and the school-city committee, 
which she joined in December 
2014.

Challenger Leaf said he is look-

ing for his first break into political 
office. After graduating from the 
University in 2012, the 24-year-old 
launched Neutral Skin and Hair, a 

company that produces and sells 
mineral sunscreen.

This bid for candidacy is not 

Leaf’s first run-in with Ann Arbor 
politics. When he was 18, he wrote 
a proposed ordinance to limit the 
city’s installation of police sur-
veillance cameras. In 2013 he was 
co-chair of the Mixed-Use Party, 
which ran University student 
candidates and focused on zoning 
reforms around the city.

“I’ve always been interested in 

politics and I hope to transition 
into being a politician,” Leaf said. 
“I like making policy, and to me 
that’s what’s interesting about pol-
itics. It’s the policy. It’s the power 
of legislation. And making rules 
and anticipating how they are 
going to affect people, and trying 
to make fair and good rules.”

Among Leaf’s priorities are 

increasing infrastructure, afford-

MICHIGAN
From Page 1

LUNA ANA ARCHEY/Daily

City Council candidate Will Leaf. 

BRIAN BECKWITH/Daily

City Council candidate Sabre Brierre. 

2-News

ACROSS

1 Spell
5 Traitor

10 Letters causing a

rush

14 Property

measurement

15 Flopped

financially

16 Bonkers
17 Response to a

drone

18 Quibble about

accommodations?

20 Zeus’ beginning?
21 Forgives
22 Director Burton
23 Little bit
25 “Too Much, Too

Little, Too Late”
duettist

27 Marshmallow

that’s been
toasted too long?

33 4x4, e.g.
34 “1984” worker
35 Get used (to)
38 Assembly stage
40 Hit from a tee
42 Start of Operation

Overlord

43 Scrutinized, with

“over”

45 Abounds
47 Generation
48 Small group of

tiny monarchs?

51 Google, say
53 Canyon part
54 “A Bug’s Life”

extra

55 It might blow up

in a crash

59 Shade at the

shore

63 Worthless

buzzer?

65 [I’m doomed]
66 Goes wrong
67 Bridge expert on

some “Sports
Illustrated”
covers

68 Mozart’s “a”
69 Soft-spoken

painter Bob

70 Irish hero, briefly
71 Pringles

competitor

DOWN

1 Now hyphen-less

rapper

2 “Dies __”
3 Spotted

aquarium dweller

4 Film estate with a

championship
golf course

5 “Avian” for whom

flight is often
futile

6 __ Reader
7 It may be

hammered out

8 Help providers
9 Stain

10 European

attraction

11 Independent

country since
2011

12 When Hamlet

says, “The
play’s the thing
... ”

13 Dickinson output
19 “Amen!”
24 Trivia Crack, e.g.
26 Mind
27 Horrified reaction
28 One of the

Ringling brothers

29 Drowns in the

garden

30 __ Star
31 Circular

32 Chevy’s

“American Pie”
destination

36 Woolen yarn
37 Socket set
39 Review target
41 Newly formed
44 Joe sans jolt
46 Take on moguls
49 The Cat in the

Hat’s numbered
cohorts

50 Visuals

51 Word with tooth

or saw

52 Año starter
56 Repeated word in

“Take Me Out to
the Ball Game”

57 Do a new mom’s

job

58 On a cruise
60 Gave notice
61 Radius neighbor
62 Pinnacle
64 ’40s spy org.

By Jim Quinlan
©2015 Tribune Content Agency, LLC
04/03/15

04/03/15

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE:

RELEASE DATE– Friday, April 3, 2015

Los Angeles Times Daily Crossword Puzzle

Edited by Rich Norris and Joyce Nichols Lewis

xwordeditor@aol.com

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6 — Friday, April 3, 2015
Arts & News
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

‘Orchard’ ponders 
existential queries

EVENT PREVIEW

Chekhov classic 
still relevant for 

21st-century 

audiences

By GRACE HAMILTON

Daily Arts Writer

Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry 

Orchard” raises many questions 
for its audiences each perfor-
mance. But for 
millennials, per-
haps those ques-
tions are more 
existential.

“Every single 

day, we are met 
with this end-
less stream of 
horrible things 
in 
the 
world: 

Ebola, 
Fergu-

son, rights being 
taken away in 
Indiana,” 
said 

SMTD 
senior 

Ellie Todd. “But we also have 
BuzzFeed; we have cat pictures; 
we have The Next 21 Ways to Fry 
an Egg.” 

Todd is directing Anton Chek-

hov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” 
produced by student group Rude 
Mechanicals. So what do any of 
these millennial symptoms Todd 
describes have to do with Chek-
hov’s famous play? 

