{"id":248881,"date":"2026-04-27T23:12:25","date_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248881\/"},"modified":"2026-04-27T23:12:25","modified_gmt":"2026-04-27T23:12:25","slug":"usfsps-musical-theatre-club-displays-einstein-level-genius-in-theory-of-relativity-the-crows-nest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/248881\/","title":{"rendered":"USFSP\u2019s\u00a0Musical Theatre Club\u00a0displays Einstein-level genius in\u00a0\u201cTheory of Relativity\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u2013 The Crow’s Nest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow\u2019s Nest\u00a0<\/p>\n

By Secilia Ruiz\u00a0<\/p>\n

When dealing with life-altering events and emotions that can feel inescapable,\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0easy to forget how much people\u2019s lives affect one another. A small moment in a day of one\u2019s life can completely alter the life of another.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This phenomenon is explored in the musical \u201cTheory of Relativity.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

On April 19 and 20, the new Musical Theatre Club at the University of South Florida\u00a0St. Petersburg put on a student-directed production of \u201cTheory of Relativity,\u201d which was the first production ever put on at the campus.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cTheory of Relativity\u201d\u00a0is a musical\u00a0written by Brian Hill\u00a0with music and lyrics by Neil Bartram.\u00a0The ensemble musical uses\u00a0seemingly separate\u00a0comedic and dramatic scenes\u00a0that\u00a0portray the complex situations\u00a0that young adults experience and how they\u00a0eventually\u00a0connect\u00a0relative\u00a0to each other.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This cast had no shortage of talent, with\u00a0actors\u00a0fully embodying their characters.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A standout in this category was senior psychology major, Melanie Carnero as Monologue Catherine. Carnero\u2019s portrayal of the anxious Catherine,\u00a0who struggles with her fear of germs after her boyfriend baked her a cake, was outstanding and felt authentic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Carnero remained committed to her character throughout each scene. As Catherine became increasingly anxious about eating the cake, Carnero\u2019s skillful building kept the stakes high. Then, once Catherine went through an epiphany that encouraged her to finally eat the cake,\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

With some actors\u00a0taking on\u00a0the task of playing multiple different characters throughout different scenes, a distinction between each character is important.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Founder and president of the Musical Theatre Club, Anya Gorgas,\u00a0accomplished\u00a0this in her roles as Sara and Julie.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The character of Sara in the song \u201cThe End of the Line\u201d begins as a classic \u201cnerdy\u201d character\u00a0but transitions throughout the song into the classic \u201cpopular mean girl.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

In contrast, the character of Julie is a kind young woman who owns five cats that she has conversations with regularly. Gorgas embodied Julie with such ease and contrast from the way she played Sara\u00a0that it truly felt like two different people.\u00a0<\/p>\n

