CA’s Winter Mainstage Performance Makes Dreams a Reality
Concord Academy’s winter mainstage production, The Impracticality of Modern-Day Mastodons, explores what happens when the impossible becomes real. The play imagines a world in which everyone’s childhood dreams materialize overnight, while the show itself achieves a feat nearly as improbable: the creation of a full-size mastodon marionette. Together, the narrative and its design bring the extraordinary to life.
Guest director Audrey Seraphin selected the dark comedy because she felt it spoke to the current moment. Having previously performed in the ensemble of the play at a community theater, she approached CA’s staging intent on reexamining the text through a fresh conceptual lens.
In the play, firefighters, ballerinas, and pirates abound. The main character, Jess, however, fulfills her more unconventional ambition of becoming a mastodon. The collapse of conventional social systems creates chaos, but also space for reinvention. “The end of the world as we know it doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing,” Seraphin says.
While the play grapples with societal upheaval, Seraphin ultimately describes it as hopeful, with characters pivoting to adapt to their new environment. Jess, for instance, uses her trunk to paint and create bold, statement-making artwork.
The production itself also adapted to its new home in the Centennial Arts Center. The concept originated with Technical Director James Wiliston P’28, who utilized the Kingman Support Shop to create the puppet.
“As I researched how the production has been done in the past, reading through the play and thinking about our space, the unique configuration of our catwalk system, the idea just came to me. I have always loved marionettes.” Williston says. “It has truly been a joy to work on.”
The marionette embodies Jess, whose physical presence anchors the play’s exploration of identity. Six technical theater students operate it from the Hammett Ory Theater’s catwalks. Two students move the mastodon from right to left, while the other four operate the head and legs, and the actress playing Jess often operates the trunk.
Seraphin has worked closely with performers and puppeteers to determine how subtle adjustments to the marionette’s string tension, posture, and position might communicate frustration, excitement, or resolve. The complex mastodon structure is offset by a simple set, utilizing projections to provide a sense of place.
Ensemble members developed their own impractical personas from pirates to princesses, collaborating with the costume team to shape character choice. Seraphin praised CA students as “really smart, responsible, and willing to take risks.” Rather than defining every detail, she “offers a loose outline” and lets students “color in the rest,” fostering a rehearsal room grounded in creative ownership.
Seraphin emphasized that at its core, the play is about resilience. She hopes audiences will leave the performance with an appreciation for how theater can make space for the unimaginable, as well as an understanding that “It’s okay to be dreaming of something bigger and better and to come into your own on your own timeline.”
