“The Beach House” is a student-created and performed production from the Beloit Interactive Theatre Experience (BITE) Club. I interviewed actors and directors for the upcoming play on their experiences creating and acting in “The Beach House”.
So you wrote and co-directed “The Beach House”, which was originally a radio production- how did translating it into a stage play affect the content? Did you have to make any drastic changes to the content?
Casey Barasch ‘26 (co-director): Oh, there were definitely drastic changes- I actually originally wrote the Beach House as, like, a fusion novel and play, but it was novel-length. So it was 300 pages. There was absolutely no way to do all of that on stage, or even in the radio play, so the radio play is a total of three hours and 45 minutes. Again, still too long for the stage, so I was like ‘I have to cut down massively on the text of the radio play script, or we won’t be able to do it.’ I’m not gonna make actors be in a four hour show, I’m not gonna make tech do tech for a four hour show- no one’s gonna come do it. …But yeah, we did have to make cuts in the script to try and alleviate the load that the tech crew were taking on. …I miss a lot, really, but I think that you can’t really focus on all of the stuff you cut or that you could have had. You have to focus on the stuff that you do have, and I think that the play script as it stands right now is a really good version of the story. Almost all of the plot is still the same, and the characters are as they were in the radio play and the book. And I’ve managed to retain most of the jokes, too.
Why did you decide to make “The Beach House” into a stage play?
Casey Barasch ‘26 (co-director): So, I started writing “[The] Beach House” when I moved into BITE house, which is the ‘theater house’, in the fall of my sophomore year. I think that’s kind of what inspired it- I didn’t have a lot of theater experience and I didn’t write a play before it [“The Beach House’], but I wrote this story that was so outlandish and fantastical at parts that it kind of lended itself more to a play or dramatic performance art. …I was going through drafts, I showed it to my roommate Kendrick (Kendrick Chen’26) at the time, and he was like ‘you should consider making this into just a straight play script’, and I wasn’t sure that it could be done. …I did test reads with my friends and they all liked it, and I think they were interested in a version that was- that the whole story could be told in one sitting.
Were there any difficulties in getting financing or permission from administration, staff, or professors?
Casey Barasch ‘26 (co-director): Oh, we got really great at working up the bureaucratic chain. That was, like, a skill that was developed. I’ve written so many emails- and then if you, like write an email to somebody and they’re like ‘ah, I don’t know how to do that but I know someone who might,’ and so you write to them, and then they don’t respond, and then you’re like- ‘just following up!’ There’s so much logistical stuff to booking a space, booking times, figuring out the schedules with the actors- …that part was really stressful.
Voice acting is obviously very different from physical theater. Was there anything that was especially hard or surprising to you?
Colin Bolger ‘26 (actor): Definitely the biggest things for me, that have always been like ‘oh, I just can’t do regular acting because of this’: one, line memorization. You can’t be looking at the paper as you deliver the line properly. You need to gesture, on a stage. Another thing is it being in front of an audience, that’s always been a bit nerve-wracking for me. …You need to work on moving around and gesturing at the same time. So you not only have to memorize what you say, the way you say it, as well as what you’re doing while you say it- which, like, you only need two of those for voice acting. In fact, you don’t even have to memorize at all. You can just do it on the fly. …I’m stepping a bit out of my comfort zone, trying this out.
Rowan Wilson ‘27 (actor): Well, I think that a lot of it is just having characters look believably related. …It’s mostly a show about family. We have, y’know, a lot of people who are very short and very tall, trying to play family members. And I think it ended up working out very well. For example, seeing…a ten year old, who is taller than his supposed father but definitely not taller than his actual father, is really funny.
Jinx Petersen ‘29 (actor): I’m a type one diabetic…It’s been kind of a hassle with me specifically this past week. …It’s still kind of this difficulty of trying to balance managing my health and managing the stage. It sucks because a lot of those times, they don’t mesh- sometimes neglecting my health means going for the stage, sometimes neglecting the stage means staying home and taking care of myself.
Are there any parts of “The Beach House” physical production that you are especially looking forward to? Highlights, things you didn’t expect to like?
Rowan Wilson ‘27 (actor): My character has a rather toxic relationship with a guy, and I really enjoyed putting together those scenes. It’s been really interesting to do that sort of relationship, because there’s a lot of physical movement. Like, I get threatened with a gun several times, so working with all of the physical acting that comes with that. …On a more funny note, I do have a musical number, which is very funny, because it’s a completely straight play, and then at the end I’m like ‘hey! I’m gonna sing a song.’
Valentine Friedman ‘28: There are a couple of scenes where my character…every so often, I go from pitched-up to…“let the pigs try”. I have a line where I’m very reserved, and I think they’re very funny. It’s a testament to Casey’s writing- it’s an incredible play- but I really enjoy doing that, and the first time I did it on stage, I could hear people in the wings howling with laughter.
Jinx Petersen ‘29 (actor): Dying. Dying on stage. Mainly because- it’s kind of a joke between me and Rowan. …I got to drag him off stage, and now he gets to drag me off stage. Also, the stage combat from it as well…it lines up perfectly to be able to practice what I’m learning.
For people who are planning to see the Beach House- what would you want them to pay the most attention to?
Colin Bolger ‘26 (actor): I would say- the costuming is a big part. They’re definitely taking a lot of attention to detail, where- for example, my character wears a suit, and it was almost perfect- but the time period was off. It was like, too modern of a suit. So they’re looking for an older one, which- I think the devotion to getting the time period accurate will reflect in the actual show.
Rowan Wilson ‘27 (actor): This show is, like- the last show we had was very set focused…this is going to be more of a focus-on-the-characters moment, cause I think all of us have really really defined characters. We worked a lot on our facial expressions, the way that we walk, the way that we move. And it is a mystery! …It’s really fun to watch it for the first time, I’d say.
Valentine Friedman ‘28 (actor): The thing that is going to be the most difficult for the actors is memorizing all the lines, because it’s a very verbose play. …There are so many monologues in this.
Noah Elmer ‘27 (actor): I think it’s really awesome when you- because we don’t have the biggest budget …it’s kinda cool how we’re working with the props and the set in a lot of ways, changing scenes and the set in order to make these different scenes work out. So even if it isn’t the grandest thing in the world, I think it’s really awesome to see our backdrop board, and how it will move around and shift to different scenes…to make those scenes unique is really awesome. So I’d keep an eye out for that.
Jinx Petersen ‘29 (actor): I think people should pay attention to the way the cast portrays all these characters. …There’s a lot of complexities to the Satterstans, to the entire complexity of “The Beach House” that these actors really bring out in a way I never expected from simply voice acting those characters. It’s really magical, hearing the radio play and then taking it to stage…it’s really a magical thing to go from a different version of the same production. …If I could do it all over again, I would do it with these exact same people, in these exact same roles.
“The Beach House” will run from April 11-12 in the Wilson Theater in Mayer Hall.
Featured image: Elisa Turner ’27
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