They represent forms of dis-

traction, forms of denial. Finding 
out, “What Pizza Topping Are 
You?” allows us to avoid confront-
ing other problems. This tendency 
to avoid difficult realities by con-
structing alternate realities was 
part of Russian early 20th century 
culture as well. 

The play follows widow Lyuba 

Ranevsky and her household as she 
comes to terms with the approach-
ing auction date of the family’s 
cherry orchard. Left with few other 
options for paying their debt, the 
orchard is ultimately sold to the son 
of a peasant, Yermolay Lopakhin. 

For a drama that is profoundly 

historical and locked in a unique 

time, its themes remain remarkably 
pertinent. Instead of BuzzFeed as 
distraction, the pervasive coping 
mechanism of the time was, simply, 
denial. 

“They are constantly going into 

town, spending money and lend-
ing money. If you are talking about 
selling the orchard, I’m gong to 
talk louder about whose smoking 
those cheap cigars over there,” 
Todd said describing the parallel. 

This production aims to draw 

out parallels like these by taking 
the play out of the time and place 
of 19th-century Russia. 

“The set is just trees and basi-

cally this bowl that’s painted like 
a giant tree ring. So we’re quite 
literally in one of the trees,” 
Todd said. “We’re going for a 
very timeless feel, our sound-
scape is ethereal and timeless 
and so are the costumes.”

There are other, deeper univer-

sal challenges of the human condi-
tion that the play explores. 

“At every level, there’s a 

microcosm of the macrocosm. 
There’s the issue of wealth and 
big social change, but the meta-
phors get smaller and smaller 
until you’re left with very human 
truths,” Todd said. “It’s about a 
feeling of value. At its very core, 
you can link all questions of 
wealth and status and such to a 
very simple feeling of fear. Fear 
that you are irrelevant.”

Lyuba’s relevance comes from 

the orchard. The prospect of its 
sale and destruction is about her 
own sense of losing standing in 
the world. The play is brilliant in 
its many petals of symbolism, held 
together neatly by lively charac-
ters and subtle comedy. 

Chekhov’s unique sense of 

comedy is something Todd found 
captivating as she continued her 
reading and research process. 
Although Chekhov’s work is 
often seen as gloomy and sad, the 
playwright himself had very dif-
ferent intentions. Todd recited a 
quote of his addressing this:

“You tell me that people cry at 

my plays. I’ve heard others say the 
same. But that’s not why I wrote 
them … All I wanted was to say 

truthfully to people: ‘Have a 
look at yourselves and see how 
bad and dreary your lives are!’ 
The important thing is that 
people should realize that, since 
when they do, they will most 
certainly create another, better 
life for themselves. And so long 
as this different life does not 
exist, I shall continue to say to 
people again and again: ‘Please 
understand that your life is bad 
and dreary.’ What is there to cry 
about in this?”

Amid the metaphor, scattered 

laughter and bits of tragedy, 
Chekhov’s ask is for self-reflection, 
as is Todd’s. 

“I can’t change everything 

in the world, but I can create 
something that will spark an idea 
in somebody’s mind. Success to me 
is that people in the audience go 
home and spend time in reflection, 
that the themes of the play inspire 
them to look at those themes in 
their own lives,” Todd said. 

With a cast of 14, teams of 

costume 
and 
set 
designers, 

producers through the Rude 
Mechanicals, Todd, and her 
assistant Wygodny (who acts in 
the play as well), it will be clear 
to audience members that an 
enormous amount of work went 
into the production, both on and 
off the stage. 

“Sometimes 
I 
think 
to 

myself, ‘I’ll just never be as 
smart 
as 
Chekhov,’” 
Todd 

said. 
Understanding 
the 

play in the first place takes a 
commitment. The production is 
an accomplishment. 

“The word that we feel the 

most is ‘devoted.’ A lot of people 
have passion, but the difference 
between a lot of people and 
those few that make amazing 
things is devotion. That’s what 
we’ve tried to be,” she said. “We 
eat, sleep and breathe the cherry 
orchard.” 

Tears? Laughter? Existential 

Crisis? It is hard to say what 
audience members will feel after 
“The Cherry Orchard.” What-
ever your reaction, prepare to 
set aside some time to figuring 
it out.

The Cherry 
Orchard

April 3rd and 

4th: 8 p.m.; April 

5th, 2 p.m., 

Lydia 

Mendelssohn 

Theater

Students: $5

Adults: $8

able housing, conserving forestry 
and making transportation easier 
for citizens of Ann Arbor. He also 
advocates for changing election 
dates, which he argues would 
allow more citizens to participate 
in elections, as many people are not 
in Ann Arbor in August when the 
Democratic primary happens.

