Each year, BYU’s Student Theatre Association brings students together in a feat of theatre production known as 24 Hour Theatre. This year, the event started Friday evening, October 26 at 7pm. Student playwrights were given 11 hours to write a script incorporating various prompt word “leaves” throughout the story. One such “leaf” was the required broom prop that had to be incorporated into all the productions. At 6am the next morning, playwrights submitted their scripts to be printed and distributed to directors, actors, and technicians. By 7am, all production teams had their scripts and began the process of blocking, memorizing, and rehearsing. Each team had a writer, a director, a minimum of three actors, and a production team. After a quick lunch and gathering props and materials, each of the five teams received a 30 minute rehearsal period on the Nelke stage. By 3:30pm, Nelke Resident State Managers and members of the STA were prepping for a technical run through. From 4-5pm, production teams then performed a dress rehearsal for their fellow production teams before they all ate dinner, applied makeup, and the house opened. The first performance ran on Saturday, October 27 from 7:30-8:30pm—only about 24 hours after playwrights began writing the scripts the night before—and the second performance was from 9-10pm. Each performance was followed by an audience question and answer session moderated by playwright Greta Gebhard. All in all, the productions were a huge success! Congratulations to the STA, playwrights, actors, and technicians on another great set of productions!
On October 19, Kelly Loosli attended a conference sponsored by the Church Public Affairs Department titled “Building Bridges in Entertainment” at DreamWorks Studio in Burbank, CA. Matt Ball, a TMA alum, is currently head of the Southwest Region of Church Public Affairs and organized the event, drawing upon members of the church from the top echelons of the entertainment industry to present about the industry to government consulate representatives from around the world who are interested in growing this industry in their home countries. Several panels of producers, attorneys, new media, and other groups presented to the consulates. Both Matt Janzen (VP at Lionsgate) and producer Gerald Mullen participated. Kelly organized and presented with a panel of LDS animators, Brandon Sawyer (Writer, Show runner, bishopric member, and media arts alum), Ken Daurino (writer, producer of many animated features, including Despicable Me, and LDS convert), and Glenn Harmon (Animation alum, “Pajama Gladiator,” storyboard artist at DreamWorks). The purpose of the conference was “to establish or strengthen relationships with Consuls General; those diplomats responsible for effecting visas to our worldwide missionary force. This event was developed as a way to get closer to our Consuls General and say ‘thank you’ to them for all of the visa work they do for us as a Church. Our ‘thank you’ came in concert with the chance to fulfill their business needs as a diplomat. The objective was to create an event which would bring Consuls General and the Diplomatic Corps together in California by appealing to one of their main business objectives for being posted here: to discover, create or inspire international business opportunities for them. The goal was to paint a picture of how to create business opportunities for the diplomats’ international countrymen within the entertainment industry.” Kelly pointed out that, “As a result of this event, the church now has good contact information for more than 60 consulates, and personal business cards for more than 50 diplomats. They were also able to have face-to-face interaction with many countries (such as China) that rarely attend events.”
George Nelson traveled to Poland last week to give the keynote address at a conference on the re-socialization of criminal offenders at the University of Copernicus in Toruń. His address was entitled, “What Separates Us from the Criminals We Incarcerate?” The International Scientific Conference took place last Friday and Saturday, October 26 & 27, and explored the multidimensionality of prevention and re-socialization in prison populations. George has worked with various entities in Poland on learning styles, training educators and prison administrators in teaching non-traditional learners for the past nine years. In addition to the keynote speech, George taught a workshop to PhD students on the same subject.
Several intriguing mysteries materialized during the opening weekend of MouseTrap, directed by David Morgan. Whose was that Alfred Hitchcock-like voice that welcomed us to the theatre? How did they make snow come down outside the windows, and wind blow in when the windows opened? The production featured a rich set, impressive sound design, and intriguing characters that made us laugh and spooked us at the same time. A solid review can be accessed by clicking here. Discover why this play is the longest running show ever!!
Alumni News
Last Thursday, October 25, both the theatre and media arts forums featured alums of our programs. The media arts forum featured director Chantelle Squires (Media Arts 2004) and writer Melissa Leilani Larson (English 1998) who spoke about the process of creating Jane and Emma, a recently released feature film that focuses on one of the first black converts to the church, Jane Manning, and her relationship with Emma Smith and the church. The theatre forum featured La Donna Forsgren, a graduate of the TMA master’s program (2005) who is currently a theatre tenure-track professor at Notre Dame.
Media arts students met in F-201 where Chantelle and Melissa discussed the making of the film. They showed a short clip, and talked about their discussions during development about whether or not they would get into the practice of polygamy prevalent in the early church. Instead, they decided to focus more on telling the story through women’s perspectives. Melissa, the writer, worked to get things as historically accurate as possible, even though information on the night after Joseph’s martyrdom was scarce. This was a beautiful film in which LDS female artists worked to tell LDS women’s stories. There were about 75-80 students who attended. After Chantelle and Melissa’s presentation, they opened up the floor to a Q&A.
La Donna Forsgren spoke at the same hour in the Nelke Theatre to about fifty theatre faculty and students. After graduating with her MA from BYU, La Donna went on to receive her PhD from Northwestern University and is now teaching at Notre Dame, currently writing a book about constructing an oral history of the black arts movement in theatre and performance. She is a playwright, dramaturg, theatre historian, and also has four children. La Donna was able to speak about some of the challenges she faced and the strength she received from her beliefs—particularly how the Lord helped her accomplish some seemingly insurmountable tasks along the way. In addition to the forum, La Donna presented a guest lecture on approaches to dramaturgy and race and led a graduate seminar on the Black Arts Movement before a lunch conversation with theatre students on Friday.
We are so grateful to our alums who are willing to come and share their expertise with our students!
The Sound and the Fury 