Longtime Theater Professor Clement ready to premier his first written play at CCRI
November 14, 2022
The reader has finally stepped out from behind the curtain to try his hand at writing.
More than two years since he first sat and began putting his thoughts into words,
longtime Community College of Rhode Island Theater Professor and director Ted Clement
is ready to present his sabbatical project, The Choice, an original play written by Clement and inspired by his life experiences growing
up in a single-parent home in Woonsocket, RI. (See photo gallery.)
The Choice premiers Thursday at 3 pm at the Warwick campus’ Bobby Hackett Theatre with additional
performances at 7 pm on Friday, November 18 and Saturday, November 19 before concluding
with a second 3 pm matinee on Sunday, November 20. Admission is free, but donations
are being collected by the CCRI Players at the door to support The Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
A multi-talented director, actor, and mentor, Clement has worked in myriad capacities
throughout his career, but until now had never actually written his own play.
“I’ve always said to my students, ‘I’m a reader, not a writer,’” Clement said.
That changed in the summer of 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down events worldwide,
from sports and concerts to parades and live theater. Feeling “blocked in” with no
outlet to express his creativity, Clement spoke with longtime colleague and fellow
director David Valentin, a CCRI alumnus, who suggested he write his own play.
Hesitant at first, Clement started small, writing one scene at a time, all based loosely
on memories from his childhood in the Woonsocket neighborhood of Fairmount in the
mid to late 1980s. Soon, Clement’s initial scene turned into a 20-minute play, at
which point Clement gathered a group of colleagues via Zoom for an impromptu reading
to solicit additional advice and suggestions.
“We had a great conversation with a bunch of great actors,” Clement said. “This is
the the nature of the process of writing a play. It’s a collaborative thing right
from the very beginning.”
Once in-person classes resumed at CCRI in the fall of 2021, Clement’s project took
a backseat, so – with encouragement from his wife and CCRI English professor Dr. Christine
Fox – he applied for a sabbatical before the start of the current fall semester. With
the time to focus exclusively on his play, Clement wrote additional drafts, shared
them with colleagues, then hosted his first free public staged reading at the Liston
Campus in September, which inspired additional rewrites. Eventually, he tapped Valentin,
a former student and the original inspiration behind this experiment, as his director
and worked alongside him to assemble a who’s who of CCRI theater alumni as his cast
and crew.
Now, more than two years since the idea’s inception, The Choice is ready for primetime. Clement describes it as “reflective of my experience” growing
up, yet still a work of fiction, inspired primarily by Clement’s conversations with
friends and colleagues who either grew up in single-parent homes or are single parents
raising children.
The Choice tells the story of a single mother raising her teenage son. As a woman of faith and
conviction, the mother occasionally butts heads with her son, all of which contributes
to their unique family dynamic. The play also touches upon the stigmas associated
with single parents during Clement’s childhood while reinforcing the concept that
the connection those families feel for one another is not at all diminished because
it wasn’t “what was considered a traditional family format” in that era.
This week’s premier of The Choice caps a long, “slightly terrifying” process and an experiment in theater “filled with
discovery” for Clement, who over the past two and a half years stepped outside of
his comfort zone to learn a new aspect of the craft he’s dedicated his entire life
to. Clement is most looking forward to sharing this academic experience with colleagues;
because it’s a workshop production, which means it’s a relatively modest production
that does not include all the aspects of a full production, Clement could take The Choice in a number of different directions following this week’s premier.
“I’m an actor and director, so I’ve never had to come up with the story myself,” Clement
said. “Being a playwright is arguably the most frightening experience I’ve had in
theater because it’s so personal – not just because the content is personal, but because
it’s my thoughts that I’m putting out there for others to experience.”
The Choice stars alumni Audrey Lavin Crawley, Elliot Gosselin, Steven Zailskas, and Stevie Smith,
plus colleague Becky Minard. Current students Ilyus Evander (House Manager), Brandon
Soriano (Sound Board Operator), Lia Pinto (Props Runner), and Nate Campbell (Assistant
Director) are also working on the production along with alumni Rebecca Mooney (Stage
Manager), Haley Ahlborg (Lighting Designer), Erika Fay Greenwood (Costume Designer),
and Lauren Ferriera (Light Board Operator).
“I’m happy to discover I have the capacity to express myself through this part of
the theater experiment,” he said. “Playwrights are the source of what we do in the
theatre. We are all creative artists within the theater, but we are all creative interpretive
artists. The story starts with the playwright.”
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