By David Gordon

The students and faculty of the Department of Drama and Dance are already a close group of people. In their production of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” directed by Professor James J. Kolb opening on March 7, a whole new dynamic is added by one cast member. He is Professor Peter Sander, starring alongside his students, in the lead role of Prospero, the rightful Duke of Milan, a sorcerer banished to an island who uses his powers to conjure up a tempest in order to wash all his enemies ashore in order to punish and ultimately forgive them.

“It’s a lot of words and I don’t act that much. But it’s a lot of fun,” Sander says.

Director Kolb believes that it’s a very valuable experience for the actors-in-training. “We urged them to come in with their text memorized for the start of rehearsals. [Peter’s] been working on it since last spring. They’ve grown from working with him. Many have had him in acting classes, so things that I’ve had to stress continuously in the past they’ve already heard Peter say.”

“Generally, working with an older person makes the students focus more clearly because they have to come up to the age of the person they’re working with,” adds Sander. “I love to see them grow in their roles.”

Working with Sander has been “like acting with any other actor. He treats us like any other actor, and we do the same,” says Lily Goodman, a senior drama major, who plays the male role Caliban. Still, she adds, “It’s a neat dynamic to have that with your professor.”

About playing a male character, Goodman feels that “it hasn’t been so different and has posed problems both at the same time. Some of the intentions that I’d naturally use as a woman don’t work while playing a male. Also, deepening my voice even slightly has been a challenge in the Playhouse since it’s a big theatre and it’s not how I’m used to filling space.”

“There’s no reason why a woman can’t play Caliban. In callbacks, I felt Lily was the strongest in the role. Cross-gender casting isn’t unusual in Shakespeare,” says Kolb, who notes that in a production of “Julius Caesar” he directed, he cast women, to great success, in the traditionally male roles of Cassius and Casca.

“It’s an interesting play,” Kolb notes, because “the characters are all in separate worlds, only really interacting together at the very end.”

Ultimately, it’s an optimistic story. Says Kolb of the moral, “if you have the choice between getting even or forgiving, forgiving is the better option.”