In Santa Fe for his play's premiere, playwright Doug Huff (center) posed with Theaterwork artistic director David Olson (right) and the company's dramaturge, Mark Muggli (left), who represents yet another Gustavus connection--his daughter Ellen is a senior
The world premiere of Gustavus philosophy professor Doug Huff’s latest play, Ophelia, in November 2004 featured multiple Gustavus connections although it took place in Santa Fe, N.M., more than 1,200 miles from the campus.
Ophelia, Huff’s seventh completed play, was premiered at the Theaterwork Studio in Santa Fe under the direction of Theaterwork’s artistic director, David Olson. Olson, who was a visiting artist in theatre at Gustavus from 1976 through 1980, had directed Huff’s first play, a murder mystery titled Minerva, Minnesota, at Cherry Creek Theater in Mankato in 1983. Cherry Creek, which was founded in St. Peter about 25 years ago by six Gusties (Jack Sherman ’81, Karen McCall ’77, Greg Granlund ’79, Marsha Kimble ’77, Mary Richardson ’78, and Scott Donaldson ’77), would later relocate to the Southwest . . . as Theaterwork.
Huff had lost track of Olson for several years before learning that he was with Theaterwork. Since then he has regularly sent plays to Olson for critical review. When Olson read Ophelia, he opted to stage it himself.
While retaining the characters and basic plot of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Huff wrote Ophelia to be more like a classical tragedy. “My play is much closer to Sophocles than Shakespeare,” he says. Making Ophelia the lead character, he has re-imagined her not as the weak-willed and lovestruck maiden that Shakespeare created, but as an intelligent, thoughtful young woman struggling against the machinations of men.
A critic attending the premiere called it “a delicious mix of classical lyricism and contemporary slang laced with a knowing sense of humor.” Boosted by glowing reviews, the house was sold out throughout the play’s 13-performance run.
The Gustavus connection in Ophelia was not limited to playwright and director. Playing the title role in the Santa Fe production was Pine Island, Minn., native Angela Janda ’04, who was selected for the role without either Olson or Huff being aware of the coincidence at the time. And Jack Sherman ’81—still with the company he helped found more than 20 years earlier and now technical director of Theaterwork—played the part of King Claudius.
Huff, who was in Santa Fe for the production’s opening weekend, has received a number of awards for his previous plays: Jean Paul Savage and the Reichenbach Fall (1991) won the Gilmore Creek Playwriting Competition, one of the largest competitions of its kind in the United States, in 1993; Emil’s Enemies (1994), a historical drama about theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s involvement in a plot to assassinate Adolph Hitler, won an American Voices Series Award in 1995; and The Blind Venetian (2000) earned a finalist award from the Midwest Theatre Network playwriting competition in 2000 and third place among 19,000 entries in the Stage Play Script category of the 2000 Writer’s Digest Writing Competition. Huff has taught at the College since 1974.