USU production to show at Los Angeles festival
Do Not Hit Golf Balls into Mexico, an original play created by faculty and students at USU, was selected to perform in the Region VIII Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival in Los Angeles on Feb. 11.
According to the festival’s website, the festival will showcase the best college productions from southern California, southern Nevada, Utah, Arizona and Hawaii.
“Ours is one of the most competitive regions in the country,” said Shawn Fisher, associate professor of theatre and the show’s writer and producer. “Roughly 70 shows were entered and only about 10 were selected to participate in the festival.”
He also said one show from the festival will be chosen to perform at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.
The play, which originally ran at the Caine Lyric Theater during the spring of 2010, focuses on the divisive issue of immigration in the southwest.
“The play raises the question ‘What does it mean to be American?’ But not in the traditional way,” Fisher said, “we wanted to tell this story from a human perspective, not a statistical or political one.”
Adrianne Moore, associate professor of theatre and the show’s director, said the play is not meant to be a conversion piece but rather to generate discussion about the immigration issue.
The Fusion Theatre Project, an independent, experimental company based out of USU, created the play as a “devised theatre” project, Fisher said. Devised theater is when a company develops an entire production, beginning with no script and ending with a finished play, he said.
Many of the company’s members traveled to the areas around the American-Mexican border during the summer of 2009 to do research for the play.
The title of the play comes from an actual sign at a Texas golf course the team saw while researching for the project, Fisher said.
“I saw the sign and knew we had our title,” he said. “It is provocative and humorous with a rich subtext.”
The research affected the researchers artistically and personally.
“The project is near and dear to their hearts,” Moore said, “They spoke to individuals about their immigration experiences, so they were very emotionally invested in the research and rehearsal process.”
Participating in the festival will help the students professionally, Fisher said.
“The festival will be a good opportunity for students to see what it’s like to perform in a major theatre city, it might inspire them, maybe someone will be offered an audition,” he said.
Fusion found out they were selected to perform in L.A. shortly before the end of Fall semester and only has a few short weeks to prepare for the festival.
“We kind of hit the ground running,” said Mauri Smith, a lighting design major and the production’s stage manager. “This play was my first time as a stage manager, it taught me how to adapt and use skills spontaneously.”
The festival will positively reflect the theatre department and USU, Fisher said.
Being selected to participate in the festival is an honor and will be appealing to both potential students and potential faculty, he said.
He also said the theater department goal is to be on the “cutting edge of the industry,” and this project succeeding is a reflection of that goal.
The play was well-received at USU. Fisher said he does not judge a play’s reception by the number of people in the audience on opening night. Those numbers, he said, are a reflection of marketing, but rather he judges by the numbers on closing night because they reflect how many people recommend the play to others.
Moore said this play had a very large audience for a dramatic, non-musical production. She also said the play received positive feedback from the community.
“We are really excited to have our hard work recognized and to take it to L.A. to see how other audiences will respond to it,” Fisher said.
– rouchelle.brockman@aggiemail.usu.edu