Alicia Bonestroo — Staff Writer

Known But To God, Dordt’s fall production, has been in the works since June. Now that Defender Days have arrived, it is time for the Theatre Department to show off their hard work.

But Known But to God has not even been published yet. Dordt’s Theatre Department managed to get permission from the playwright Anne M. Byrd to perform it. Dordt is only the second group to make it a full production.

According to Director and Theatre Professor Teresa Ter Haar, she and Sue Blom, Dordt’s costume designer, had seen the production at American College Theatre Festival (ACTF) a few years ago. This production was performed by Normandale Community College, where Byrd and her husband teach Theatre. Ter Haar has wanted to do the production here at Dordt ever since.

Known But To God takes place during the Civil War on the Minnesota prairie, but it is not focused on the conflict of the two sides. Early on in design meetings, the production was often described to be about relationships, friendship, and self-identity.
All of the design positions for production were done by Dordt students, except for lighting, marketing, and costumes. Sarina Johnston was the Graphic Designer for the show. Her posters hang around campus with the noticeable orange to yellow gradient sunsets, silhouettes of a soldier on the Dordt Prairie, and the production name and information scattered on it.
Johnston is also in charge of creating the brochures and designer boards for the production. Nearly everything on paper was designed by her specifically for the show.
Originally Johnston had planned to take pictures of the entire cast as silhouettes in sunsets or sunrises.
“It’s been pretty difficult to get everyone’s schedules to line up with sunny days,” Johnston said as she worked on program notes on her laptop. “It might just end up being one of those things we have to let go. We’ll make do.”
The show opened Thursday, October 10. There will be performances in the TePaske Theatre on Saturday, October 12th at 2pm and 7:30pm, as well as shows on October 17-19 at 7:30.