UCLA students are merging theater and film, word and image to
bring fresh stories to the dark heart of Los Angeles.
Beginning tonight and running through Dec. 7, directors from the
graduate department of film, television and digital media will join
graduate student playwrights and undergraduate actors in the
department of theater to host the fourth annual “Francis Ford
Coppola One-Act Marathon.”
Although Coppola himself has no direct involvement with the
project now, the UCLA alumnus did agree to lend his name because of
his own dedication to the collaboration of theater and film.
Professors Jose Luis Valenzuela and Gyula Gazdag, with the help
of others in the two departments, assure that Coppola’s aim
is not forgotten.
“We are there to make sure that we partner the right
director with the right writer,” Valenzuela said.
Putting together this collaborative show requires intense
planning in both departments. Valenzuela holds a playwrighting
workshop each spring quarter, in which the scripts for the
following year’s Coppola marathon are selected. In a separate
film class, directors from film and TV learn the art of theater and
are then selected for the event. Once the two are paired, they
begin production, which includes six weeks of rehearsals, as well
as participation in another class taught by Venezuela designed
specifically for those involved.
The marathon reminds the separate departments of their
similarities, and allows both director and writer to learn from the
other’s specialized skills.
“We’re like siblings. We fight, but we love each
other,” said second-year master of fine arts student and
playwright, Marlene Shelton.
Shelton, who wrote “The President’s Wife,”
says there are some core differences in how the two media
communicate their stories to audiences.
“Theater is to be heard and film is to be seen,” she
said.
Fellow second-year MFA student and playwright Benjamin Lamoso,
author of “Holy War and the Headless Horseman,” agrees
with Shelton’s distinction between the visual and the
linguistic. After completing his undergraduate degree in
screenwriting, Lamoso turned to theater because of the new
significance he found in the language.
“Writing for theater has really made me think about the
power of words,” Lamoso said. “The power of the
different meanings a word can have, the way you put words together,
the rhythm they create, the world they create.”
Lamoso is extremely thankful for the effect his director,
Miranda Yousef, has had in bringing those words to life.
“I wrote the play like a big poem, and she has helped me
dramatize it,” he said.
Yousef’s filmmaking experience in cutting and editing
helped her bring out ideas, and shape themes that she said already
existed in Lamoso’s play. These specific skills allowed her
to reshape Lamoso’s text, helping him revise the ending so
that it closed on a more dramatic and effective note, without
altering her partner’s artistic vision.
“I have no interest in rewriting his play for him, but I
do want to bring out what his story is,” Yousef said.
Jesse Spero, a third-year MFA playwright who wrote
“Kicking Gravity, or How to Negotiate with a Charging
Elephant,” also experienced the benefits of a partnership
with a film student. Participating in the marathon for the second
time, Spero has come to learn that there is a shared center to the
dramatic spheres.
“The basic art of the story is inherent in theater, film
and television,” Spero said. “Collaboration is
challenging, but in the end it makes for a stronger
production.”
Shelton also insists that, while film and theater serve to
accentuate each other’s differences, the story is still the
nucleus of both.
“It still comes down to the fact that you are a
storyteller. It doesn’t matter what the medium is,” she
said. “If you have a good story it’s going to
translate.”
The question is, do these writers want their stories moved from
the stage to the screen? As Spero points out, the relationship
between theater and film has more similarities than
differences.
“I think theater lends itself to Hollywood. I think good
writing is appreciated anywhere,” Spero said.
The Coppola One-Act Marathon will be performed in Macgowan 1340.
Plays run Thursdays and Fridays at 7:30 p.m., Saturdays at 2 p.m.
and 7:30 p.m. Nov. 21-23 and Dec. 5-7. Admission is free.