AIRNESS
by Chelsea Marcantel
presented by ILLINOIS THEATRE @ City Center
KRANNERT CENTER for the PERFORMING ARTS
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
SOUNDTRACK
CREDITS
STAGE MANAGEMENT
STAGE MANAGER | Dominic Bradburn
ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER | Lulu Llewellyn
DESIGN
SCENIC DESIGNER | Avery Tang
COSTUME DESIGNER | KHetag Tsabolov
LIGHTING DESIGNER | Rolando Cisneros Jr.
SOUND DESIGNER | Austin Fuoss
MEDIA DESIGNER | Lili Federico
FEET ON THE GROUND
AUDIO ENGINEER | Lizi Shaul
LIGHT BOARD OPERATOR | Trinity Nett
MEDIA OPERATOR | Reilly Bickel
CREW
WARDROBE CREW
Mihir Apte
Joslyn Gange
Christina Oluwole
SWING CREW | Kathryn Meinecke
HAIR & MAKEUP CREW | Aera Boateng
CAST
SHREDDY EDDY | Jonathan Kaplan
D VICIOUS | David Sommer
GOLDEN THUNDER | Noah Smith
CANNIBAL QUEEN | Mary Jane Oken
FACEBENDER | Patrick Jackson
THE NINA | Jazmin Wilkins
ANNOUNCER | Harry Brown
PRODUCTION
PRODUCTION MANAGER | Capri Agresta
TECHNICAL DIRECTORS | Tatsuya Ito, Ryan Schultz
PROPERTIES MANAGER | Josh Doniek
HAIR & MAKEUP SUPERVISOR | Paige Stewart-Rankins
HAIR & MAKEUP COORDINATOR | Chantel Renee
ASSISTANT LIGHTING DESIGNER | Danielle Monet
HEAD ELECTRICIAN | Jasmyn Oliveros
INTIMACY DIRECTOR | Zev Steinrock
CREW
DECK CREW
Bella Boudreaux
Kassidee Barlow
Madeleine Carroll
Kyle Widener
PHOTOGRAPHY | Darrell Hoemann
PRESS
Airness celebrates the joy of expression and belonging
Derrick Philips | SMILE POLITELY
“The play itself is a comedic exploration of the world of competitive air guitar through the eyes of Nina, a genuine guitarist who underestimates the art until she is immersed in its world. It’s a journey of discovery, not just of the “airness” that makes a performance transcend, but of oneself and the community that binds these performers together.”
“In the end, Airness isn’t just a play about air guitar. It’s a celebration of the oddities and passions that unite us, a testament to the fact that sometimes, the most profound truths are found in the most unexpected places. As the lights dimmed on Fat City Bar and Grill, it felt like this production had not only succeeded in bringing Airness to life, but had also defined the joy of doing something you love, no matter how weird it may be. The play lingers, not just as a memory of a night spent in the company of strangers bound by a shared experience, but as a reminder of the beauty in the absurd, the strength in vulnerability, and the ‘airness’ that resides within us all.”
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ILLINOIS THEATRE An air of immersion
Luke Taylor | THE NEWS-GAZETTE
“While plenty of individual lines had Wednesday night’s dress-rehearsal audience laughing out loud, a lot of the show’s comedy comes from the endearing way the characters are committed to their craft, Coughtry said — ‘like being true to your own weird.’”
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Illinois theatre production of 'Airness' follows journey of air guitarists
Jodi Heckel | UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS NEWS BUREAU
POSTERS
PHOTOGRAPHY | Lili Federico
POSTER DESIGN | Avery Tang
DIRECTOR’SNOTE
“To err is human. To air guitar . . . divine.” —Björn Türoque (2nd Place Finalist, first US National Air Guitar Championships, 2003)
We are all capable of more than we think we are.
To achieve excellence, to experience something larger than yourself, to attain an ideal, to make a belief a reality – in other words: to Rock - sometimes you have to risk looking very . . . very stupid.
I imagine people have mimicked playing instruments since instruments were invented. In the 1860s, “musical pantomime” was considered a symptom of mental illness and treated as such. In the 1930s, phonographs started appearing in homes, and people would host parties where they’d practice “shadow conducting” along to recorded orchestras. And in the 1980s, a new term, “air guitar,” started popping up here and there all over the world.
It started as a joke. In August 1996, an air guitar contest was thrown together as a side-show for a music festival in Oulu [OH-loo], Finland. It was formed around the stupid idea that it could heal the world. The tag line was: “you can’t hold a gun if you’re holding an air guitar.” The contest blew up, got organized, and soon the Air Guitar World Championships were formed.
This heralded the coming of international champions like:
Zac “Mr. Magnet” Monro (England)
Tarquin “The Tarkness” Keys (New Zealand)
Aline “The Devil’s Niece” Westphal (Germany)
Nanami “Seven Seas” Nagura (Japan)
Kirill “Guitarantula” Blumenkrants (France)
and from the US :
David “C-Diddy” Jung
Justin “Nordic Thunder” Howard
Nicole “Mom Jeans Jeanie” Sevcik
Matt “AIRistotle” Burns
Christian “Girth Hog” Hungagain
These are all real and there are so . . . SO many more. Google them.
The funny thing is, air guitar transcends its own joke. Healing the world? I don’t know. I mean, if the world is going to actually change, it’ll take hard work, sacrifice, protest and pain. But if the world is going to heal, I believe it’ll take joy, humility, empathy, fun, and probably some kickass tunes. So . . . why not?
Sometimes the shields that protect us from the world wind up just separating us from the world, from each other, even from ourselves. Air guitar is something anybody can do, and when you do it—when you drink from the chalice of Rock and give yourself over to this stupid, beautiful, unprofessional, funny, insane, amazing act - when you do a thing you didn’t know you were capable of - you might reveal parts of yourself that you didn’t know were there. There’s a powerful freedom in that. Why couldn’t that feeling spread through the whole world?
So lean in. Rock out.
Welcome to Airness.
FORFUN
