Jules Bigl has footprints all over Wittenberg University’s campus. A junior honors student from Loveland, Ohio, and a double major in art history and environmental science, Bigl crosses campus to spend hours each week in the theatre, engaging with the community and creating momentary performance art.
Theatre left a lasting impression on Bigl, long before their time at Wittenberg. They can still recall their exact lines from their eighth-grade productions, Peter Pan Jr. and Mary Poppins Jr. After joining wrestling and soccer, Bigl had little time to act, but they continued to appreciate the performing arts from afar.
Accepting students from all academic areas, Wittenberg’s Department of Theatre and Dance has given Bigl a chance to step onto the stage again after a four-year hiatus. Their freshman year, they played Paris in a modernized version of Romeo and Juliet. Since then, they have performed in at least one Wittenberg production every semester, also helping with audio, lighting, set-building, and set-designing.
This fall, Bigl is directing Midsummer (Abridged), adapted by Larry Nehring, a 45-minute version of their favorite Shakespearean play, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Midsummer (Abridged) strips the comedic play to the heart of the story, allowing four actors to play the entire cast of characters and making Shakespeare accessible and exciting for a modern audience.
Given their lack of directing experience, Bigl was expectedly nervous, so they prepared before the semester began by asking questions and taking inspiration from their previous directors. They sat down with Theatre and Dance Department Chair Adrienne Oehlers and presented their ideas for directing a show. Together, they determined that the shortened Shakespearean comedy with only four actors would be perfect for The Student Lab Theatre.
The Student Lab Theatre is a small black box theatre almost entirely operated by students. This semester, Bigl is responsible for everything from lights, sound, and set design to creating programs, communicating with staff, and scheduling rehearsals. They describe directing at the lab as practically “running the Student Lab Theatre company,” an excellent leadership opportunity for students who aim for a career in the performing arts.
Bigl approaches directing from the same lens as acting, emphasizing the importance of the physical and collaborative elements of theatre. They describe acting as “making a human out of the text that you see.” Both the actor and director aim to bring the words on paper to a physical space and attempt to bring the essence of a story to the physical world. Bigl applied this philosophy to directing by immediately bringing the text to its feet, rather than learning the words outside of the physical space.
They collaborated with choreographer Chrissy Stridsberg, the sole faculty leader of Wittenberg’s dance courses and the Wittenberg Dance Team, adding another element of physicality to the play. Jordan K. Taylor, a music student at Capital University, created musical cues and elements to move the story along. Collaboration with Stridsberg and Taylor brings something new to Bigl’s rendition of a classic play.
According to Bigl, theatre should be a group creative effort, and they believe a good director remembers they are “working with several other artists who are in and of themselves independent creators.” They want to encourage their actors to be creative and develop their own understanding of their characters.
Bigl follows the advice of Dawson Hudson, a 2026 alumnus with experience directing at the Student Lab Theatre. Hudson told them, “By the end, the actors should know more about their characters and their directors,” suggesting the importance of the actors' point of view.
Bigl will direct and act alongside Zeke Forster, Lee Dallas, and Isabella Walters. Cast members have no assigned role but instead alternate and shift between different troops of characters. Bigl hopes that shared characters, like Puck, the mischievous servant to the fairy overlord Oberon, will bring the cast together and foster an environment with collaboration at the forefront.
Performances are temporal because everything comes together momentarily for a specific audience, then falls apart. There is power in impermanence. Bigl says, “You have to let go of it at the end of it each time, and you're never gonna perform it again. And I think that's what makes it so special.”
They encourage everyone interested to make time for this unique, fleeting performance. Bigl invites audience members to step into a fantastical world for a night, then “go back to your life, having giggled a lot.”
Performances of Midsummer (Abridged) will be staged at 7:30 p.m., Nov. 5-7, and 2 p.m. Nov. 9 in the Student Lab Theatre, 225 N. Fountain Ave.
Wittenberg’s Theatre and Dance productions are free and open to the public. For more information about Wittenberg Theatre and Dance and the upcoming season and to reserve tickets, visit https://www.wittenberg.edu/academics/thdn. Tickets are currently available for Midsummer (Abridged).
Follow Wittenberg University Theatre and Dance on the mobile app Eventbrite for updates when tickets post for each show. The Theatre and Dance program is on Instagram and TikTok at @wittheatredance and on Facebook at Wittenberg University Theatre & Dance.
Written by: Jillian Paskvan ’27
