Bridgewater, Va. – From April 7-9, senior Kylie Chisnell presented her take on “Death of a Salesman” in the Black Box underneath Cole Hall as her capstone project. 

The cast included: junior Adam Lorfink as Willy Loman, senior Kylee Lorio as his wife Linda Loman, sophomore Mateo Tucker as Biff Loman, first-year Grayson Preece as Happy Loman and junior Bailey Morrison as Ben Loman.

Outside of the Loman household, the cast included: senior Elysia Gomez as Willy’s mistress, junior Jessica Arnold as Stanley and Bernard, senior Kaprisha Evans as Ms. Forsythe, first-year Abby Nester as Letta and Jenny and Chisnell as Charley and Howard Wagner.

Taking place during the 30’s, Willy struggles to keep his mental health together and be able to support his family. As he slowly recalls what ultimately led to his elder son Biff’s demise, he begins losing his way and tears his family apart.

At the beginning of the play, Chisnell handed out pamphlets from Active Minds, a club on campus, about mental health and began by stating why the play was chosen. “It included all my academic realms,” said Chisnell.” It was performed to help others better understand how mental health affects people.”

“Death of a Salesman” is a two act play, which lasted around three hours. There was a reading, which included every actor with scripts.“I brought in the punching bag and completely lost my place in the script,” said Preece of the second night.

On April 9, the actors sat down with the audience and had a Q&A session which lasted 30 minutes. It was then revealed that only two of the cast actors were in their original roles – Tucker and Morrison. 

Willy’s character went through the most changes, as he was played by three different actors – including Lorio and the current actor Lorfink who was originally supposed to play Bernard. Lorfink, as well as other members, learned their parts in two to three weeks.