Chris Snyder, biology informatics junior, acted the part of a horse in the recent production of “Equus” at the Ogle Center.
Snyder started as an engineering major at Purdue, but he said he didn’t like the programming he had to do for it.
However, Snyder said he still wanted to do something in the line of computers so he picked an informatics degree.
Snyder is the vice president of the Informatics Club and a member of the Biology Informatics Research Group.
“Informatics is a rather new degree, and most people think it’s just a side off of computer sciences,” Snyder said. “However, it is much more than that. I picked bioinformatics and went with it.”
Snyder is normally on the technical side of the plays performed at IU Southeast. He’s involved with lighting and setting up sets.
“He has done most of the jobs on the tech crew,” Jim Hesselman, assistant professor of theater, said. “I’m not sure if he has done wardrobe.”
For “Equus,” however, Snyder took on the role of the horse, Nugget, because it wasn’t the most popular role.
“No one wanted to do that part because of what it entailed,” Snyder said. “You had to be ridden.”
Hesselman said there were many tough requirements in order to play the role.
“You physically had to be strong to have someone ride on your shoulders and wear the heavy head piece required for the part,” Hesselman said.
Snyder became interested in theater during high school.
“I started doing the technical side of it because for the class I was taking,” Snyder said. “The teacher gave us extra credit if we helped with the theater. I liked it, so I just kept on doing it through college, and now I get a scholarship for it.”
Snyder said he told Hesselman if he needed him for the part then he would help out as best he could.
“One day, I got done with my class, and I got a call from Jim saying to come to the theater,” Snyder said. “I got there and was told I was going to be playing the horse.”
Snyder said even though he liked acting, he enjoys the technical side of it more because of the memorization and choreography it entails compared to just working.
“Acting is definitely more challenging,” Snyder said. “It’s out of my element. The part wasn’t hard from a professional actor’s stand point. However, it was hard for me to play a horse.”
Hesselman said he thought Snyder did a really good job on performing the part of Nugget.
“He did really well,” Hesselman said. “It was actually a pretty dangerous part: his hands were tied behind his back for the whole show, he had to wear really high sole shoes, a heavy mask that weighed around eight pounds and the stage was lifted above the audience.”
Hesselman also said this wasn’t a part where Snyder would just showed up to the play and stood in the background.
“There is one part when Alan — main character of ‘Equus’ — stabs out the horses eyes, and the horses have to stand in the right spot and a red light shines down on them. This is [Snyder’s] second year in the Theatre Department. I believe he has applied for next year, as well.”
Hesselman said Snyder is also easy to work with. He put in many hours of rehearsal and did his best to play the part as well as he could.
“[Playing a horse] was odd to say the least,” Snyder said. “The costume looked cool, but it was really hot.”
By BRYAN JONES
Staff
jonesbry@umail.iu.edu
