{"id":3924,"date":"2023-04-05T13:47:44","date_gmt":"2023-04-05T20:47:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogschapman.wpenginepowered.com\/copa\/2023\/04\/05\/kennedy-kemmerer-directs-the-yellow-boat\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T23:14:23","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T23:14:23","slug":"kennedy-kemmerer-directs-the-yellow-boat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/2023\/04\/05\/kennedy-kemmerer-directs-the-yellow-boat\/","title":{"rendered":"Kennedy Kemmerer directs "The Yellow Boat" Department of Theatre kicks off April with the Student"},"content":{"rendered":"

This semester’s student director is senior Kennedy Kemmerer. Kennedy is a double major in Theatre Studies, with a Directing\/Performance emphasis, and Business Administration. For this year’s one-act she chose The Yellow Boat<\/em> written by David Saar. We interviewed Kennedy to get a better understanding of her experience at Chapman and her directorial process.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Director<\/b><\/h3>\n

Kennedy began directing as a freshman at a local youth conservatory in January of 2020. After directing shows such as <\/span>Newsies, Guys and Dolls, and Bye Bye Birdie, <\/span><\/i>she discovered her love of directing. Becoming a director was never a career path that she had envisioned for herself but once she discovered her passion, Kennedy dove in.<\/span><\/p>\n

She has taken every directing course offered at Chapman. She said that Acting Fundamentals, Meisner Technique, Directing 1, and Directing 2 were four courses that gave her the meticulous lens needed to direct successfully.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To be able to better communicate with the other designers on creative teams she also enrolled in technical theater courses, such as lighting design. The one-act is her second directorial role at Chapman this semester, as she was the assistant director of <\/span>The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time<\/span><\/i> mainstage production. <\/span>After graduating this upcoming May she hopes to continue to build her professional resume in the Southern California area. Kennedy also values passing on her knowledge and experiences to high school students.<\/span><\/p>\n

T<\/b>he Process<\/b><\/h3>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kennedy begins her process by getting a strong understanding of the story as well as what the important messages she wants to convey. She likes to build a clear world for herself, the cast an<\/span>d the audience’s perception. She takes time to help her cast truly understand their characters’ relationships and position in the world\u00a0 they\u2019re creating. Her next step is to build pictures. These pictures aid in establishing stage movement and progression of building moments.<\/span><\/p>\n

Specifically for this show she got the cast on their feet as soon as possible. They roughly blocked the whole show in the first week. The following rehearsals focused on finding the fluidity of the moments. She loves to build tensions, and articulate the moments to draw the audience in deeper.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Benjamin's<\/a><\/p>\n

The Show<\/b><\/h3>\n

The Yellow Boat<\/span><\/i> is a glorious affirmation of a child\u2019s life, and the strength and courage of all children, is a dramatization of the true story of David and Sonja Saar\u2019s son, Benjamin, who was born with congenital hemophilia and died in 1987 at the age of eight of AIDS-related complications. A uniquely gifted visual artist, Benjamin\u2019s buoyant imagination transformed his physical and emotional pain into a blaze of colors and shapes in his fanciful drawings and paintings. The title comes from a Scandinavian folk song that Benjamin would say before bed; “Mom, you can be the red boat or the blue boat, but I am the yellow boat.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Kennedy hopes that the audience feels more creative when leaving their seats. She hopes you see the unconditional parental love, and the imagination of a child.<\/span><\/p>\n

Join us April 6\u20138 and 13\u201315 at the O.L. Halsell Foundation Studio Theatre to see Kennedy\u2019s vision and Benjamin\u2019s story. $15 Tickets for the General Public. Shows are at 7:30 PM Thursday through Saturday, and Saturday matinee at 2:00 PM.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CLICK HERE<\/span><\/a> for tickets!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Directed One-Act!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4742,"featured_media":3930,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"default","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,99,7],"tags":[4,467,468,469,248],"class_list":["post-3924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-performances-theatre","category-student-news-theatre","category-theatre","tag-department-of-theatre","tag-kennedy-kemmerer","tag-student-director","tag-the-yellow-boat","tag-theatre-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3924"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4677,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3924\/revisions\/4677"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.chapman.edu\/copa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}