Salt Lake Community College theatre students will perform “See How They Run” in the Black Box Theatre at South City Campus.
The play, originally written by Philip King, will be directed by theatre professor Zac Curtis. Curtis describes the family-friendly production as a 90-minute, 100 mile-an-hour farce.
“The setting is just a vicarage in England; characters show up, and everything goes wrong,” Curtis says. “A variety of characters show up at the wrong time and there’s mistaken identities and people losing people and everything spirals out of control and goes wrong … the farce is the plot.”
The play is set in the 1940s and has been acclaimed as a brilliant, farcical comedy.
“This show doesn’t have deep meaning,” Curtis says. “It’s quick, it’s witty banter, it’s absurd … and hopefully the audience laughs a lot and just leaves thinking theatre is a lot of fun.”
Audience members will enjoy the interaction between cast members inside the smaller Black Box venue.
“If you were to read the script before the show like before you actually came in and saw the show you probably wouldn’t laugh as much,” says Josh Whitaker, who plays Clive, an American military man. “[But] this is a show of [gestures] and how characters say certain lines and react and stuff like that.”
For the actors, being under the spotlight and taking on a new character for each performance shows them new worlds. Students must have that willingness to play in order to be successful with acting.
“It doesn’t matter if you are teaching elementary children or college kids, it’s all the same maturity level — theatre majors are adults who never actually grew up,” Curtis tells his students. “People act the same reason people write or paint — it’s the only way they know how to express themselves.”
Theatre major Mark Brocksmith, who plays Bishop of Lax, says his favorite part about being a cast member is “the people I have worked with have been incredibly supportive, funny and entertaining. The cast chemistry has been pretty good.”
The cast has high hopes of entertaining audiences.
“When you’re doing rehearsals and you’re able to make your own castmates laugh at something you were just trying, you know you have a good product coming out,” Whitaker says.
For years, the theatre program has been able to work with the fashion department, specifically Cherylene Rosenvall, on costume designs.
Rosenvall put together period-appropriate dresses, suits, clergy and police uniforms for the cast. A lot of hard work and effort has been put forth to make these performances as spectacular as possible.
“See How They Run” will take place Nov. 12 to 14 and Nov. 18 to 21 in the Black Box Theatre. Performances begin at at 7:30 p.m.
Concessions will be available to purchase courtesy of the Drama Club. All proceeds will go to support their activities.
Tickets are $5 with a OneCard and $10 without. For tickets call the Grand Theatre box office at 801-957-3322.
