Emerging Thru Empathy

With the rapid-fire recent growth of the performing arts in the Sioux Falls area, there’s a near-constant flow of new players making their mark in the local theatre sphere. In our annual “Faces to Watch” issue, we chat with four such emerging artists who call Sioux Falls home — what motivates them to participate in performance, what their experiences have been like and what inspires them to continue.

Pictured: Tristan Chasing Hawk, local performing artist with a degree from University of South Dakota; performer with the Premiere Playhouse in productions of Cabaret, Blood Brothers and more; performer and collective member with the Good Night Theatre Collective, in productions such as Reefer Madness, Spring Awakening and the upcoming The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee; production associate with Monstrous Little Theatre Company; and 2023 Stage Award winner for Best Featured Actor in a Play or Musical (Credit: Peter Chapman)

What’s the most exciting thing about how things have shifted or grown in the theatre space in Sioux Falls of late?

Tristan Chasing Hawk: There’s so much more resource-sharing now. Organizations share closets, they share props, they talk to each other on how to accomplish things in productions. Whereas before, it's my understanding it could be a little bit more adversarial. But currently there's such a camaraderie. I think it's beautiful — it really is becoming a community. It feels like we're all supportive of one another and we all see each other's shows and pat each other on the back and go to the Stage Awards and get dolled up and cheer each other on!

Alex Garcia: I'd say just the sheer amount of it, too. I think back to when I did my first show in the area — I think it was 2016 at Olde Towne. But just the sheer amount of options people have now.

Grace Kjelden: It's so exciting that there are just so many opportunities to audition. Coming from Vermillion, where, unless you're in school, there's one show you can do a year. The Vermillion Community Theatre is amazing. I love it. It's where I got my start. But it's exciting to be able to have a lot of options. If you feel like doing a musical or you feel like doing some Shakespeare or this or that — there's a lot of variety and opportunity.

Lily Satterlee: I love, too, that as an audience member, I have so many options. The only fault I have with the arts scene is that there's so much going on and I can't get to everything that I want to get to! There are just so many connections of people in multiple companies, too.

What has been one of your most gratifying moments as a theatre artist in Sioux Falls?

LS: Well, I have treasured my time with the Penguin Project (at the Premiere Playhouse) and a passion of mine has always been theatre for all. So I would say the most fulfilling thing has been getting to see those shows come to fruition and facilitate relationships between artists and mentors and getting the families together.

GK: Yes, I would agree. Definitely the educational theatre I've been able to do here — it fills my bucket in a way nothing else does. I love being on stage and I love doing all that, but getting to watch kids find the same passion that I had growing up and getting to create safe spaces for them… it really means a lot to me.

AG: The communities you find here, too — everything's so connected and people are just so quick to jump in to offer anything they can, which is just fantastic. 

TCH: I love when people express how they were affected or moved by something you’ve worked on. To really see that tangible effect that you can have a hand in and being able to facilitate that for other people, it means a lot.

Pictured: Grace Kjelden, local performer and theatre artist with a BFA in musical theatre from University of South Dakota; staff member at Whittier Middle School in Sioux Falls; performer with Mighty Corson Art Players, including At Long Last Leo, [title of show] and Small Mouth Sounds; performer with Broad Cast Theatre in The Deer and the Antelope Play; performer and educator with the Premiere Playhouse, including A Christmas Carol and The Little Mermaid; and 2024 Stage Award nominee for Best Lead Actress in a Musical (Credit: Peter Chapman)

What in the performing arts scene would you like to see more of?

AG: Weird, experimental pop-ups — you think of in places, like Minneapolis or Chicago, where they'll just have a storefront pop-up. “Here's a weird play we put on, we've made it as friends, we're going to show up for two weekends and it'll never happen again.” I crave more of that.

TCH: Well, similarly, to the topic of venue space, there are so many theatre companies and people who want to do art, and there's just such a lack of places to put it on. And Monstrous (Little Theatre Company) specifically used to do a lot of found theater, but there are only so many places you can find, truly. So having more dedicated performance spaces would be really nice. I think for not just performance, too, but rehearsal. I mean, if you're a small company trying to up-and-come, it's hard. You can only go rehearse in someone’s house so many times!

[Laughter]

LS: I would love to see more efforts to have accessibility, accommodations and sensory-friendly shows for those venues and just more thoughtfulness behind inclusivity and with performers and audience members. Finding more creative ways for audiences to feel comfortable, such as the lobby monitor that was included for (the Penguin Project’s) The Wizard of Oz for people who needed to step out. Having dialogue on the screen, headsets for people who need stage directions spoken to them… just making everything accessible to people, in general. Rare by Design is doing incredible work, to that end — they did a really inclusive film festival that featured people with disabilities and they put on fashion shows, as well. So although there's a lot of collaboration already happening, I'd love to see more organizations interweaving to just create more accessibility.

