10/06/2025 | Press release | Archived content
By Michael R. Malone [email protected] 10-06-2025
The award-winning 1957 film "12 Angry Men" is steeped in bias and simmering with conflict: 12 men confined for days in a solitary room in sweltering summer heat are obliged to reach a unanimous decision about a "slum kid" accused of murder.
For the recent production of "12 Angry Jurors," Burton Tedesco, an assistant professor of practice in the Department of Theatre Arts in the University of Miami College of Arts and Sciences, followed the same high-tension storyline, crafted a creative contemporary stage setting, and guided a dozen student actors to confront their own biases and prejudices.
"From day one, we began talking about bias, about bringing our learned experience with us, not in a negative way but in a limiting way," Tedesco said. "Our experiences as people have crafted how we see the world, and people don't like to be wrong, so that creates conflict with someone who has a different point of view.
"But how do we talk about those things? How do we stay open-minded, how do we embrace our critical-thinking skills enough to have conversation and change our minds?" he highlighted. "Not necessarily to admit that we're wrong, but to be able to look at a specific situation and say, 'This needs me to see this in a different way.'"
A major attraction of the University's theater program, Tedesco noted, is that students are guaranteed the opportunity to perform in a multitude of productions. While most are musicals, "12 Angry Jurors," whose run concluded this past weekend, was a bold and especially poignant choice. Tedesco, who had acted in the play 10 years ago, was the department's top choice to direct the play based on the 1957 movie-voted the second-best courtroom drama of all time and added to the National Film Registry for its "cultural, historic, and aesthetic significance."
Jordan Tisdale and Ari Sussman, both seniors and musical theater majors aiming for careers in the musical arts, were simultaneously excited and awed to act in the play. Like many in the cast, the two have grown close over the past few years, developing their acting talents, yet in the drama they were cast as protagonist and antagonist.
Tisdale"In theater we often get to play these outlandish characters-that's so fun-but the real challenge and skill comes when you have to play a real human being, and you have to color them as people we live with," said Tisdale, who saw the movie in high school and loved it. "I wanted this role so bad when they announced the season. I wanted to challenge myself to do something that I didn't know was possible. But I was nervous, thinking: How is a young woman like me going to play a much older character-one with children and much more life experience.
"Yet on the first day of rehearsal, our director reminded us that all these characters exist in real life-that these are real human beings, we all know them-we might even live with them, so it's our responsibility to not make them seem like a foreign concept to the audience," she added.
So, Tisdale, who grew up in a small suburb of Atlanta, drew on her experience to make her character come alive.
"I know that I've met people just like my juror No. 3. She reminded me of teachers I had and my friends' moms, and that's when I realized: I know who this is. I've seen them in real life and how they behave," Tisdale said. "And they're all lovely people, but I know they have this side to themselves that I wouldn't necessarily want to see-and that opened my eyes a lot."
Playing a character that was so hot-tempered and misunderstood challenged her but deepened her awareness.
"We're all human and want to be liked and loved. I realized my character has that desire, and I have it, too," Tisdale noted. "And I think that broadened my world view and expanded the way that I see human beings and understand that no one mentally sane wants to go into something, wants to go into a fight with someone-that's not what we're designed to do. That's helped me to have a greater understanding of conflict in general."
Sussman highlighted that while there's tremendous camaraderie in the cast, when the lights go on it's all about the show.
Sussman"It's important to keep the emotion on stage and not let it seep into your life," said Sussman. "Though with a hyper realistic play like this, it's hard. A lot of things said in the play I've heard from people-it's much like arguments and circumstances that still occur."
Some suggested that Sussman's juror character is the most sensible and humane, but she dismissed that perception.
"All these characters possess those qualities," she insisted. "It's just what we see on stage and how do we make those connections and bring that out in them."
Sussman leaned on advice that her acting mentor Kevin Kennison, an independent casting director with the department, shared with her during her sophomore year.
"As actors we're taught that we are imperfect people playing imperfect people trying to be better. It's very applicable to this show and very relevant to how we approached these characters," Sussman noted. "It was really a lot about connection at its core; you're trying everything you can to bring out their humanity and lean into that."
For director Tedesco, the brilliance and beauty of the play lie in the fact that there is so little information provided about the alleged murderer.
"All you know is that he's a young male who's grown up in a lower end of the socio-economic-the 'slums,' that's all you know," he said. "With such a lack of detail and description regarding the accused, the jurors'-the actors'-biases are increasingly revealed and evident to the audience."
Shedding stereotypes is a big thrust of the play, he emphasized.
"That's a tough place to be for a 20-year-old who's among their peers. They have to embrace what their character is going through, and several characters refuse to change their mind," Tedesco noted. "We're trying to teach them as college students to have a sense of empathy and to use their critical-thinking skills. It's a real challenge for them to separate what's happening in the play from their own lives."
That challenge is exactly why Tisdale is pursuing a career in theater.
"I love that theater, especially with a show like this, can make people question their morals and their stances on issues and life," she said. "A lot of people these days are not welcoming debates, no matter where they stand on anything, but maybe they're willing to see a show and then, all of a sudden, they see all these things and they're questioning what they think. I love that theater can do that for people, and I love that it does that for me."
The department's next performance "Titanic: The Musical" takes place in mid-November.