NEW PLAY FESTIVAL Today-Nov. 18, various times
1340 Macgowan
A hundred dollars can go quite a long way. If done correctly, a
hundred bucks can be stretched to afford a weekend in Mammoth, a
slightly used Moped or a really long night at Maloney’s. But
to put on an entire theater production with a budget of $100 is
worthy of skepticism from even the most resourceful spenders.
Yet that’s exactly what the UCLA master of fine arts
students had to do for the New Play Festival, a series of three
plays which begin today in Macgowan Hall.
“Because we don’t have a large budget, we have to be
clever with what we have,” said Michael Vukadinovich, one of
the festival’s playwrights. “It leads to some
interesting ideas.”
Established in 1989 as a means of showcasing the graduate
students’ work, this year’s festival will feature three
productions, one for each of the program’s third-year
playwriting students. Each playwright was equipped with a handsome
$100 to make it happen.
Luckily, the limited budget wasn’t much of an obstacle,
considering none of the plays require much by way of flashy
grandeur. Additionally, the participants are privy to UCLA’s
extensive prop room, and have the benefit of being able to use
UCLA’s rehearsal space ““ normally one of the biggest
expenses incurred in a production.
The money allotted to the playwrights typically gets spent on
details.
In the case of “Billboard,” written by Vukadinovich,
he spent most of the money on items that need to be replaced on a
nightly basis, such as food the characters eat and art supplies
they use on stage.
“I had to buy beer, and then drink all the beer so I could
use the bottles on stage,” Vukadinovich said. “Yeah,
that wasn’t too bad.”
“Billboard” follows Andy, a recent college graduate
who gets a corporate logo tattooed on his forehead to pay off his
student loans. The play examines the wonders of consumerism and how
far people will go for money.
Vukadinovich got the idea for the play’s premise sitting
in class right before he had to pitch the idea.
“It was getting really close, and I was sitting there
thinking “˜What am I going to do?'” Vukadinovich
said. “I had just read an article about a guy who actually
did that.”
Despite its spontaneous inspiration, “Billboard”
will continue in an off-Broadway production in New York in January
2007.
Set in a less metropolitan locale is “At the Bottom of
Sterling Lake,” the product of playwright Rachael Brogan. The
play, based on her hometown of Crystal Lake, Ill., follows the
reunion of three sisters who convene in their hometown one summer
to watch the middle sister compete in a beauty pageant.
According to Brogan, the summer season is the social opportunity
of the year in Crystal Lake.
“Summer is a big deal in the Midwest,” she said.
“It’s freezing throughout the rest of the year, so
summer is pretty much it.”
The most dramatic of the three plays is Angela Berliner’s
“Mosquito Bites.” The show focuses on a man who is
haunted for 10 years by visions of his kidnapped daughter, and
takes place on the day he may find out what happened to her.
“(The play) explores what happens if you’re given
the opportunity to change and you don’t want to,” said
Efrain Schunior, the play’s director and a second-year
graduate theater directing student.
Even if the students can’t change the amount of money they
receive, that’s not what the festival is about.
“It makes you realize that it’s all about the
acting,” Schunior said. “You can sit two people across
from each other, and if the acting is great, and the story is
great, you don’t need anything else.”