Gannon Knight ArtsLeisure

     Rachel Behrmann has a pair of what she calls her “tech pants.” An old set of blue jeans streaked with lines of paint up and down the thigh, the “tech pants” mark every single Schuster Theatre show Behrmann has been involved in during her time at Gannon University.
     “I was carrying a freshly painted door during tech for ‘Dopey’ (a one-act play performed during the fall of 2007), and it accidentally hit me in the leg, so there was stripe number one,” Behrmann said. “Since then, I thought it’d be kind of fun to keep a tally mark of all the shows that I did tech for. It was a sad moment during this tech day, because I realized I only have one notch left.”
     Behrmann, a senior physician assistant major, is currently involved in “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” at the Schuster, opening Feb. 11, in which she plays Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre.
     Not considering any technical work she will do for the upcoming show “The Oz Project,” this is Behrmann’s last show on the Schuster stage and at Gannon.
     “This is my goodbye to the Schuster, aside from doing tech for the next show,” she said. “When I made the decision to audition for ‘Spelling Bee,’ I had the mindset of ‘this is my last shot.’ It’s been a lot of fun – it’s been a lot of work – but it’s been worth it.”
     Behrmann said she will not be auditioning for “The Oz Project” because of its close proximity to finals week and the high amount of course work expected for PA majors.
     Decidedly one of the most time-consuming majors at Gannon, PA students have no opportunity to take free electives, and even less free time. Still, Behrmann finds time to devote to the theater.
     “The thing I like about Rachel is that she has always been very involved and very integrated into the theater,” said the Rev. Shawn Clerkin, director of “Spelling Bee.” “She’s so dedicated. She auditions and she plays and she’s always a part of things, regardless of what role she has…I appreciate that, on top of the fact that she’s a

PA major, and those kids don’t have free time. For her to take the time because she has such a sense of dedication to the program, she’s the kind of student we appreciate, that allows us to do what we do.”
     Behrmann (pictured right - Sara Toth/ Knight) said that growing up she wanted to take the route to becoming a doctor, but her mother drew her attention to a career as the next best thing – a PA.
     “I liked how much (science courses) challenged me to really learn,” she said. “I got shoved towards medicine early on, thinking it would be a good choice, pre-med then doctor, but being a PA is appealing in that there’s less school. Plus, it’s a nice medium where you’re doing a lot, and you’re helping doctors and you’re helping people, but everything’s not on your shoulders.”
     Besides being interested in medicine from a very young age, Behrmann was also involved in theater from the time she was in preschool – when her class performed a set of nursery rhymes and she played a dog that laughed at the cow that jumped over the moon. Being involved in theater, she said, provided her with an opportunity to meet new people and to fit in – and for the youngest child of a Navy father whose family was constantly moving, meeting new people was key. It was for that same reason, she said, that Behrmann first became involved in theater at Gannon.
     “Like in high school, it was a way for me to step into a new world,” she said.
     That new world has welcomed her. In her time at Schuster, Behrmann has made a positive impact that garners her accolades from her peers, such as Alison Bartley, a senior theater and communication arts major.
     “She knows what she can do,” Bartley said. “She knows her limitations, but she also knows what people expect of her, and she’s able to live up to those expectations and understand herself and the way she works with people.”
     That new world has also cast Behrmann in some interesting roles, most recently the character of Logainne – the daughter of two gay fathers, extremely liberal, very politically-minded and, as Behrmann put it, “charismatic and all-around psychotic.”
     “This role is so unlike her,” Clerkin said. “Logainne comes from a family with two dads, and she runs her elementary school’s gay-bi-lesbian alliance group. She is ultra liberal, and that’s not who Rachel is. But at the same time, Rachel is a performer who understands that regardless of the role, you play the role.”
     Behrmann agreed that the role was exercising her acting chops, but the phrase “opposites attract” lends itself well to the situation, and the character presented onstage hearkened back to what theater meant to her in high school – a sense of community.
     “It’s been a lot of fun exploring the different ground of who she is compared to who I am,” she said. “She likes the spelling bee because it’s just another thing to conquer.
     Her parents kind of force her into it, because being a loser is unacceptable. The show is full of misfits. None of us belong anywhere else, so we all go to the spelling bee.”
     Behrmann urged the entirety of Gannon’s campus to also come to the spelling bee – particularly the PA department.
     “There are a crap-ton of medical terms in the show,” she said. “Apparently, medical terms are very difficult to spell.”