FSU Theatre presents “Everybody”
posted by Tatiana Gantt | May 3, 2024 | In Arts and Culture, NewsApril 25 was the opening performance of the two-weekend, outdoor production of “Everybody,” a play written by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, but more importantly performed by local theater company Sweet Tea Shakespeare in collaboration with Fayetteville State University’s Performing and Fine Arts department.
Jacobs-Jenkins’s “Everybody” is a modern reimagination of the classic morality play “Everyman.” This interactive journey insists that the audience reflect on the “universality of life’s experiences, challenges, and emotions.”
The play is jump-started through audience interaction by us laughing at God, and through their anger, the performers speak to us with condescending words on how they work hard and the audience takes that for granted. Due to their frustration, God tells Death to find someone to fix this. We are soon transported into Everybody’s dreams and from there we are taken through thought-provoking scenarios.
This body of work strives to evoke emotion by personifying what we feel in order to be a visual aid for us. The audience is watching as “Everybody” explains the struggles that we may go through before, during, and even after we are taken by Death. The lessons taught include themes of friendship, family, stuff, love, understanding, and others, and then lead us to the finale that hopefully has you, in the audience, question and explore “what it means to be alive.”
Sweet Tea Shakespeare adds that this play “. . . will be a time for reflection, remembrance, and renewal as we contemplate our own morality and the meaning of our lives.”
In order to be prepared, expect to experience audience participation, live music and singing, clapping and laughter, some tears or watery eyes, and maybe even a slice of cake.
While at the play on opening night, the audience was asked to make donations for FSU students seeking to attend the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. The trip is in participation with the International College Theatre Festival, to which FSU has been invited, students from FSU will be attending from July 29 through August 10, 2025. The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is an arts festival that was established in 1947 in Edinburgh, Scotland that brings in audiences from all over the world. The festival and its society aim to “uphold the Fringe’s values of inclusivity, experimentation, and imagination.”
If you weren’t able to catch the weekend performances at FSU’s Butler Theater Courtyard and would like to support both FSU’s Theatre and Dance department and Sweet Tea Shakespeare, you still have time. To view the second weekend of “Everybody,” you can watch it at the Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex from May 2 through 5.
This play contains themes of course/adult language, adult themes, death and dying, and accusations of racism, so it is intended for mature audiences. Please also be aware that alcoholic drinks will be served during the second weekend run of the show at the Museum of the Cape Fear.
If there happens to be rain in the weather forecast, then the production will be moved indoors at FSU’s Butler Theater.
Grab tickets here.
Follow Sweet Tea Shakespeare’s Instagram here: @sweetteashakes
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