Lucy Shea
  • Theatre
  • Class of 2017
  • Bethel, CT

Lucy Shea Acts in 'Cantilever'

2017 May 16

A talented cast of Eastern Connecticut State University students recently performed in "Cantilever," the final Main Stage production of the 2016-17 academic year. The original Eastern production told the story of the apprentices of Frank Lloyd Wright, a prolific 20th-century architect who ran a fellowship program on Taliesin West, his extraordinary Arizona estate.

Among the cast was Lucy Shea '17 of Bethel who played the character Svetlana Hinzenberg Peters. Shea majors in Theatre and Political Science.

"In the turbulent 1930s and 1940s, young draftsmen and designers flocked from around the world to study at the feet of the master," explained Theatre Professor J.J. Cobb, playwright and director. "They found themselves serving food and pouring concrete into textile-block molds in the Arizona sun. Some quickly deemed the arrangement a manipulation, but many stayed for decades. 'Cantilever' looks behind the curtain of idolatry, at artists striving to reconcile their own desires with Wright's philosophy."

The play focused entirely on the apprentices and their many challenges, with Wright and his family remaining a powerful yet invisible presence. Performed in the Proscenium Theatre of the Fine Arts Instructional Center, "Cantilever" aimed to rebuild the world of Taliesin West in sensory ways.