Ben Church of East Providence featured in URI Theatre production of "The Great Gatsby"

2017 May 11

The University of Rhode Island Theatre Department recently performed "The Great Gatsby", its final production of the academic year.

URI student Ben Church of East Providence, R.I., was featured in the production as Nick Carraway.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel "The Great Gatsby", adapted for the stage by Simon Levy, remains the ever evocative story of the pursuit of wealth and romance in the roaring 1920s - The Jazz Age.

Enigmatic self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby pursues the married, moneyed Daisy Buchanan as his party guests drink and dance their frenzied way through life at his opulent Long Island mansion. Their greed, as evidenced by the surrounding consumerism and materialism, is revealed through subtle and obvious class differences of old money, the newly rich, and the working class that includes Tom Buchanan's mistress Myrtle Wilson. Fitzgerald artfully discloses the careless, callousness of the untouchable upper class with whom we are entranced as they literally get away with murder.

Bryna Wortman, who recently directed "Good People," "In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play" and "All My Sons," directed the production. Dances were conceived by Valerie Ferris, URI theatre major; costume design was by Alison Walker Carrier, resident costume shop manager; scenic design was by Cheryl deWardener, guest artist; lighting design was by Jen Rock, guest artist; sound design was by Michael Hyde, guest artist; and stage management was by Caitlyn Sloan, URI theatre major.