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Eden Troupe, the College’s student-run drama organization, has existed since PHC’s second year. Founded in fall 2001 by then-students Abigail Dunlap (formerly Abigail Hackmann), Marianne Wasson, and Casey Wasson, the group has produced at least one play every semester since its founding. It was named “Eden Troupe” after the Garden of Eden, the original stage upon which love clashed with hate and deceit, and where sin threatened Paradise.
Organizationally, the group consists of an Eden Troupe Board, which manages ongoing administrative duties, and which is comprised of current students elected by participants in the Troupe. Stage productions are selected each semester as prospective directors pitch their play ideas to the Board members, who choose one of the suggested plays. The director of the chosen production is then responsible for running auditions, selecting cast members, assigning volunteers to coordinate wardrobe, set, publicity, and other key areas of publicity and promotion, and carrying a play through to completion. The Troupe has experimented with several successful directorial models, including a single director, a team of two directors, and a director/producer combination.
Eden Troupe is one of the College’s best-known community outreaches, bringing in audience members from the local area and occasionally local members of the press. Typically, plays run from Wednesday to Saturday in a given week, with performances often selling out on Friday and Saturday evenings.
Selected plays have been filmed by student volunteers and edited into finished VHS or DVD projects, making many past Eden Troupe productions available for sale in the PHC Bookstore.
Eden Troupe Reminisces
“As You Like It was our first play. We rehearsed over several months’ time, taking a break for Christmas, since we had limited resources and we were still learning how to juggle rehearsals at the cost of our classes and work. Even still, it was very time-intensive, and we faced some daunting challenges, such as how to costume everyone (we decided to change the setting to the 1970s but retain the original language), and what to do when our lead man had to drop out about six weeks before performance. [Students] Thomas Wiley and Stephen Shipp drew straws, and then Thomas stepped forward and offered to take the role. As a result, he fell in love with his opposite onstage, and they married in real life, four years after they married onstage.
“Eden Troupe was a proving ground for us in a way that classes were not. It tested our hearts and our relations, not just our theories and brains. And I’m prouder of Eden Troupe than of any other venture or class or paper I was involved in at PHC.”
~ Abigail Dunlap (class of 2005)
“Eden Troupe was conceived as a way for Patrick Henry College students to practice sanctified artisanship. It has the specific purpose of communicating truth through theater. The choices involving script interpretation, the symbolism of set design, and interaction with the audience, all became ways for Eden Troupe to wed art theory to the practicalities of living for Christ's glory. Eden Troupe provides contact with great art and the practice of Christian service. Eden Troupe provided me with a chance to do both as we studied drama at the feet of Thornton Wilder, Shakespeare, and Oscar Wilde, and yet continued to recognize, as Eden Troupe's archetype for art, the ultimate story of redemption which redeems both men and art.”
~ Darcy Sabatino (class of 2005)
Past plays have included:
Spring 2003: Importance of Being Earnest
Fall 2003: Arms and the Man
Spring 2004: Antigone
Fall 2004: Much Ado About Nothing
Spring 2005: Ideal Husband
Fall 2005: Macbeth
Spring 2006: Pride and Prejudice
Fall 2006: Cyrano de Bergerac
Spring 2007: Tale of Two Cities
Fall 2007: You Can’t Take It With You
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