Theatre Arts alumni set their own stages
Posted Mon, 10/20/2008 - 9:15am by Matt Itelson
This year, recent alumni have revived a longtime tradition of launching their own theatre companies. At least four new groups produced new shows in San Francisco, bursting with a creative and entrepreneurial spirit.
John Caldon (B.A., ’07) and Terrence Beswick’s (B.A., ’86; M.FA. candidate) Guerrilla Rep is off to a running start with acclaim for its debut productions, both this year: “hotshot” and “Third Eye; the b-side monologues.” A San Francisco Bay Times review described “hotshot” as “a well-written, intensely driven glimpse of life in San Francisco. … It’s creepy, suspenseful and darkly comic.”
Ann Marie Productions, founded by Claire Rice (M.F.A., ’06) and Gabrielle Gomez (B.A., ’07), is the latest startup. Rice directs Gomez’s “That Horrible In-Between Place,” opening Nov. 1 at El Teatro de la Esperanza in the Mission District. The play features students and alumni in the cast and crew, with Professor Roy Conboy serving as dramaturg. Rice is also a lecturer and assistant office manager in the Theatre Arts Department.
Other newly launched alumni theatre groups include Beards Beards Beards, founded by Joey Price (B.A., ’07) and Amanda Dolan (B.A., ’07), and Empty Set Productions, founded by Darcy Villere (B.A., ’04) and Jon Kakacek (B.A., ’06)
These companies embody SF State’s do-it-yourself ethic. Alumni such as Mark Jackson (B.A.,’94), Ed Decker (B.A., ’81; M.A., ’84) and Patrick O’Sullivan (B.A., ’99) have achieved widespread success with their theatre companies. O’Sullivan’s Christopher Walken-impersonator show “All About Walken” began in the Creative Arts Building in the 1990s and enjoyed a long run in Los Angeles. “All About Walken” is now playing at The Clubhouse in San Francisco. Decker’s award-winning New Conservatory Theatre Center has focused on youth issues and gay themes for 28 years.
Jackson’s Art Street Theatre is an international phenomenon, known for its physical and innovative shows. Jackson, who has returned to SF State to teach and direct, admires students’ scrappiness and hunger — traits which not only remind him of himself when he was a student but which also are key to professional success.
“SF State’s black-box theatre, the Brown Bag, in particular engenders a kind of do-it-yourself ethic, as well as an ensemble ethic. Maybe this is why so many small theatre companies have been formed by SF State graduates,” he said. “As [Professor] Mohammad [Kowsar] said, ‘Look to your neighbor.’ So when we graduated, we did just that. We made theatre together and we knew how to put up a show in one of San Francisco’s many 50-seat theatres because we’d all done it Brown Bag.”
Top Photo: Claire Rice and Gabrielle Gomez. Courtesy of Ann Marie Productions
Bottom photo: Production shot from "Emo The Musical," presented by Beards Beards Beards.