Leaf acknowledged some of the 

disadvantages of running against an 
experienced candidate like Briere. 
He said he doesn’t know as many 
people and does not have the access 
to the city or media attention that 
Briere has.

However he believes he has a bet-

ter-articulated platform and clearer 
goals, and overall feels confident 

about his chances.

“I don’t get angry very easily. I 

think that is important. I am very 
level headed, even-tempered I 
think. I am very determined, very 
tenacious,” he said. “I think I criti-
cize myself and my own ideas and 
try to improve them that way. I ana-
lyze things to death and I think that 
is important on City Council right 
now.”

Briere said it’s easy for someone 

to have the kind of platform Leaf has 
when they do not know what it is 
like to be in government and found 
his approach to be much more black 
and white compared to her own 
nuanced style.

“Everybody has a personality 

trait,” she said. “I am extraordinari-
ly realistic. I am not idealistic at all. I 
probably never have been. Someone 
asked me recently what I thought 
about Will and I said, ‘You know, 
even if Will and I were the same age 
we would disagree on the way to get 
anything done.’ ”

Leaf does not believe Briere’s 

“black and white” evaluation of 
him to be true and added that 
City Council often avoids making 
hard decisions.

“There is a big difference 

between seeing both sides of 
an issue and listening and get-
ting lots of different perspec-
tives, which is critical and really 
important, to not having convic-
tions and not having an opinion,” 
he said. “To me, not taking action 
is itself an action.”

Leaf said he is aware that being 

elected would not garner him 
everyone’s support, but thinks 
that City Council members are 
able to frame discussions.

“I think it’s not just saying, 

like, ‘I’m going to be one vote on 
this pre-existing slate of issues.’ 
It’s that any individual on council 
is in a good position to frame the 
way the issues are,” he said.

An important point for both 

candidates is zoning reconsidera-
tions.

“I would love to see that we 

were making changes to our 
zoning to really encourage more 
solar alternative power by setting 
our premiums so that someone is 
expected to put a green roof or a 
solar roof on any building above a 
certain height,” Briere said.

She also called on the city to 

rezone certain sites in accor-
dance with the city’s master plan.

“The incentives were built into 

the zoning and now it’s time to 
reevaluate the incentives because 
they did not result in giving us the 
housing variety and other tan-
gibles like greener buildings and 
more pedestrian amenities that 
we had wanted.”

For Leaf, zoning is an issue 

that will directly affect another 
significant concern for the city: 
affordable housing.

Affordable housing and fos-

tering conditions for its devel-
opment in Ann Arbor have been 
recurring themes in this year’s 
City Council meetings.

City 
Council 
adopted 
the 

Housing 
Affordability 
Equity 

and Analysis, which proposes the 
construction of 3,139 affordable 
homes in Ann Arbor and 4,178 
new middles class homes in Ypsi-
lanti by 2035.

Leaf found the report to be 

unrealistic because of the costs 
associated with implementing 
the proposals. He added that 
affordable housing will have to be 
facilitated through market mech-
anisms, which the government 
can help create through zoning 
reforms.

He believes current zoning 

rules restrict the supply of hous-
ing, which leads to continually 
high prices. He said removing 
or reducing minimum lot sizes 
and eliminating parking require-
ments and floor area require-
ments would allow for more 
houses and therefore prices to 
drop.

Leaf 
recognized 
potential 

resistance 
against 
proposed 

changes and supports two ways 
to make it an easy transition. The 
first is to establish performance 
zoning, a type of zoning based on 
the effects of the development.

“One is to carefully regulate 

physical effects of developments 
like the noise, odor, light shin-
ing into houses and thing like 
that, and to focus more on per-
formance standards rather than 
zoning,” he said.

The second is changing the 

city’s Master Plan such that the 
planning commission could be 
able to allow property owners 
to opt in to mixed use neighbor-
hoods. This could be done in con-
cert with establishing effective 
buffer zones.

Briere also recognized the high 

levels of housing costs, including 
rising taxes and housing prices.

She said City Council is cur-

rently considering two options. 
One is to allow the creation of 
accessory dwelling units, which 
contain two units in a house, 
and the second is to decrease the 
frontage requirement to allow 
for the creation of duplex apart-
ments that would have the option 
of renting.

Briere identifies the problem 

of affordable housing as being 
regional, as it includes Ypsilanti 
and Ypsilanti Township, and 
thinks it should be addressed in 
that context.

“We talk about affordable 

housing in Ann Arbor,” she said. 
“But we really need to be address-
ing the income and race and 
opportunity and education divide 
between 
Ypsilanti, 
Ypsilanti 

Township and Pittsfield Town-
ship.”

