Skidmore Theater gives its graduating seniors a plethora of options for how to complete their senior Capstone, representative of the skills they have obtained in their time training at Skidmore. Below, members of the senior class of 2025 have provided explanations of their senior projects, with subjects ranging from lived experiences, Historical figures such as painters, and musical theater:
Lucas Falick: Well, hello there, friend! You are cordially invited to the first-ever attempt at a brand-new operation: the Cardiectomy. Join us at 32 W Circular St and witness a medical marvel as we seek to answer the question… Can a human being live without a heart? Cardiectomy is an immersive new play set in the basement of a mad scientist who is seeking to push the evolution of the human race to its limit. But whether he will succeed in appeasing his so-called ‘Benefactors’ is anyone’s guess…
Emma Froelich: Through research, re-writes, and two readings of selected scenes, Emma Froelich’s capstone is an invitation into the process of writing a historical feature film. Emma’s film, WE WILL NEVER DIE, is an exploration of the creation of social justice art during a time of crisis. Set in NYC during the tumultuous years of the second World War, WE WILL NEVER DIE follows Hollywood writer and provocateur Ben Hecht, as the awakening of his Jewish identity spurs him to battle antisemitism with his fiery pen.
Sophie Kelly: Living up to a legacy can be pretty tough, especially when your ancestor is the courageous newsboy strike leader, Jack Kelly. STOP THE PRESSES: THE JACK SKELLY STORY is Sophie Kelly’s senior project, where she explores themes of bravery, friendship, and what it means to be a real leader (not just acting as one). While this may look like cringe Newsies fanfiction to the untrained eye, rest assured that this script has gone through two years of editing and rewriting to make it the absolute best piece of Newsies fanfiction that you will ever witness.
Stephanie Kemple: For Stephanie’s senior project, she decided to use her skills in editing video, to make a 20 minute documentary of The Year It Stops’ rehearsal process.
Adelaide Lance: For Adelaide’s senior project, she was part of the all-student production team for Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, scenic designing Lil’s cabin, filling it with dramaturgically accurate elements of the play’s early 1980s timeframe.
Josh Lucey: In the summer of 2017, Josh was bitten by a tick, and contracted Viral Encephalitis – total inflammation of the brain, membranes of the brain, and surrounding connective tissue; a brainwide concussion that took away, among other things, his memories. For seven years he has been piecing together the story of his own rebirth, using hospital documentation, interviews with parents, his widespread learnings in the Theatre department, and his musical work as a Filene scholar, to build a narrative out of the truth, and to help him know what really happened. Starring a sprawling and dedicated cast of 13 artists, Josh directs, designs, performs and presents THEATRE OF THE MIND as his first self-produced work, live at the Saratoga Music Hall.
Nina Renkert, Darren Jackson-Wilkins: For their senior project, Nina Renkert and Darren Jackson-Wilkins collaborated in the creation of Scraps of Us: An Evening of Untold Stories which premiered on April 5th and 6th. A musical cabaret that featured songs from their lives and development as theater artists, Scraps of Us was a 45-minute long performance featuring solo and duet pieces ranging from Golden Age to Contemporary musical theater. During the performance, they shared stories from their personal experiences before and during their time at Skidmore, which included passing around photos of themselves from their childhoods and times together as they prepare for their new lives after Skidmore.
Reyn Ricafort: With the help of playwright Eric Micha Holmes, Reyn began writing the script to his second full-length play Artipisyal, about an A.I. program that has been deployed by Nico’s family to recreate a model of his consciousness after his death. The play takes a deep dive into the contemporary descent of young American men into what is called the “manosphere”, a growing corner of the internet that promotes toxic masculinity, misogyny, and conservative talking points.
Lillie Shelor: Lillie directed Skidmore’s spring Black Box production of Last Summer at Bluefish Cove by Jane Chambers for their senior project. They led the process, collaborating with a team made up entirely of student designers, actors, and production team to fully realize the production and their vision. Lillie sought to explore concepts of chosen family and their primary goal was the building of queer spaces both on and off stage. The production ran for six performances from February 28th – March 5th.
Javier Soto: For his senior project, Javier directed and performed in a multimedia staging of Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman, acting alongside Lillie Shelor and George Fortin. The production examines the psychological and social aftermath of authoritarian violence, where justice remains ambiguous and trauma shapes both personal and collective memory. Through the use of film and projections, the staging highlights the tension between past and present, and the ongoing pursuit of truth in the wake of political oppression. The show opens May 3rd.
Ellery Shea: Ellery served as the Dramaturg for Skidmore’s spring Black Box production of Last Summer at Bluefish Cove, written by Jane Chambers and directed by fellow senior Lillie Shelor. Through their work, they grounded the production team within the historical circumstances of the play before and during the rehearsal process, curated a lobby exhibit of queer zines from the 1970s, and hosted an art-making station where audience members could create their own queer artwork before or after the show. Following the production’s conclusion, the artwork generated by the audience (as well as other archival material from the show) was donated to Skidmore’s Special Collections, where it will color the College’s archives with visual representations of queerness.
Georgie Svrcek: For Georgie’s senior project, she wrote and performed a one-woman show entitled La Pittura, which tells the story of painter Cassie giving a presentation on Artemisia Gentileschi, the baroque artist who inspired her to start painting again after years away. But as Cassie makes her way through the selected paintings, familiar voices and feelings resurface and she loses track of whose story she’s telling—Artemisia’s or her own. La Pittura deals with breaking cycles of trauma, memory within the body, and the ways we put ourselves back together through art. The play was performed in a staged reading on May 8th.
Landon Weber: For Landon’s senior project, they performed in staged readings of Hell is Real, a new play written by guest artist Genevieve Simon and directed by M Sloth Levine, and examining their own identity along with the character they portrayed, The Girl. In this process, they sought to not only pick apart this character, but also themself and to grow more comfortable in a fluctuating identity by looking at things such as queer authored works and vocal training exercises. The show’s two readings took place in the Tang Teaching Museum on April 22nd and 23rd.