Eckerd students perform in Sparrow’s Dream: A Journey of Transcendence at the Palladium Theater. Photos by Penh Alicandro ’22
The final night of the Palladium Creative Fellowship Festival had arrived, and Jessica Thonen, associate dean of faculty at Eckerd College, was sure the festival had saved the best performance for last.
The annual event supports culturally diverse performing artists from the community and offers them space to showcase their work at the iconic downtown St. Petersburg theater. Standing in the wings that February evening, Thonen knew rehearsals had gone well. But the performance, which included herself and three Eckerd students, had not been practiced from beginning to end. Or in front of an audience.
The performance would be Sparrow’s Dream: A Journey of Transcendence. Written and directed by Jason Hackenwerth, a former Eckerd College instructor of visual arts, the modern opera was a stunning display of music, dance and—Hackenwerth’s calling card—hundreds of biodegradable latex balloons he had connected into complex forms and wearable costumes. The creations were translucent, gravity defying, and fleeting. Because balloons tend to deflate within a few days, the performance was one night, and one night only.
“Right before the show started, I felt kind of jealous of the audience because they had no idea what they were about to see,” says Thonen, also a professor of theatre at the College who served as stage manager for the opera. “It’s like something off-off-Broadway. It’s the weird and the special and the different. You ask yourself, ‘What is happening here?’”
Hackenwerth (left) discusses the production with Thonen.
Hackenwerth and Thonen have known each other for several years. After earning a Bachelor of Fine Arts in printmaking from Webster University in St. Louis and an MFA in painting from Savannah College of Art and Design, Hackenwerth moved to New York City, where he worked at galleries during the day and painted at night. He arrived in St. Petersburg in 2013 and in 2017 began teaching at Eckerd.
His work has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, he is a two-time recipient of the Creative Pinellas Professional Artist Grant, and he’s a member of the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance. While teaching at Eckerd, Hackenwerth told Thonen he wanted to create an opera. “I asked him how he was going to do that,” she says, “and he had such a clear vision about what it should be.
“He put together 26 songs from existing operas and a variety of very different costumes and forms. I asked him if he had a stage manager. He said no, and I told him I’d do that for him. I also made sure our students knew about it.”
Students like Mac Ryan, a junior animal studies and theatre student from Valley Cottage, New York, who began acting classes at age 6. She came to the audition thinking the opera involved stiff, traditional sculptures. It was everything but that. For part of the performance, Mac wore a sizable collection of long, thin, green balloons attached to her back to portray moving grass. “There’s no dialogue, and I thought the audience might be confused,” she says. “But then I heard people bursting out in laughter and having a great time. Doing this was like a breath of fresh air.”
Along with gaining valuable theatre experience, Mac and the other Eckerd students got to perform alongside three cast members who are graduates of The Juilliard School, a performing arts conservatory. “It was an honor to work and learn from them,” she says. “And good to know that I’m not too far from their level.”
Hanna Kobs, a junior political science student from St. Petersburg, has worked as a stage manager for theatre productions at Eckerd but not in a professional setting. Until Sparrow’s Dream. Her job was to run the riggings that moved the balloon sculptures around the stage. “I really love doing technical theatre,” she says. “It’s a great hobby because you get to see how everything works and observe other people doing different jobs.”
Wearing yellow-and-pink balloon wings, Sean Porter, a first-year musical theatre student from Stuart, Florida, was cast as Flapperhead—an unfeeling, egocentric character.
“Since there was no dialogue,” he explains, “I learned how to express myself through movement, not language. It was such a unique experience. I also learned that St. Petersburg’s artistic community is huge and growing.”
Sean envisions a career in acting, followed by teaching. “I heard Denzel Washington say the first part of your life should be about learning, the second about earning and the third about returning.”
As for Hackenwerth, he believes that focusing on what matters is a part of the Sparrow’s Dream message. “I hope [the students] discovered the divine inspiration that comes when we let go of thinking about the performance or perfection,” he says, “and instead feel the flow that comes from practice and experience and being present in the moment.”
When the performance ended and the cast took their final bow, hundreds of cellphones sprouted in the audience, along with applause that was loud and long.
“But the real proof was when everyone involved in the production came out into the house,” Thonen adds. “So many people in the audience had stayed. It was a big party. People were invited up on-stage, kids were running around, and people were popping balloons. All of the joy that everyone felt … it was an amazing moment of returning to when you were younger.”