As a part of the education sphere, what have you seen been valuable for young people involved in the arts in Sioux Falls?

GK: Just having a safe space after school. I worked on Whittier (Middle School)'s production of The Little Mermaid Jr., and we had a student who was going through a lot with her family at that time. She had a lot of rough stuff going on at home, and every day at rehearsal she was in this awful mood. And then we get to performance week, and she's just bouncing around so excited and saying how she wants to get a bachelor's in theatre! Having that safe space after school matters so much.

LS: And even during the school day, too. Our mission at Eugene Field (Elementary) is to integrate the arts in every subject that we do and every activity we do. And to have my kids act out the stories we're reading or act out the math story problems… it just really, truly helps kids learn. And not just academically, but empathetically, too. If we're having conflict in the classroom, we can easily act out that scenario and problem-solve it. It gives kids tools for creating healthy relationships. The arts do a lot for youth and their development.

Pictured: Alex Garcia, local performer and graduate of South Dakota State University’s theatre program; long-time performer with Olde Towne Dinner Theatre, including productions of Leading Ladies and The Importance of Being Earnest; and past performer with the Premiere Playhouse (née Sioux Empire Community Theatre) (Credit: Peter Chapman)

GK: I think about middle school growing up, and we didn't really have any afterschool fine arts programs for kids. There was band and choir, but there wasn't anything after school. Not like when you get to high school, where there are plays and show choirs to participate in. Having that safe space to be social and just kind of come out of your shell helps a lot. So that's something I really care about is finding those spaces for middle-schoolers especially, because I think about when I was in middle school, I was so shy I could barely talk. And then I got to high school, and I started doing theatre and it helped me so much. Middle school is weird. Public schools are good about having sports after school, but for me, it was like, “Okay, sports are an actual nightmare. I'm super clumsy and awkward.”

[Laughter]

AG: In high school, I was in sports — the first two, three years wrestling and football. And doing that switch, you do see the dichotomy there. You kind of go from this ultra-machismo space of the locker rooms. I never really fit in there, because I was a little weird. So when I started doing theatre, I found this space where I could read books and say quirky things, and everyone still wants to be friends with you and get to know you for you. it was really eye-opening.

TCH: My background from acting actually is primarily speech and debate, which is entirely educational and truly transformative. I can't imagine who I would've been or who I'd be right now without speech. As a high-schooler who is very meek and people-pleasing, I just got 10 minutes to say whatever I wanted to and I was heard for 10 minutes, which is huge because you don't have many opportunities like that as a kid. You don't really have any agency, of course. And so to have that agency as a child was mind-blowing. And then to watch other people's agencies and to be affected by that completely changed my worldview.

I think it made me a better person — more empathetic to other people's struggles — and also a better performer, overall. Being in front of a bunch of random people for 13 weekends out of the year across the country, you really do see it all. It’s educational from top to bottom — learning what's a story, how to understand it, how you reflect that through your body and your choices. So I'm so thankful for speech and debate.

GK: I also think some of the most meaningful relationships in my life come from the mentors you get from those activities. My band teacher, my piano teacher growing up — and even now having friends within the theatre community who are a fair amount older than me, I get so much wisdom from them and I learn so much and grow so much being surrounded by people different than me. I think especially in those educational settings, the relationship between a teacher and a student in a fine arts space is really, really so helpful.

LS: I just jumped back to a memory with my middle school and high school theatre director, Margaret. I carry her words and her confidence in me now as my own self-talk and my own confidence. And she came into my life at a really important time when I found my passion and my confidence to do this.

GK: Thinking about my music and drama teachers, they were always the people who believed in me before I believed in me. And that meant the world. I would not be the person I am today without my fine arts teachers.

Pictured: Lily Satterlee, local elementary educator and theatre artist with a degree from University of Sioux Falls; performer with the Good Night Theatre Collective, including productions of Spring Awakening, Sense & Sensibility and A Christmas Story: The Musical; educator with the Penguin Project at the Premiere Playhouse; member of the Sioux Falls Rainbow Chorus; and 2020 Stage Award nominee for Best Collegiate Performer (Credit: Peter Chapman)

What have been your most formative experiences in the Sioux Falls area theatre scene?

TCH: The rehearsal process for (Monstrous Little Theatre Company’s) Lungs was such good training — I got really close with Alex Newcomb-Weiland, who played opposite of me, and Debbi Jones, the director. Going into the production week, we didn't have any idea of how people were going to react to what we were doing. It's kind of a weird premise, and I was really worried about keeping people's attention for an hour-and-a-half for this pretty dramatic show. But it felt palpable. There were high emotions that week, just from things going on politically about the future of where we're going as a country and what we want for our future and for our future generations.