After an intermission, it can sometimes be difficult to grab the audience\u2019s attention\u00a0again. However, the moment Uche\u00a0Emetuche, sophomore political science major and Musical Theatre Club officer, stepped onto the stage as Caroline in the song \u201cMe & Ricky,\u201d the audience was entranced and remained in awe with every note she sang.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Emetuche\u00a0guided the audience through the journey of Caroline falling in love with and slowly getting taken advantage of by her lover\u00a0with\u00a0raw talent and emotion\u00a0in both her singing and acting\u00a0that left everyone in the room as heartbroken as Caroline.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The comedic aspects of the scenes following this heart-wrenching performance were also effective, eliciting laughs from the entire audience.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sophomore business analytics and information major Aidan Kaiser contributed to this comedic aspect in one of his scenes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The song \u201cLipstick,\u201d where the character Anthony, played by Kaiser,\u00a0fantasizes about\u00a0his interaction bumping into Jenny, played by senior biology major Jocelyn Stowell, on the street as she applies lipstick, was a hilarious example of this.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As Anthony plays out the fantasy with an exaggerated version of Jenny, the over-the-top facial expressions from Kaiser coupled with the dreamy high-pitched delivery from Stowell\u00a0left the audience\u00a0clutching their sides in laughter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0performances were elevated by\u00a0freshman\u00a0elementary education and teaching major Makenna Leak\u2019s\u00a0choreography,\u00a0which remained grounded in the emotional songs\u00a0to focus on the acting,\u00a0while\u00a0still\u00a0being\u00a0outlandishly fun in\u00a0the\u00a0comedic\u00a0songs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although there were\u00a0some\u00a0moments where the movements actors made while singing did not feel motivated by character,\u00a0the entire stage was always being\u00a0utilized\u00a0in every scene. This aspect kept the choreography feeling fresh and interesting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The costume design, by sophomore pre-med student Mona Nabil and senior finance major Natalia Powers, was stunning and\u00a0fit\u00a0the personalities of the characters wearing them.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With a production more grounded\u00a0in reality\u00a0in\u00a0the way \u201cTheory of Relativity\u201d is, the designers had a lot of freedom with how they choose to dress each character, as extremely specific costumes\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0required\u00a0for characters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The colorful striped turtleneck sported by Gorgas as\u00a0the character\u00a0Julie, the\u00a0aforementioned cat-lover,\u00a0felt like a\u00a0statement\u00a0piece\u00a0Julie\u00a0would have picked out of her closet, which\u00a0helped bring the character to life.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This was true for every character, with each costume giving the audience a taste of their personalities before they said a single line.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With the abundance of characters,\u00a0multiple of them being played by the same actors, there were a lot of costume changes\u00a0required\u00a0in the show. These were executed flawlessly, with no\u00a0wardrobe malfunctions or\u00a0seemingly missing\u00a0costume pieces.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some of the costume changes, however, created confusion about which characters were recurring throughout multiple scenes, and which were newly introduced.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For example, the costume Stowell wore as Jenny in the song \u201cThe End of The Line\u201d was drastically different than the costume worn in the song \u201cLipstick,\u201d which made it difficult to realize this was the same character in both songs without reading the\u00a0playbill.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The costume department nonetheless did an outstanding job at making each character feel like a real person that the audience could connect to, which matched the theme of the show perfectly.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It would be impossible to see the phenomenal costumes or hear the talented cast without the technical team led by the Stage Manager, senior English\u00a0major Daniel Albertson Jr and the Producer\/Technical Director, junior political science major Brianna Gutierrez.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The lighting design in this production, using two\u00a0light trees\u00a0positioned on either side of the\u00a0room facing the\u00a0stage, was very intentional.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

One stand lit the\u00a0background\u00a0blue and purple,\u00a0which is\u00a0reminiscent of\u00a0the colors of the galaxy\u00a0and\u00a0contributed to the science-influenced\u00a0theme of the musical.\u00a0The\u00a0other light stand was used to light the actors onstage with a warm white, which aided with the intimate and often vulnerable nature of the production.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The sound design was also flawless.\u00a0With multiple overhead microphones that hung from the ceiling, each actor could be heard clearly throughout the entire show.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

The varying notes were also captured by the microphones perfectly and none of the high notes\u00a0clipped\u00a0the microphones, which can commonly occur and causes fuzzy audio.\u00a0<\/p>\n

These aspects all tied together to form the well-executed and heartwarming display of talent that was The USF St. Petersburg Musical Theatre Club\u2019s production of \u201cTheory of Relativity.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In coming semesters, it would be amazing to see more productions like this one on campus for\u00a0some students to enjoy as audience members\u00a0and for others to\u00a0showcase\u00a0their abilities in.\u00a0<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 70 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\"More<\/a>
Written by: Secilia Ruiz<\/a> on April 27, 2026.
Last revised by: Julia Ferrara<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo by Makenna Wozniak | The Crow\u2019s Nest\u00a0 By Secilia Ruiz\u00a0 When dealing with life-altering events and emotions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-248881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/248882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}