The Fifth

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Meet the Director

Erica Terpening Romeo hails from the east coast.  She is currently finishing her undergraduate work at Lewis and Clark.  She recently directed for Post5 Theatre (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Seascape with Sharks and Dancer, starring founding member Jahnavi Caldwell-Green. She is a dedicated student of Shakespeare, both artistically and academically, and is currently co-writing a book about Romeo & Juliet with Anon It Moves board president and Lewis & Clark College English lit professor Jerry Harp.

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What excites you about The Fifth?

Henry V has been a favorite of mine since childhood. It got to me at just the right age, when I was primed to look for heroes in everything and everyone around me, and what my brother had found in Batman I found in King Henry. As an adult, I started wondering about how that sort of thing happens. Henry drifted back onto the front-burner of my brain during the 2008 election, when I started to think more practically about the idealization of leaders. Now, I have an opportunity to explore that as a director, and with a remarkably talented group of performers. So I guess that’s the long answer.

What do I hope audiences take away from this production?

Well I want what most directors want (and perhaps most artists generally): for people to leave the theater thinking. I want audiences to engage with the themes of the production and have spirited and lively conversations with one another about perspective, about what heroism is, what leadership is, how our histories and mythologies collide, and who’s accountable for the inevitable slippage. In a larger sense, I want to broaden folks’ ideas about how we can tell these stories onstage, about how versatile Shakespeare’s plays really are and how many different ways there are to tell the same story.

What are you currently reading?

I am currently reading a wonderful long-form lyric essay by Maggie Nelson called Bluets. It is ecstatic. do yourself a favor and read it.

What is your dream job?

Directing, teaching, and studying Shakespeare’s works. A perfect life for me would be one in which I spend my days discussing, my nights creating, and my weekends reading.