The stage is set – almost. Performers fidget with zippers and buttons as they get into their costumes. Set designers assemble and arrange props as actors mutter lines to themselves to squeeze out one last rehearsal into a span of minutes. Theatre techs flick through the color wheel as they simplify the night’s technical operations. 

In Hedda Gabler, the season opener for Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s 25th anniversary, audiences are transported back to Oslo, Norway, in the 1890s and into the lives of people both familiar and not. 

The characters of the play, although removed from us by over a century of time, share similar struggles to those experienced, particularly when concerning gender roles. The titular character Hedda grapples throughout the play with both submitting to and defying the societal expectations of women.

“It’s very relevant today, most people think of it as a tragedy — and it is a tragedy — however, there are moments that are a little naughty, audacious, and funny. To me, it’s very exciting, and thrilling to be the first offering in the new season,” says theatre professor Norma Saldivar, who is directing this production. 

The NCT chose Hedda Gabler — playing in the Black Box Theatre from Sept. 27-Oct. 19 — to build on its history of adapting classics for a modern audience.

“A key goal for us was to celebrate and carry forward the legacy of what the NCT has accomplished. We’ve done a lot of classic work – and it's still in our mission to do classics – but we’re looking to the future and infusing these works with innovation and imagination,” says the theatre's executive director Kirsten Brandt, who adapted the play from Henrik Ibsen’s original work.   

Dress to Express

Saldivar came to UNLV in 2017 after 20 years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has directed numerous productions across the country and is an admirer of Ibsen’s work.
Hedda Gabler, like Ibsen’s overall canon, displays a deep dissatisfaction with society, Saldivar notes. 

“When you look at the entirety of his work you see a critique of the middle class,” she says. “This [play] is written by a playwright who is not happy with the way society works. It’s a powerful conversation about gender, but the male characters equally have these limits that make them do things and behave in ways that they maybe don’t naturally feel.” 

One clue about their motivations — both conscious and unconscious — lies in the costuming. For Hedda's character, Saldivar sat down with costume designer Hannah Prochaska, an MFA student at UNLV, to discuss how the costumes can reflect the character’s intentions, as well as how they see themselves in society. 

“I’m exploring the color, pattern, and texture of the costumes [for Hedda Gabler] to give clues to the interior world of the characters and their relationships with each other while staying close to a period 1890 silhouette,” Prochaska says.

The details of Hedda’s clothing – the way her dress is draped, the colors she’s chosen, the height of the neckline – are all indications of who she is and how she feels about society. Prochaska, for example, gives her own signature nod to Hedda's destructive passion by hiding a pair of risqué stockings underneath a confining black mourning dress.

Through all the production choices — costuming, staging, lighting — Brandt hopes the audience connects with the characters and finds themes that are relevant to their own lives.

“Once the curtain falls and the lights go up,” Brandt says, “I don’t want the audience to say, ‘all right, let's go’ and move on immediately. I want them to ask questions and have a conversation about what they just saw. I want them to arm wrestle the ideas presented to them.” 

As it celebrates its 25th year, the theatre will continue to be an important vehicle for creating discussions around relevant and topical issues. By bringing a multitude of voices, perspectives, and stories to the stage, the Nevada Conservatory Theatre remains a space for viewers to see themselves and the world in a new way. 

Check out the Nevada Conservatory Theatre’s 25th Anniversary season to learn more about upcoming productions.