When Brian Crano graduated from the UCLA theater department at
the tender age of 18, he assumed that someday he would become an
actor or a Broadway chorus boy; he had very little connection to
the world of playwriting. Little did he know that within the next
few years of his young life, he would scribe a play that would
launch his career as one of the hot new playwriting talents to hit
Los Angeles.
On the very day Crano bid his graduation farewell to UCLA, he
began to write a play called “12th Premise,” a
semi-autobiographical work surrounding the twentysomething Aiden
and a few of his college-age buddies who deal with life, illness
and growing up.
“I knew that I wanted to write about friends dealing with
time, because I spent my whole childhood moving pretty much
everywhere,” Crano said. “College was really the first
place and time that I ever really got to see people grow and
change.”
After its completion, “12th Premise” made its world
debut at the next year’s campus Theaterfest, while Crano was
abroad in a graduate program. Crano’s best friend, who
happened to be the best friend depicted in the script, directed the
play in his stead.
“His father passed away during the Christmas of his senior
year, and my mother had been diagnosed with cancer not too long
before that. So we bonded in a weird way,” Crano said.
“The looming death and/or sickness of a parent really
affected how each of us managed other aspects of our lives in a way
that interested me. So I started writing a play about college
friends at UCLA, which is never specifically said, but it does take
place in Westwood.”
Only months after a great success at Theaterfest, “12th
Premise” found a new home at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival,
after which he gave the script to fellow UCLA theater graduate
Kristin Hangii. Hangii, who had formerly directed Crano in a
production of “Corpus Christy,” promptly read it that
very day and called asking if she could direct the production.
“Scotland was such a cool experience because it is pretty
much the largest art festival in the world,” Crano said.
“Everywhere you go, there is good theater and bad theater all
going on in a very small area. Prior to being in Scotland, I really
had no idea what being a professional writer really meant.”
Yet, after the graduate degree abroad, fame and prestige, Crano has
never forgotten his time as an undergraduate at UCLA, where he
claims he was best prepared for the real theater world.
“I absolutely loved my time at UCLA. Without the structure
of the theater program, I would not be an educated theater-goer,
let alone a theater writer,” Crano said. “They
don’t make it too easy for you, and that is great. You have
to figure out for yourself how to get your own lights, projector,
sets and everything else. But let’s not mention my general
education, because I seem to recall doing very poorly.”
In fact, when it comes to the cast and crew of the new
production of “12th Premise” in Los Angeles, Crano is
certainly not alone in his affiliation with UCLA. He shares his
alma mater with not only director Hangii, but with about 10 other
people involved with the show. “So many people who are
working on the show are UCLA grads who made it in the professional
world,” Crano said proudly. “It is fantastic for me
because when I tell people, “˜Hey, I need this to look like
Northern Lights,’ they all say, “˜OK,
great!'”
It does bode very well for the UCLA theater program that many
graduates seem to find some sort of niche in a money-making
situation. With the talent produced by UCLA alone, one might think
Los Angeles should be making more of a name for itself as a
“theater town” that can hold its own with the big boys
on the east coast and abroad, otherwise known as New York and
London.
“Theater in L.A. has the potential to be amazing, even
though it lacks that classical “˜grand old theater’
thing that you can find in London,” Crano said. “We
have the talent and the resources, and definitely some amazing
theatrical artists, but most of the time, it goes awry and everyone
ends up making pilots and doing television.” However, despite
the fact the status of “theater town” seems to have
eluded Los Angeles in exchange for the big bucks of television,
Crano also points out that there are definite advantages to getting
your theater start in a place like Los Angeles.
“L.A. will probably never be a so-called “˜theater
town,'” Crano said. “But there are great
opportunities for your plays to eventually get made into movies.
There is also a lot of potential for playwrights to get their names
known to important people who will then ask them to write something
else. It helps the small pay of theater maybe lead to other things,
like living and eating.”
Having and making contacts in Los Angeles has always been a
staple of any successful show-business career, especially in a
world full of nepotism and favoritism like the theater industry.
Yet, when one’s job entails multiple all-night rehearsals,
making and finding new friends seems to be a natural progression
that comes with the territory which, for Crano, adds another
element of enrichment to the production of art.
“The relationships that I have made over the last three
years by working on the show and then going out drinking afterward
have been the most special aspect of it,” Crano said
sheepishly. “It is a play about five friends, but I have made
25 along the way, most of whom I don’t know how I lived my
life without beforehand. There is a strong social experience that
goes along with making work that you are proud of.”
Between his time in Edinburgh, London and New York, and working
as a professional playwright, one might think the naive
undergraduate years might have faded in importance compared to the
worldly experience Crano has gained as of late. However, if
anything, being away from his school has made him realize all the
more the important role his time as an undergraduate played in his
current position and future aspirations.
“I didn’t fully appreciate my time at UCLA until I
was at a graduate program that I didn’t like as much,”
Crano said. “As a Bruin, I really felt like we were there to
do something at least vaguely important, and there was a real pride
taken in the rule breaking, begging, borrowing, and stealing you
had to do to ultimately get exactly what you needed to do your
work.”