretty much looking at one another as broth ers and sisters in Christ.” Recent gatherings include: — Greenville First Baptist and Springfield Baptist celebrated their 25th anniversary of annual joint ser vices, 133 years after black Spring field broke away from its white moth er church. — Upstate Alive, an evangelistic outreach founded in 1995, has avid ly encouraged interracial participation and will do so again in its March for Jesus on June 10. — The integrated Judson com munity has seen interracial tent revivals and women’s conferences, thanks to two of its cleigy sharing a vision of bira cial worship. — And in Columbia, two large congregations — one black, one white — are sponsoring an Easter sunrise ser vice at Williams-Brice Stadium. Against the backdrop of these and dozens of other quiet connections, the interdenominational Faith Communi ties United is launching its Coalition on Racial Reconciliation with a brown bag lunch at noon today at Fourth Pres byterian Church. Clergy of both races have been meeting since January, growing in num ber from five to 20. Now they’re ready for laity to join them,.with the hope of establishing one-on-one fellowships between black and white church bodies. The model, said Rabbi Marc Wilson of Beth Israel Synagogue, was Jerry Falwell’s dialogue last year with members of the gay community. The dialogue probably changed no one’s beliefs, he said, but it created a tone of civility and ratcheted down the stridency of the debate. Spurred by the similar divisive ness of the Confederate flag issue, Faith Communities is seeking to foster un derstanding through simple human con tact. “When we can recognize the im age of God in people we toss off as ad versaries,” Wilson said, “the better we will be.” During Hanukkah, the Rev. Vin cent L. Thomas of predominantly black Tabernacle Baptist Church preached in Wilson’s synagogue. His text ran from Moses to Jesus, and was so well received,- said Wilson, “he could put me out of a job in no time.” On Palm Sunday, Thomas’ 600 member congregation will welcome the rabbi. In this most sacred of Christian seasons, Thomas expects it to go well. “The rabbi,” he said, “is going to talk about the meaning of Passover. Without understanding Passover, you really can’t understand the whole issue of why Jesus was in Jerusalem in the first place and how the killing took place and the meaning of the Resurrection.” Meanwhile, Rouse’s 345-member Eastside church continues to evolve in to one of the Upstate’s truly integrat ed — even on Sunday mornings. i i ir ii 1 1 Ddw,'«'8lweV!!« :-ri t One of the fastest ways to build a retirement nest egg is through tax-deferred Supplemental Retirement Annuities (SRAs) from TIAA-CREF. With funds automatically deducted from your paycheck, you can easily build income to supplement your pension and Social Security. And your contributions to SRAs grow undiminished by taxes until you withdraw the funds.’ Add to that T1AA CREF's solid investment performance, bolstered by our commitment to keeping expenses low, and you have more money working for you. So why wait? 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