The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, April 14, 2000, Page 7, Image 7
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.
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