So to have this show engage hard conversations of the intimacy of deciding whether or not to have a baby, and then larger themes of climate change and political instability, it was so beautiful. I will hold those conversations in my heart forever. Just having people come up and say, “We’ve had that exact conversation. Thank you for sharing that.” It really reminded me of why I choose to do what I do, why I'm called to be a theater artist.

GK: I would also say something similar. After (Broad Cast Theatre’s) The Deer and the Antelop Play, I had an audience member come up and say, “I just recently had the 10-year anniversary of surviving a suicide attempt, and your portrayal of a character who goes through that meant the world to me.” It was one of those moments where you think to yourself, “Okay, the thing I love to do does have power and it does impact people.”

LS: And the topics that we get to bring to audiences, the stories that bring about really important and necessary conversations after the fact. At University of Sioux Falls, a show that I really loved being a part of was Necessary Targets, because of the conversations surrounding immigrants and refugees. I was able to talk to friends and family about immigration policies in a way I hadn't been able to before through that show. It just opens that up and helps us have genuine conversations, and through the characters we're introduced to people we wouldn't otherwise meet.

AG: Doing Rent comes to mind. Shows that kind of open up your eyes to the experience of the generation that came before you that you didn't really have the opportunity to interact with and the suffering that they went through.

And maybe I'm a little lighter now when I do comedies at Olde Towne, but it's a marathon. It's like 20 shows over five weeks, and there are times in there where you get to the theater, and you're just tired, you're drained out. It makes me appreciate the relationship with the audience. Even if I'm not feeling the best tonight, it's my responsibility to give them a good performance the best I can. It kind of reinforces the craft aspect of acting, too, I think, where you can gain a certain amount of skills to push through when things are hard. I think about that a lot. The relationship between performing for an audience and how much of a say they should have in what it is.

TCH: Are we doing this for ourselves or the audience? 

AG: Yes, exactly.

(Credit: Peter Chapman)

How has what you’ve gained from theatre performance bled over into your everyday life?

GK: Adaptability. The show must go on. That's a very helpful mindset to have working in a school.

TCH: Emotional intelligence. Emotional labor, too. Having to perform things that you weren't feeling, particularly.

AG: Working in an office environment with a bunch of men from this part of the country… maybe not the best emotional availability. So I have to navigate that for them. You carry the patience, too. Understand where people are at at different times, different emotional ability levels. So it's helped a lot for sure.

LS: Every day is a performance for me as a teacher and as a kindergarten teacher, especially. So I'm bringing in the energy that I've learned from theatre and the creativity, the emotional intelligence piece, and still trying to be — even though I'm performing — still trying to do that in a genuine, down-to-earth way.

What has been the most meaningful performance you’ve seen in the past year as an audience member?

LS: Debbi Jones in Natural Shocks. I was sobbing during and after and I got to have that experience of getting to go up to (the show’s director) Whitney (Rappana) first and just cried to her. I couldn't say what I was feeling, but she knew. And it was just being seen and having parts of myself in front of me and Whitney and Debbi’s work on that show — yes, just deeply important for me.

TCH: I'd probably say Hair from the Premiere Playhouse. The production value was gorgeous, and everybody did such a great job within the show itself. There's not a particular role, either. Just being in the ensemble seemed like such a great experience. I talked to a lot of cast members afterward and they're said, “This process really changed me. I feel so connected.” And just to really offer yourself up to something greater as an ensemble member in a show that's so ensemble-heavy sounds really nice.

AG: This is recency bias, but I'm going to have to say (Mighty Corson Art Players’) Small Mouth Sounds. I found myself nodding along and laughing and just sitting, kind of pondering what you were all talking through and going through internally.

GK: I think I have to go with Twelfth Night. I love that show. It was a lot of fun. It was a gorgeous night outside. It was cool to see Macie (Lupica) tackle her fear of Shakespeare, because I know she was kind of shaking in her boots before that audition and she was the lead and nailed it. So that was cool to see.

What have you not done as a theatre artist that you still want to do?

AG: I would love to put on something I wrote that my friends or community members could be a part of. Something about that process — that it comes from you and then you give it to others you trust to see what becomes of it. That's something I think would be really fun to try.

GK: I'd love to write a Taylor Swift jukebox musical. Still got to figure out the legality around it, though. 

[Laughter]

LS: I mostly just have my long list of people I want to work with who I haven't been able to work with yet. So for me, I'm looking forward to being in projects with certain people I've admired watching and whom I admire on stage. I'm about to do some stage managing, so looking forward to that, too.

TCH: I really want to train. I really would like to hone my skills more and be pushed in a way that I don't know yet. I don't even know how I'll be pushed or how I'll come out the other side, but just see the possibility of change and growth.