By Giuliano Djen
As a college student, it is easy to get stuck in the trend of going to the same classes and engaging with the same people. However, there are times when student long to branch outside their majors and explore their passions.
Actors Collaborating with Technicians, a theatre department club, has this exact goal in mind. For any student that wants to expose themselves to the world of acting, ACT is here to serve as middle between his or her major and theatre.
“Well, the original idea was, here in the department we don’t really do musicals and the idea was to allow us to do musicals and also to do more outside work and do things on our own cause here we’re only limited to doing certain things,” said Joanna Lopez, a third-year theatre technology and design student.
According to Larry Mayorquin, a second year theatre student one of the intents of the club is to have students learn new things.
“We are a small department, so we did it to have a place where students can come and learn about things that they don’t usually do in the department. So, somebody is a designer and they want to try acting that is something we do encourage,” said Mayorquin.
Changing an interest within theatre can be tedious and also limiting, Lopez goes on to explain some of the difficulties.
“So if you’re a stage manager but want to go into lighting it takes a long time for a faculty member to allow you to get into lighting, or if you’re an actor, you want to be a costume designer, it takes you awhile to actually be allowed to costume design for a show,” said Lopez.
For that reason, ACT aims to expose prospecting actors to the different areas within theatre.
ACT does not solely cater to theatre students. Gerard Marquez, a second-year computer engineering student, was able to explore his passion of acting.
“I’m kind of in a weird position right now because this is the passion and what pays for the passion is sound design, sound board engineering which is here, which is like the tech side of stuff,” said Marquez.
For Marquez, playing King Arthur in the on-campus play “Spamalot” in fall 2015, encouraged him to get involved with acting.
“Spamalot definitely was a huge stepping stone to help me grow and realize what it actually takes, it was very eye opening for what it actually takes,” said Marquez.
Mayorquin explains that the club also exists on campus to help students become better suited for the theatre and acting industry after college.
“Joanna and I went to a conference in LA where we learned about multi-faceted theatre practitioners, and that’s kind of what we want to encourage, so you can be a designer, you can be a playwright, you can be an actor, having all those things in your belt will [make] you more successful in the industry,” said Mayorquin.
Taylor Story / The Poly Post
ACT theatre engagement
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