Saint Michael’s senior to direct modern dramedy, “Antlia Pneumatica,” as spring mainstage play

For only the third time since the Saint Michael’s College Theatre program began in 1962, a student is directing the spring semester’s mainstage production.

Poster for Antlia Pneumatica, the spring 2026 mainstage play. (Created by Riley Treegoob ’26)

Angeljolee “Jojo” Carter ’26 will direct Antlia Pneumatica, a modern dramedy by Anne Washburn that explores themes of friendship and grief through the eyes of a group of college friends. The group gathers in rural Texas after the loss of a mutual friend they haven’t seen in years, and the friends meld nostalgia, dark humor, and the supernatural as they mourn the friend and discuss their pasts and presents.

The play will run from March 25 to March 28 at 7 p.m. each night in the McCarthy Arts Center’s Mainstage Theatre. Admission is free and on a first-come, first-served basis.

The Theatre Department usually puts on one mainstage play each semester, often directed by a faculty member or guest director. Carter’s directing debut follows a year and a half after the last student-directed play, “A Taste of Freedom,” which was also written by the student, Sadie Chamberlain ’25.

The play also marks another milestone: it is the final production for Theatre Professor John Devlin, who will retire at the end of the academic year after 25 years of teaching at Saint Michael’s College. Devlin will provide lighting design for the show.

Carter, who will graduate this spring with a double major in Criminology and Psychology and a minor in Theatre, recently participated in a Q&A with Theatre Professor Peter Harrigan in the lead-up to opening night. The Q&A has been lightly edited for grammar and clarity.

Peter Harrigan: You’ve had a productive and varied experience at St. Mike’s, serving as – among other things – a Resident Assistant, the Secretary of Academics for the Student Government Association, and President of the Drama Club. What is it about theatre that gets you excited and makes you want to stay involved?

Angeljolee Carter: I like a lot of different aspects of theatre. I grew up with theatre and went to plays with my parents. I performed in plays every year in elementary and middle school. Then in high school, I discovered technical theatre, and I’ve focused on that in college. The thing that really like keeps me excited about theatre is the newness of it – every production is very different and exposes you to a lot of different ideas and experiences. Doing technical theatre work allows me to shine.

Angeljolee “Jojo” Carter ’26 (Photo courtesy of Peter Harrigan)

PH: You were involved in the professional summer theater at Saint Michael’s, weren’t you?

AC: Yes. I was a production intern for the (Saint Michael’s) Playhouse in its last season (in 2023).

PH: How did that factor into your learning?

AC: It was an unexpected opportunity. Professor John Devlin came to me towards the end of my first year and said, “Hey, do you want to be a production intern at the Playhouse?” I had been in his “Theatre Lab” classes all year, and I saw it as a great opportunity to work with professional artists from outside of SMC – designers and stage managers who had very different ways of approaching things. It was fast-paced but still a teaching and learning environment. Rather than working directly with a designer, like John, I worked with a Technical Director, Capri, to carry out the designs. I made a ton of friends – some of them I still keep in contact with or keep up with through social media.

Peter Harrigan

PH: You are only the third student who has been the solo director of a mainstage theatre production at Saint Michael’s since the theatre program began in 1962. Congratulations! You chose to direct the dramedy Antlia Pneumatica by Anne Washburn. It reminds me of the movie The Big Chill – but with a supernatural twist. What drew you to it?

AC: When I was first looking at plays, I really wanted to do something contemporary. I thought it would be a nice contrast to what we’ve done in more recent years. “Nothing is the end of the world (Except for the end of the world)” by Bekah Brunstetter was produced during my first year (in 2022), and I liked the more modern flair. People can take different messages from Antlia Pneumatica, but the thing that really shines through for me is the theme of friendship and how it changes over time. The characters built bonds in college, and despite distance and the passage of time, some of them stayed closely connected. They fell out of touch with Sean and later gather for a memorial service for him. Funerals and memorials have a different vibe than more joyful gatherings and bring out vulnerability. But these gatherings can also allow us to celebrate positive memories of the person lost and help us renew our connections to each other.

PH: How has it been working with the actors on the show?

AC: It’s been really great. I’ve learned a lot. This is a very new cast, or at least new to Saint Michael’s. Three of them have never been in a play here before, and the other three haven’t played major roles here. Four out of six are first-year students. One of our actors is a senior appearing in his first show at St. Mike’s. So, there’s a freshness to it all. Even our stage management team is new, so it’s very much a learning process for a lot of us. It does create a sense of camaraderie – we’re all in this together. We’re all learning, being patient with one another, trying our best.

PH: This play is unique in that it involves characters cooking and eating. How is the food part going?

AC: It is going well. Tomorrow is our first time handling all of the food props, figuring all of that out. I think it’s a very interesting dimension. That’s part of what drew me to this play. In the last four years, we haven’t had many food props during the school year, but that was a big element at the summer playhouse. It is fun to integrate and navigate. A shout out to my props people, Emily (Garneau) and Mickey (Bavely). I hope that they still like me after this! Actually, I think that they are having a lot of fun with this project.

John Devlin

PH: What is significant about preparing food and gathering people around a table? What does that mean to you?

AC: Making food together really is a special thing. Sometimes the secret ingredient is love. How someone is cooking can really signify their mood. If somebody’s whisking aggressively, maybe they’re upset. I have great memories – being in the kitchen with my mom and cooking things together – but also now, living in the townhouses (on campus), cooking with my roommates. We’re listening to music, and we’re all dancing around our kitchen. That togetherness is special to me. I can visualize these characters doing the same thing,

PH: Nice! Professor John Devlin is retiring at the end of the semester. What’s it been like to work with him on this show?

AC: It’s been fun. I am grateful to John in so many respects, and we’ve worked well together throughout the years, whether I was his student in class, a board operator, or a fellow designer in production meetings. I am always impressed by what he comes up with in terms of design, and where his mind went creating this set – the colors and textures, the stars, the gate, the portal – all of these were things that I hadn’t even considered. It’s just been great, and knowing that this is his last production at St. Mike’s as a professor, it is a very bittersweet moment, since we will be leaving the college at the same time. It feels like we are making one last statement, putting our stamp on things.