Student Work at College of the Atlantic

Production brings dance, music and new flair to Shakespeare

The Bollywood Tempest at COA

College of the Atlantic’s production of “The Tempest” is unlike any you have ever seen. Co-directors Dan Mahler and Alicia Hynes have set William Shakespeare’s island fantasy as a Bollywood production, adding the music and dance style of contemporary Indian movies. Says Mahler, who last year created a masterful blending of music and dance in his direction of the Greek tragedy “The Bacchae,” “We can do this with Shakespeare because it’s so open-ended. The text transcends its time period. Choreographers are Tanvi Nair of India and Aishath Loofa Mohamed of the Maldives. Both are familiar with Bollywood style and the traditional dance upon which many of the numbers are based.

“The Tempest” takes place within just a few hours on an unnamed island where the banished sorcerer Prospero, former Duke of Milan, has been living for 12 years with his daughter Miranda and his library of books. Prospero, played by COA graduate student Ingrid Lindstrom, has the power to raise tempests and thus land voyagers ashore, thereby punishing his enemies. The play begins with such a storm and a shipwreck. Before long, Prospero reveals his own history to his daughter Miranda, played by Nina Wish. In typical Shakespearean fashion, the shipwrecked voyagers bring the promise of revenge, romance-and romantic complications.

Bollywood Tempest

“Traditionally ‘The Tempest’ has been considered a comedy,” says Mahler, “but it has a serious undertone. If you’re looking at it historically, it’s about Shakespeare trying to grapple with idea of new world. It’s one of last plays. A lot of people think-and I do, too-that Shakespeare wrote the character of Prospero as himself.”

The Bollywood Tempest at COA

Other cast members include Cora Lewicki as Ariel and spirits Saras Yerlig, Brianna Larsen, Sarah Colletti and Rain Perez, who are the dancers.