The sight of him is enough to make people shut their mouths and straighten their posture in a desperate attempt to make a good impression. Someone who may seem intimidating because of his role as assistant director but once you know him as a friend, he is truly a sweet person who is just as passionate in theatre as the actors he directs.
Alexander Ventura, a senior at East Leyden high school and a very passionate member of Leyden’s theatre, recently took part in helping Leyden’s fall play, “Radium Girls” as assistant director.
Theatre is a very big part of Alexander’s life and he holds many memories of watching and helping with plays dear to his heart. However, theatre is not something that runs in his family, there is one moment in particular that he believes sparked his interest and led it to become an interest of his own. He describes, “in fifth grade, I went to go see a production of Mary Poppins at Hester Junior High. At the beginning, I was very curious of what are they actually doing on stage? I saw them acting and I was just so generally curious of how it is like to be up there on a stage with singing, acting, having to move around and all this basic stuff that I just didn’t really understand as a child. But from that, I struggled with English while I was growing up, so while looking at that production, I was able to easily comprehend what was happening, more than, let’s say, reading the book. “ Alexander goes on to describe, “I would say that moment really, I had an epiphany of, if they could do that, then maybe I could do the same thing, but in order to understand something, to chase a certain identity.”
Although Alexander is well-known for often taking part in the tech crew when it comes to Leyden’s productions, he has auditioned and acted before! “I didn’t really land that many of leads, or being an actor that much. Yes, it did, brought me down a little. But also I had the opportunity of doing tech, and then the opportunity of helping out with set props and changes in which it really kind of changed my side of things.” Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to help out with productions and Alexander landed on helping with tech for this reason: “I was more intrigued by the elements that made up the actor. For example, building the set, you know, doing props, those stuff are there to help elevate the actor themselves.” He describes how he views the importance of a tech crew, “the actor is given certain themes, and then the ability to play on stage and have that purposeful moment, moving with purpose, but without that scenery, without the sound, without the lighting, it would just be a performance on stage instead of a whole production to be captured, and because of that production elements, it helps the actor understand more of who they’re playing. And I would say that moment really sparked my interest of wanting to go deeper in understanding when it comes to theatre.” Alexander has participated in a good amount of extracurricular theatre and has also taken theatre/drama 1 and 2 as classes. He recalls a play he saw on a field trip that really made u his mind that this is a dream he would like to pursue. “When it comes to having a purpose for actors in those classes, I started to have more inquiry of when it came to philosophy or when it came to political movements in theater productions, I remember, I think, also another pivotal moment of my theater experience of art was the first time I ever saw a production called Antigone by Sophocles. In that moment, I was like, I definitely want to do theater. As throughout, Antigone was a lot more of the crew.” Alexander continues to specify on what about Antigone formed his perspective on acting.“I saw Antigone in theater two, I was really moved and really very inspired by the actor who played Antigone, not only just because of the way she portrayed herself, but also the way how the different elements of the dramaturge the dramaturgical side of it.”As we know, Alexander has taken part in helping many productions at Leyden but he also works at Steppenwolf Theater. “I would say so when I was doing in that process at Steppenwolf, I would like to say I was more of a dramaturge, in a way, in the way of always was wanting to understand why the playwright intended this, why did the playwright did this era, why the playwright really had this type of different language when they were speaking for their actors, or their subtext, or why was the stage directions embedded or explicit? I took that here as well, and I created dramaturgy for the show. It was just a bunch of slide presentations explaining what scenes meant, what history was happening. And because of that, the theater was very impressed by it. I’m thinking of doing their dramaturgical program there.”
Despite how intimidating the role of assistant director could be, it is a great start for Alexander’s theatre journey and surely a helpful learning experience that will open up many exciting opportunities for him.
