The Martindale Sisters of La Crosse Project

In the spring semester 2017, the UWL Department of Theatre Arts offered a new special topics class, called "Devising", a form of creating a theatrical performance based not on the writing of a playwright, but rather by a collaborative effort of the actors through discussion, experimentation, and improvisation. 

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Eight UWL theater students participated in the class, taught by Beth Cherne, with Teri Holford as embedded librarian. The first unit of the class was to spend a week in the archives to become familiar with an archival collection and reading bits and pieces of the Martindale letters. In the classroom, the students worked with Beth as though they were in a theatrical laboratory to wrestle with the devising process, overcome collaboration obstacles, and build trust among themselves with improvisational exercises  that also helped to develop and understand characters, and create a scene.

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Their work was shared with the public during the 2017 UWL Creative Imperatives Event. It was the first time that most of the students had ever used an archival collection. The hardest part of this devising exercise was negotiating their different visions and ideas as to who a character was, what they would do or say, and how the scene should be carried out, which says much about how the creative process works.