Faculty from The University of Alabama’s department of theatre and dance will help guide students as they bring to life “The Philadelphia Story” with opening night slated for Valentine’s Day.
Set in 1930s Philadelphia, the romantic comedy follows the privileged daughter of the Lord family who created quite the scandal, divorcing her husband and arranging to remarry. While theatergoers will get to know the characters being portrayed on stage, we’d like to take you behind-the-scenes for a deeper look into the faculty who helped inspire the students to provide the magic seen on stage.
F. Randy deCelle, technical director for “The Philadelphia Story”
Assistant Professor and Director of Technical Production
Six years at UA
Q. What led you to teaching?
A. I have a drive for wanting to impart knowledge to those who seek it. I have always been a teacher in some way, but I found that once I was training students in a field that they were unsure about and didn’t have the background in, but were motivated to pursue, I got great satisfaction in helping them realize their potential.
Q. What did you do before teaching?
A. I worked for a period of time as an electrical designer/design engineer/product developer.
Q. What do you enjoy most about theater?
A. The process. Going from nothing to a full production and then closing it out and throwing it in the trash. Theater brings a vast range of different types of people together for one common goal, that particular production. And no matter how it goes, the process has a definitive start, middle and end.
Q. Out of all student productions you’ve been involved with at UA, what has been your favorite and why?
A. While I’ve been teaching here at UA (I also was a MFA student here 20 years ago), my favorite would be “Seven Guitars.” The scale of the production, as well as the quality of work we did on the production, was comparable to anything that would be seen on Broadway.
Q. What is the most important thing you hope your students take away from their participation in each production?
A. Each production has a learning opportunity in it. As each theater production (typically) is never the same, the student should have some additional bit of knowledge to add to their book of experiences that will enhance their future work as theater practitioners.
“The Philadelphia Story” runs Feb. 14-18 with a 7:30 p.m. showtime and a 2:30 p.m. matinee on Feb. 19 at the Marian Gallaway Theatre. For more info, visit https://theatre.ua.edu/productions/the-philadelphia-story/.
Contact
Kim Eaton, UA media relations, 205-348-8325 or kim.eaton@ua.edu