April 8, 2003
INFORMATION: Sue Bozman or John McElwain, (661) 362-3415 or 3494
New Works Festival Highlights Student Playwriting, Acting
Eliminating elaborate scenery, high-priced costumes and the stage and sound effects too, the College of the Canyons New Works Festival will instead highlight 13 student-actors in 13 student-written plays in a raw, nuts-and-bolts motif.
“We want to showcase these students’ efforts in something that is entirely innovative and unique, as opposed to a traditional play or musical,” said Nancy Kissam, director of the New Works Festival and College of the Canyons adjunct professor.
Scheduled to run May 15-17, the festival will be held in the Fine Art Gallery on the college campus sans any of the traditional trappings of live theatre. Performing actors will have minimal wardrobes composed entirely of black, while additional actors behind the scenes will assist the performances by providing any necessary sound effects.
“This is a great challenge, to make the pieces come to life with practically nothing,” said Kissam. “But the students are up to it. We’ve got tremendous talent in both the actors and the playwrights.”
The festival runs for two hours, and each play lasts approximately 5-10 minutes, although there are two monologues, which run about three minutes each. The genres of the plays run the gamut from Have Your Brit, and Eat Him Too, a funny, Monty Python-esque sketch about a British explorer captured by cannibals, to No Place Like Home, a heart-wrenching piece in which a son confronts his mother about her alcoholism.
“This is a chance to hear the voices of the students,” said Kissam.
The New Works Festival will run four times over three days: on Thursday, May 15 at noon, on Friday, May 16 at noon and 7 p.m. and on Saturday, May 17 at 7 p.m. The festival is free and open to the public.
For more information, please call the Theatre Department Box Office at (661) 362-3070.
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