By Amanda Fletcher
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
So film students have learned how to project their voices and
find motivation; they’ve learned how to design a set, perfect
lighting and yell “cut.” Maybe they’ve even
played the lead in a department production.
But what do they do with their UCLA educations when handed
diplomas and pushed out on their own?
Fourth-year Andy Goldblatt, second-year Austin Riggs and 2001
graduate Kimberly Arnold, all part of the UCLA school of Film and
Television, didn’t wait to find out.
“Drive Walk Play,” a set of three one-act plays
completely funded, produced and performed by them and seven other
current and former UCLA students, premiered last month at the
Complex in Hollywood. It will run through Nov. 4.
“What’s one thing we should really experience before
we’re completely out in the world, independent and
poor?” Goldblatt said. “We thought that putting on an
independent production would be a great way to culminate our
experience at UCLA.”
In many ways, classes at UCLA have helped the creators of
“Drive Walk Play” with their production.
Riggs gained experience in a stage management course, while
Arnold, the author of the opening act “Quirks,” wrote
her play in an introductory playwriting class.
Goldblatt named a year-long course known as directors’
boot camp as the class that most prepared her for real world
directing.
Then there’s all the experience they’ve gained
directing, managing and performing in UCLA-sponsored plays.
One thing UCLA did not prepare them for were the realities of
production. For many of the creators, “Drive Walk Play”
is their first production independent of the UCLA community. So
marketing and promotion, things that actors and directors
don’t normally have to worry about, were, not surprisingly,
the things they had the most trouble with.
“UCLA took care of the artistics of it,” Goldblatt
said. “I got a lot of experience with working with actors,
the physicality of working with designers. But there’s no
class in how to produce your own play or independent theatre in Los
Angeles.”
Each noted that the hardest part was simply getting people to
come. At UCLA, there’s a network of students and faculty,
friends and family that provide both support and warm bodies to
fill the theater.
But as soon as you step off campus, Goldblatt said, it becomes
exceedingly difficult to get people to attend, much less pay.
“At one point we were about to let people in for free,
just so we’d have people to fill seats,” Goldblatt
said.
Arnold, who is both the writer and lead character in
“Quirks,” noted the additional difficulty of being
involved with multiple aspects of production.
“One of the hardest parts for me was being an actor and a
playwright at the same time,” Arnold said. “It’s
hard to differentiate and you have to take a step back from what
you wrote.”
“It was hard to do all the marketing and have all that
stress from having to act,” she added.
While the non-performance based aspects of producing
“Drive Walk Play” presented unexpected difficulties,
Riggs said he wouldn’t trade what he’s learned at UCLA
so far for other classes that would address these concerns.
“I don’t necessarily think that they should add a
class because it would take away from other more valuable
things,” Riggs confessed. “If I had to forsake things I
learn now, like movement, for knowing how to rent a space, I
wouldn’t be getting the education I wanted.”
Despite the difficulty, all three believe that this experience
has been invaluable on a number of levels.
As the baby of the group, Riggs now knows what to prepare for
during the rest of his college career.
“I have a really good appreciation for how stuff works in
the real world, renting space, publicity and getting people to come
to the show,” Riggs said.
“Word of mouth has been a really huge task, it’s
given me an appreciation for those things.”
“I’m not going to leave school and suddenly
everything is peachy and I’m getting jobs. But positively I
can plan for that. I’m building bridges now,” he
added.
Others, like Arnold, who have either already left UCLA or are in
their final year, have gained a new appreciation for the Bruin
theater community and the support it fosters for it’s
members.
“It’s really a showcase for what we can do,”
Arnold said. “I get to play big parts and that’s a
great opportunity. I’m really excited by the fact that this
is produced by UCLA grads and students. The plays are written by
UCLA students and our audience isn’t necessarily UCLA’s
students. We’re making a contribution to the community at
large that’s a satisfaction isn’t necessarily get doing
department shows.”
Their community contribution will be even greater once the show
breaks even. All proceeds will be donated to the Red Cross.