Professor Lormarev Jones is a Meredith College alumna from the Class of 2005. She recently joined the theatre department as a faculty and says she hopes to “usher the theatre department into the next stage of its evolution.”
Jones received her Master of Fine Arts from Sarah Lawrence College and has “written and performed two solo plays, one of which won an award at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival.” She credits her degree at Meredith for teaching her how to “market [herself] better to employers” and discovering “how many skills developed in my major were applicable to other more traditional jobs.”
Jones is directing A Grand Night for Singing in the spring, which presents a unique musical experience for the audience. She said, “There is no plot or story, so it really falls to the performers to imbue the music with their own sense of personality and style.”
This play was chosen, Jones explained, in anticipation that COVID-19 restrictions would still be in place. Jones said that the pandemic inspired her to “create rehearsal rooms and classrooms where people can be their whole selves…the pandemic illuminated for everyone how much we compartmentalize parts of our lives, sometimes to our own detriment.”
The theatre department has, according to Jones, “a lot of unexplored terrain” in the current curriculum, and she plans to expose students to “some less-popular forms and expressions in theater,” including devised theatre, or collaborative improvisation work, solo performances and physical theatre with a focus on movement and dance.
Looking back on her years at Meredith, Lormarev says, “[she] made [her] lifelong friends at this place” and values “the camaraderie and the community.”
By Emma Johnson, Contributing Writer