Even though it’s winter, a new stand of birches has appeared on campus. But unlike their arboreal neighbors on Alumni Walk, these trees aren’t rooted in soil.
Instead, within the warmth of Schaeffer Theatre, they rise from boards, held in place by ropes threaded through their hollow interiors and affixed to fly rails high above.
The clever cardboard and paper recreations are the handiwork of Sophie Hafter ’25, a theater major from New York City, the stage manager for the Bates production of The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s classic tale about a gathering of artists, lovers, and dreamers at a Russian country estate.
Hafter’s work on the play is part of her senior thesis in theater stage management, and it’s all-encompassing. During rehearsals, she’s onstage setting up props one moment, and perched in the sound booth above the theater the next.
Between collaborating with guest director Joshua N Hsu to notate blocking and running sound effects, she briefly disappears into the carpentry shop below the theater to fulfill another of her many responsibilities: the trees.
The birches are key part of the set that has been designed by Associate Professor of Theater Christine McDowell and Kerrigan Anuszewski ’25, a double major in economics and theater from Winthrop, Maine, whose work on the play’s scenic design is part of her own thesis work.
When McDowell was in graduate school at Yale, she had the opporunity to travel through rural Russia, where she saw for herself how clusters of birches interrupted immense, rolling fields. The trees, often depicted in Chekhov productions, have long been symbolic of Russian culture.
On stage, the realism of the white birches stands out starkly against the dark undertones of The Seagull. Without branches and with their tops intentionally obscured, the tree trunks subtly evoke both the natural and the surreal.
“I wanted something that reminded one of birch trees, but that felt a little more abstract,” McDowell says. “There’s a certain amount of romanticism in this play, and we didn’t want it to be hyperrealistic.”
In working with set designers McDowell and Anuszewski, Hsu seeks to explore the tension between reality and distortion. “I wanted to respect the realism that is often associated with this play, but also offer a pathway into the more avant-garde,” says Hsu, who is at Bates as part of the Learning Associates program. “And so there are layers to this production that are not typical to The Seagull.”
Striated patterns painted across the stage and a mountainous backdrop — designed in the colorful, phantasmic style of children’s illustrator Ivan Bilibin — enhance the suspension of disbelief, drawing the audience into the story.
“We live in a world of CGI, but theater is never CGI, and I don’t believe in trying to lean into that idea of photorealism theater,” McDowell says. “People are more interested in something that feels evocative or magical.”
To “grow” each tree, Hafter started with three cardboard tubes connected to make a 20-foot trunk, with the middle tube cut to fit snugly inside the other two.
“It took me a while to figure out how to get them to connect,” Hafter says. “I cut one of them all the way down the middle and curled it into itself so that it became thinner to fit into the other two.”
With a piece of real bark from one of the many birch trees on campus resting nearby as a loose guide, Hafter dampened a large sheet of paper and base-painted it white. She then flicked black, white, and yellow paint onto the paper, using a dry brush to move the colors around and mimic a birch’s texture and colorings.
Once the paper was dry, Hafter affixed the “bark” around the cardboard rolls, and the tree was complete. She repeated each step — with help from Technical Director of Theater and Dance Justin Moriarty, engineering major Melinda Kostrinsky ’26 of Miami, Fla., and economics major Rohini Kandasamy ’27 of Neshanic Station, N.J. — until she had 12 trees. At times, the carpentry shop below the theater rivaled an arboretum.
“There’s a lot of trial and error, but I think they look pretty good,” Hafter says.
Hafter has training in scenic arts — the art of crafting scenery, props, and backdrops for theatrical productions. She learned how to create textures like the faux bark while studying abroad at Rose Bruford College in Sidcup, England. She spent both semesters of her junior year studying scenic arts at the performing arts school 12 miles outside of central London.
Across the pond, Hafter put her hands to work learning the basics of carpentry, welding, sewing, and painting. She tackled mixed-media projects, including an ornate crown of wires and beading modeled after a Chinese wedding crown, a 3-foot loafer shoe made from polystyrene, and a miniature door scaled down from a door she measured at Oxford University.
Hafter and peers also welded a 20-foot-wide turntable — a revolving stage platform — with a central divider so that different sets could be built on each side.
During her time abroad and at Bates, Hafter has sharpened skills that build upon interests she’s had since childhood. Growing up in New York City, Hafter had many friends who loved to act, but she was quiet and had stage fright. In middle school, her art teacher introduced her to set design and fabrication, and Hafter quickly took to the art and “the magic of theater.”
As she grew in her craft and worked alongside other energetic, talented thespians, Hafter became more confident.
“Being around those kinds of people has really helped bring me out of my shell and learn to not care as much about how I’m perceived in not just theater, but in life,” Hafter says. “The people in theater have very interesting perspectives on life, and I appreciate it a lot.”
In addition to her work as The Seagull’s stage manager, Hafter is writing a two-part paper to fulfill her thesis, for which Associate Professor of Theater Courtney Smith is her advisor. The first part of the document will explain the ins and outs of stage management and the critical role of the job, while the second part of the thesis will discuss the importance of diversity and representation in theater productions.
For this latter portion, Hafter will draw from her own experience, the existing literature, and interviews with diverse people who have worked as stage managers, a role historically held by white women. She hopes to exhibit the power of theater as a means for bringing about social change.
“Theater and art in general, whether it’s performance or visual, is such an important tool for activism and making people aware of other experiences that they might not know about,” Hafter says.
Theater in particular, she says, has the unique ability to merge the outrageous with the serious for an entertaining lesson.
“I love the spectacle of theater,” Hafter says. “It doesn’t have to be real. It can still be telling a story that has a moral at the end, but can be this happy, crazy thing.”
