Like fashion, there’s always something new evolving in theater. Whether it’s original material or a creative interpretation of a classic play, artists constantly experiment with the form and content of their work. This year, the UCLA Department of Theater is no exception to the trend.
For one, the theater department is changing the structure of its season. For the first time in 10 years, students’ written work will be featured in the main-stage season at the Freud Playhouse on campus.
Bill Ward, chair of the theater department, said the decision to produce student work was based on the exceptional talent of writers currently in the graduate playwriting program.
And the New Play Festival, which is not part of the main-stage season, features work by graduate playwrights that will be performed by undergraduate actors.
Brian Shoaf, a third-year graduate student and playwright, is eager to see the completion of the New Play Festival so he can watch his show “Rehearsing the Persian Stain” on the stage after all of his and his fellow playwrights’ hard work.
“This is really the culmination of a two-year process. I think that all of the playwrights are chomping at the bit to see what happens, and I really hope we’re able to make something special happen.”
The student work in the main-stage season will take place during the winter quarter, and Gary Gardner, UCLA theater professor, will direct the shows. Gardner also teaches a playwriting continuum for undergraduates and two of the plays to be performed in this repertory, “From the Rubble” by Tiffany Antone and “A Small Pair of Feet in the Middle of the Sea” by Kit Steinkellner, were actually written by students in Gardner’s class. Gardner is adamant about giving these student playwrights ample credit and opportunity.
“I insist that playwrights have as much profile as the actors and the directors, and they haven’t for a long time,” Gardner said. “I’m most excited about getting original plays on.”
Michael Vukadinovich, 2007 playwriting graduate, will have his play “The Magician and the Memory” performed in this repertory. Although Vukadinovich’s plays have been produced in New York, and he has won multiple awards, including a Sidney Sheldon writing scholarship, he still values what can be done within a university.
“Universities can have more money to do theater than a lot of professional companies do so I’m excited to see what’s going to be done with it,” he said. “It’s also a safer environment because it’s in a university, and these are works in progress and things written by students.”
Tiffany Antone, a third-year graduate student whose work will also be featured both in the New Play Festival and during the winter quarter, is proud of the diversity that the student pieces offer.
“All three plays are going to have something really unique to offer the audience,” she said. “There’s always little bits of our own ideas and our beliefs that work their way into the script, whether through a character, the dialogue, or the situation.”
In addition to student-written work, theater Professor Mel Shapiro and music Professor Roger Bourland will exercise their creative juices in creating a musical version of the 2006 experimental production, “The Blogger’s Project.”
This production will include innovative technology alongside original songs. Ward explained the vision for this highly unusual production.
“Mel and Roger are writing original songs and story for a play loosely based on Homer’s The Odyssey which is brought into contemporary times and included the participation of our REMAP (The Center for Research and Engineering Media and Performance) project which is a collaboration between our school and the school of engineering. So it’s a very high-tech retelling of this Greek story to music.”
Another element of this season that may shake things up a bit is the new theater minor, which the department put into action last spring.
“The students that our faculty has encountered in our new minor are enormously talented, and I would expect that they will enrich our activities in the department,” Ward said.
The season will conclude in the spring with the Francis Ford Coppola One-Act Marathon, finishing up a student-led season that Ward feels will offer theatergoers an even greater chance to see professionals-in-the-making.
“This is a real opportunity for students to see the work of very talented emerging artists who may very well wind up in the profession,” he said.
“This is a chance to see them early on in their career.”